50-52 Hanbury St
E1 5JL
Tel: 020 7539 9200
Date of Last Visit: Thursday, June 7th, 2007
The Victims: Ben, Gerry, Sarah, Matt, Andrew
The Damage: Hmmm…£20 each? We were quite pleased.
The Background: So, I really wanted to go to First Thursday…the east end late night gallery night. If you’re not a Time Out subscriber, you might not know that on the first Thursday of each month this summer, all the galleries in and around Shoreditch will be staying open til 9.
I managed to convince some people to come check stuff out with me, and although there were some odd bits (naked men, blood, etc.), all in all, I’d highly recommend checking it out. (The odd bits make it worth it, no?) We wandered from Old Street to Whitecross Street to over by the Holiday Inn Express (where I ran into Howard & Ben during a beer break at The Reliance, funnily enough) to down through Rivington Street and then over to Brick Lane, where it was time to…
EAT.
Yes, and I didn’t fancy a curry. So The Lebanese Lounge it was.
The Entrance: Oh how very sad. There is no one there. They are so happy to see us. But you know who is there? The shisha kids. The shisha/hookah room is PACKED. But no one is eating and that is just too bad because…
The Food: The Babaganoush is AWESOME. So too the Labneh and all the little sausages. We are happy. On the advice of our Bangladeshi server, I go for the lamb and it is fantastic, although I was disappointed in the white rice…now that’s a high margin dish. Then again, they brought us free baklava at the end of our meal…
The Wine: Lebanese all the way. And only £13 a bottle.
The Verdict: I think the Lebanese Lounge is best done in groups. We had the place to ourselves, which was okay because there were six of us and we cracked each other up. Had we been four, we would have been bored.
If I Were Them…
* I’d play cool Lebanese music. Maybe through a DJ on Thurs/Fri/Sat nights.
* I’d try to get the hookah guys to stay for dinner.
* I’d see if I could do anything with Vibe bar…like give out baklava at Vibe Bar to convince people to come in for dinner.
* I would offer a starter platter of some sort…combine a couple of things into one order.
