Beirut Grill @ Arab Street {Foodee}

Betchie sent a sudden invite for dinner last night and found us “ramen girls” somewhere near the famous Arab Street at around 9pm. I had heard of this place in the past but it was my first time to be there.

Betchie and Yves arrived at first and meandered down Bussorah street where they liked the look of Beirut Grill and got us a table.

Meanwhile, Arlyn and I got off Bugis MRT station and walked to the place with the aid of Google maps. Thankfully we didn’t get lost. I’m getting better at reading maps. Yay for me. It was a fun walk, by the way, because of the pleasant street sights. It has a different vibe from the usual places.

Beirut Grill is a restaurant that serves middle eastern cuisine and has all the trappings and decors for it. Quite lovely, I must say! It is a small one, so I am glad we got a table. Or maybe it was just the time of night that’s why there were fewer crowds to contend with.

Turns out Betchie and Yves love middle eastern cuisine so we let them choose the orders. I found everything to be delicious. The meat was so tender and marinated; you can tell that it was cooked slowly and lengthily for that effect. It was my first time to try falafel and hummus, which I keep on hearing about on American sitcoms.

When I told Betchie this, she asked, “Is that Friends?” I laughed and replied, “Yes. Ross!”

After we had polished off most of the food we decided to share a pitcher of sangria. We just loved the little fruit bits floating in the drink, like fruit punch. Doesn’t taste like it, though, as it’s got wine and rum as its base, so it’s not sweet and fruity at all and gave me a bit of a hangover the next morning.

It was a lovely night of catching up, and I loved the conversation and not just the food. We discussed all sorts of things. The prevalent topic was somehow… women who get married to men who turned out to be the devil. Okay, not the devil exactly, but, you know, a wife beater… or a werewolf.

We realized then that we were the kind of people who had no trouble discussing reality and fantasy as though they were all quite real.

I suggested that to prevent this, maybe one could write up surveys before getting married, you know, handing out surveys to one’s friends asking them for anonymous input regarding what they really think of one’s husband-to-be, to speak now or forever hold their peace, since people in love can be quite blinded to their loved one’s faults.

Or how about signing a contract with one’s friends, giving them the right to knock you on the head when one is doing stupid things in one’s lovelorn state? Battered wives often do that.

Into this mad mix of topics we somehow threw in the supermoon. “Oh yeah, saw that in your Facebook, was gonna ask what that was, is it a relative of Sailormoon?” I told Yves. Turns out that last night, the moon was closest to the earth and looked bigger than usual.

Coincidentally, while on my way to dinner, I had actually noticed the moon and it looked so compellingly huge that I couldn’t resist taking a picture of it.

Our night ended a little after midnight. We walked for a bit to find cabs to take us home and walked past the famous Haji Lane – another compelling camera capture.