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Have you ever tasted this Big Burger at Abou Sako?

It’s about the size of a small pizza (20 cm) and full of your typical Lebanese burger ingredients, loads of mayo and ketchup with coleslaw salad and fries. It does a great job when you’re starving, and tastes good for a Lebanese burger, really!

Abou Sako has a variety of other sandwiches, just like any other food joint in the city, but is known to be very generous with his portions and ingredients, and yes they’re good too.

If you’re curious to check it out, it’s located at the Hayek roundabout in Sin El-Fil.

The name pretty much says all what this restaurant has to offer, entrecote meat. I went there a while ago an totally loved it. They have a fixed menu consisting of a lettuce-and-walnut salad as a starter, followed by two servings of steak cooked to your taste with butter sauce and fries on the side. And trust me, the steak is really really GOOD, I had mine medium cooked.

A dinner for two with drinks will cost you around $75-80, and I know you would be paying less than that for a bigger portions at e Cafe, but Le Relais de l’Entrecote offers a really different (don’t read better) experience and atmosphere that are worth paying for.

While one could save Le Relais for romantic dinners, e Cafe is to me more suitable for casual outings, and they’re both my favorites.

Le Relais de l’Entrecote is located at Abdel Wahab el-Inglizi street and has two other branches at Verdun and Downtown.

Is it just me or does anyone else get bummed out on Sunday night? I mean who really looks forward for Mondays?

Anyway, I guess I’ve discovered one of the best ways to end you’re weekend in Beirut. Go to Balthazar in Beirut Souks on a Sunday night, and order the Pain Perdu for two with a cup of hot chocolate. They’re both heavenly good, the Pain Perdu is seriously one of the best in town and comes with caramel sauce, while the hot chocolate is thick and creamy.

Many thanks to A. & S. for the recommendation!

Photo via Ayman Itani

Burger Bar is a relatively new burger joint located in Sodeco, across the street from Classic Burger Joint. Before getting to how good their burgers are, it’s worth mentioning that The Burger Bar logo is nothing but a copy of the one Johnny Rockets’ has.

So I’ve tried their Mushroom Swiss Burger a while ago, and unfortunately it turned out delivering almost nothing new or special, and I said almost because the bun was fresh and tasty. The patty on the other hand was quite average, while the sauce had too much mayo in it. It isn’t like you’ll hate it, but there’s definitely much improvement that can be done.

For the time being, CBJ seems like a better option if you’re craving a burger in the area. Though I personally would prefer going all the way to Hamra for Burger Nation!

If you happen to be passing by Hamra some time and feel like craving some sugar, make sure to drop by Le Gustav at Antoun Gemayel street. The place is very small and cozy, with 2 friendly chefs, Khaled and Noor, who never get bored of explaining to you how everything gets done in their kitchen and the ingredients they use.

Their menu has a wide variety of items and I personally recommend you try any of these three: Chocolate Pavè, Red Velvet cake with cream cheese, and Fleur-de-lis.

I finally got to try the burger joint everyone has been buzzing about for a while now, “Burger Nation” located at end of Hamra street.

The menu is very straight forwards and offers either their selections of burgers or do-it-yourself, and while explaining about the burgers you can’t but notice how much the waiters emphasize on the fact that their patty is made of grass-fed Angus beef that’s imported from Australia.

Farah and I shared two burgers, the Nation’s Pride and the Swiss & Mushroom both 4oz and medium well, and I have to admit the patty is among the best in town, I mean you can easily feel the difference between others and what Burger Nation offers.

However, the sauces and toppings definitely need an enhancement, at least for the Nation’s Pride. With that holy beef patty, I was expecting a much better taste. And don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying it tasted bad, actually I’m planning to go there again to try their 6oz burgers, but I’m pretty sure BN can do better with the toppings.

Would I recommend you to go there? Yes, and do try their belgian fries.

I was passing by Hamra a while ago an noticed a new place called Sushi Lounge right next to Banque du Liban offering take-away orders of 50 pieces for 50,000L.L. Being a kind of sushi junkie, I decided to try it out with a couple of friends.

The excessive use of crab sticks was a bit disappointing as well as the size of the salmon sashimi, but all in all it tasted fine. And although Oceanus Achrafieh ramains my favorite sushi place in Beirut, I recommend take-away orders from Sushi Lounge on those last few days of the month, when you start to watch your spendings!

Note that for dine-in, the price of the same order increases to 75,000L.L.

It’s definitely not the best out there, but Sanyour Cafe in Sarba has a good fish and chips for 12,000L.L only.

I also liked their Osmaliyyeh Chicken (chicken strips covered with Osmaliyyeh pastry) which comes with sweet chili sauce I think, and the Pizza Tawouk with garlic sauce all over!

Sanyour has branches in Kaslik, Antelias, Sarba, and Dhour El Choueir. And needless to say, you’ll have to be able to tolerate the arguileh smokers all around you if you decided to go there.

Earlier in March Nokia Lebanon lent me an N8 device to try out and write a review about it. I’ve been using the phone for over a month now and I have to tell you this, it’s GOOD.

Camera:

First things first, the N8 rocks a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and auto-focus, and that’s what I loved the most about this phone. The images it produces are just so detailed and natural, and you’ll probably have so much fun with the panorama tool that Nokia offers for free via the OVI store. You can check the N8 flickr group to check by yourself how good can its camera be.

Display:

The N8′s 3.5″ display might not be the best in the market, but you can easily watch a movie on it if you’re on a flight or something, that’s how good the colors look on it, let alone using applications or previewing the camera photos.

Keyboard & touchscreen:

The last touch screen phone I’ve used from Nokia was the N97 which had a quite disappointing resistive screen, so I personally noticed a big improvement with the current capacitive screen on the N8, but unfortunately you still cannot rely on it if you’re the type of person who texts a lot. So I wish the N8 had room for a hardware keyboard like the E7.

Multitasking:

The N8′s operating system, symbian ^3, was built to handle as much simultaneously open applications as possible. You can safely browse the internet while you’re listening to music, having your e-mail open, and maybe a Facebook or Twitter client as well in the background.

Satellite navigation:

While other phones offer a built-in GPS chip and leaves you on your own to search for a navigation solution, with the N8 and other Nokia phones you’ll get OVI Maps pre-installed with free navigation. I’ve been using OVI maps ever since I purchased the E72 last year, but experiencing it on the N8′s 3.5″ display was a treat!

What I also liked:

The HDMI-out capabilities and the ability to connect to a USB flash drive through the dongle that ships with the phone.

N8 vs iPhone 4:

Everyone who saw the N8 with me had the same question, how does it compare to the iPhone 4? I actually don’t think there’s a definite winner, it all depends on what you’re expecting to get from your device. If it’s all about games and entertainment, then you should go for an iPhone, but for everything else I’m pretty sure the N8 is up to the challenge.

Overall:

Would I keep it if I had the chance to? Yes, particularly for its superb camera and display, although I’ll be missing the hardware keyboard on my E72!

I recently went to Roadster Hamra and thought of trying one of the items from the new low cal menu, and so I decided to choose the Fit n’ Burger, which comes with rocket leaves, grilled onions, grilled tomatoes, grilled fresh mushrooms and light sauce served in multi-cereal brown bun.

The burger was surprisingly GOOD! The bun tasted fresh and the patty was juicy enough. It of course doesn’t beat my favorite, the Swiss Mashroom, but it still is a definite choice for those who are on a diet and want to have a guilt-free burger.

By the way, for some reason I always notice that the service at Roadster Hamra seems to be superior than other branches… kudos for the extra attention they show!