On a rainy Sunday arvo, it's hard to know what to expect on your way to Taita’s House ('taita' is Arabic for grandmother). Are you actually going to someone’s house? Will there be obvious signage or will you have to knock on some strange door, only to be met by a perplexed old Lebanese woman and her wooden spoon? Our concerns are fast assuaged as we approach the restaurant and see tables and chairs scattered out the front of a clearly marked establishment.
At first glance, the dining space seems somewhat reminiscent of a casual kebab shop. A bright orange sign gleefully announces ice cream, while a TV mounted on the wall blares sentimental Lebanese music videos. The young woman behind the counter welcomes us in and shows us to our seats. It’s fresh inside, and if we're being honest – a little chilly. But as we sit down at the table and settle in, our attention rests on warmer details.
A small electric heater playfully disguises itself as a mini fireplace. There’s an old farmhouse-blue cabinet filled with colourful teapots and tubs of cutlery. Artworks depicting provincial scenes decorate the space, and partially exposed brick walls are painted with the Lebanese national flag.
We approach the counter to rattle off our wish list, and moments later our waitress arrives at the table to ask if we’d like some dips while we wait. A hot pot of freshly brewed cinnamon tea is the first to arrive with little glass teacups to drink it from, followed by ghannouge and a basket of crisp and soft pita breads. The dip is fresh, smoky and chunky with chopped eggplant, the handmade kind you’d never be able to find in a supermarket.
Next come the boiled cabbage rolls, which if you eat out a lot, will taste like the first real food you’ve eaten in weeks. Cooked for an extended period of time, the rice and chickpeas stuffed inside the cabbage melt together to become soft and starchy, imparting a subtle creamy note to the garlicky tomato and onion sauce. Its velvet sumptuousness reminds you of cannelloni, but it’s light, not heavy like pasta. You could eat just these for lunch and walk away, belly full and heart happy.
Another small share plate holds kibbeh labanieh, fried oval-shaped shells of a bulgur wheat mixture, filled with ground beef and pine nuts. It’s nothing groundbreaking for anyone familiar with Lebanese cuisine, but the crisp meatloaf-like nuggets are addictive. Xena Abbouchi, the owner (or the ‘taita’ as it were), comes out beaming to ask us how we find the food. We pass on our gratitude and she offers a suggestion: dip the kibbeh into the ghannouge, that’s how she likes it. We try it and she’s right – the spiced meat and vegetal earthiness are a match made in heaven.
The traditional fattoush salad is refreshing and zingy with cool, crunchy vegetables like capsicum and radish, crisp pita bread and a vinegary dressing sweetened by pomegranate molasses. The juices at the bottom of the bowl you could drink as a chilled soup – and we do, shamelessly, once the salad has been devoured.
En route to the bathroom, you’ll uncover a higgledy-piggledy labyrinth of spaces out the back: an Astroturfed courtyard with tables, plants and an ice cream freezer, a kitchen where you can hear Abbouchi busy at work, and a smaller narrow space lined with stools. It all looks a bit forlorn in the wet weather, but it’s easy to imagine that in summer, these sun traps would be abuzz with families and good vibrations.
The final savoury dish we try is a bowl of fried beef dumplings (not unlike tortellini) smothered in a hot and tart yogurt stew, or as it’s called in Lebanon, shish barak. There aren’t many places in Melbourne where you can get it this authentic. The dumplings taste like mini sausage rolls in the best possible way and there’s a hint of dried mint in their tangy white coating sauce. Stirred in with rice and vermicelli noodles, it’s a comforting milky, meaty treat.
It’s not easy to choose from the dessert menu, which tempts us with baklava, Turkish delight and other sweet Middle Eastern favourites. Feeling too full for pastry (and too curious, frankly, to go for something else) we opt for the knafa. It’s a wobbly semolina pudding served warm, made from breadcrumbs, milk, cream, sugar and orange blossom water, and topped with golden syrup and broken pistachios. My mother used to heat semolina, milk and sugar together as a late-night supper for me as a child, and the taste of the knafa instantly teleports me back to that time. Not too sweet and slightly nutty, each soft mousse-like cloud melts in your mouth. It’s astonishingly good, yet so simple. Our eyes widen to the size of saucers.
The food at Taita’s House is hard to fault. Nothing's overloaded with salt, fat or sugar, because it doesn’t need to be. The freshness and purity of the ingredients shine on their own and Abbouchi balances them with the wisdom of someone who’s been cooking these dishes forever, from recipes passed down in her family for generations.
For all its quirkiness, Taita’s House is undoubtedly special. We’ll be back again and again to try every dish.
