Kamel

I have been lucky enough to have a couple of fantastic meals recently.  The first was expected, a restaurant with a fantastic reputation, quality company and the best possible view of Canberra's Skyfire fireworks display.  It was a suitably gorgeous evening.

The second meal was somewhat less expected.  I was in Melbourne for work and as I had an evening free I took the opportunity to catch up with my old boss.  Being her city I left the choice of restaurant up to her and she in turn left it up to Urban Spoon.  We ended up at Kamel in Albert Park and had such an amazing meal that the next night I took the whole team back there.

Kamel serves Middle Eastern and North African inspired dishes mezze style allowing you to share and enjoy a wide range of dishes.  And let me say everything I tried there in my two visits was truly delicious.  Here are just a few of the things that even now, days later, have my mouth watering.

The middle eastern plate – lebanese sausages, olives, grilled chorizo and apple, feta and bread - was delicious.  Each item was amazing and the combinations of flavours was great.

I generally love filo wrapped things but these lamb and lentil filo triangles were brilliant.  Served with a tangy yoghurt I could have eaten a dozen of them.

If you are wondering how good chicken on a skewer can be, you need to try the moroccan chicken skewers on fattoush salad.  So delicious.  However the ras al hanout beef salad with pearl barley, grapes, fresh parsley and pomegranate dressing was even better.  The flavours were so interesting and amazingly complementary.  I ate far more than I should have.

Going twice meant I got to try two of the dessert platters.  The Turkish sweet plate features Turkish delight, baklava, Turkish fairy floss, halva icecream and Turkish delight icecream.  It was a symphony of delicious, delicate flavours.

However it was blown out of the water by the chocolate trio share plate. The chocolate and orange mousse was sublime.  The chocolate and chilli ice-cream was the most intense, deep chocolate flavour I've ever had in an icecream but the warm chocolate and cashew baklava has to be eaten to be believed.  It is one of those things that just made me murmur with delight.

I love trying new things so it is rare for me to go to a restaurant twice in quick succession but Kamel was definitely worth it.  If you are in that part of the world I definitely recommend it for a sublime meal of amazing flavours.