Open Sesame- Lebanese Foodie Paradise

 If you read this blog you know I have a love affair going with food. I would never have called myself a foodie until a few years back. Now that I am a foodie I am on a mission to make you a foodie too. I want you, my readers, to know that there is AMAZING food out there just waiting for you to experience. Open Sesame is just the place to go an experience something new and amazing.

If you have never had middle eastern food, you have been missing out. If you have never had Lebanese food, then this should be the place you try first. If you have had Lebanese before, Open Sesame will ruin you for all other Lebanese restaurants. I love middle eastern food and was super excited to get to review Open Sesame. I went to their newest location on Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles but you can also find them on 2nd Street in Long Beach.


My friend and fellow foodie DJ from Luxury Standard Magazine went with me. Now DJ has eaten Lebanese food in Lebanon.   So when he is blown away by the flavors you know this is THE place to go. Our waitress, Alex, was amazing. I put myself in her very capable hands and very quickly we had two amazing appetizers.

The first was Grilled Halloumi Cheese and Watermelon. There was a little bit of basil on the plate as well. I had never had Halloumi Cheese before and it tastes a little bit like string cheese had a baby with feta. It is really good. When you couple the grilled halloumi with the watermelon it creates a wonderful flavor texture mix that I enjoyed. But then I cheated and dipped it in their A-MAZ-ING yogurt dip and the whole thing  changed to phenomenal. I would recommend you beg them for their yogurt sauce. In fact all their sauces were unbelievably amazing.

The second appetizer was the Kibi. Kibi is beef and bulgar with roasted pine nuts, caramelized onions and herbs. It is served with pickles and the cucumber yogurt dip of the gods I mentioned earlier. Alex suggested we try a forkful with the Kibi, pickles and the yogurt dip all together. She is my hero. My taste buds were doing the Macarena.

After inquiring if we both like lamb, Alex suggested the Lamb Chops. I am so glad she did. These were the best lamb chops I have ever eaten. And I have eaten some lamb friends. The chops were tender, juicy, and the flavor made my eyes roll back in my head as I savored the best lamb and possibly the best red meat I have ever tasted bar none. Then as if that wasn't enough to wow me, they put the best tabouleh and the best baba ganoush I have ever had the pleasure to eat on the plate with it. Now Agent Daddy is obsessed with tabouleh so I have eaten a crazy amount of tabouleh. So I know that this is the BEST.

Of course I couldn't just try one dish. Next  I ordered one of my favorites, Chicken Shawarma. The  Shawarma came with hummus, which I love and this garlic lemon dipping sauce that I wanted to roll in. I should have ordered a jar of it to go because I have been dreaming about that garlic sauce and the lamb chops ever since I left the restaurant. The hummus was a little different in so much as the main flavor was a bottom note instead of a top note. I love hummus but next to their baba ganoush the hummus was an ugly step sister. It was almost cruel to compare them.

But wait there is more! We then ordered the Loukoz. That is a beautiful white fish that is stuffed with capers and lemon perfectly charbroiled and served with a light salad of  cherry tomatoes and sweet peppers. Oh and of course an amazing sauce. They said it was tahini but this was better than any tahini I have ever eaten. The fish was moist and creamy and perfect and then BAM I used their sauce and was in nirvana.

It was an incredible amount of food and was very reasonably priced. The atmosphere was very middle eastern and the waitress, Alex, was a delight.

And now lets talk Dessert. Because you know it is really what you want anyway right? So  let me say first that other than the baklawa which I recognized right away and got excited about the other dessert I tried was unknown to me. I have never seen it before and don't know what it was called but it had Almond  ice cream on top and I almost got in a fist fight over the last bite. You can see on the plate  Balkawa finger and the pistachio and walnut balkawa. All of which were perfect and amazing but paled in comparison to the unknown dessert that I am now obsessed with.