Palestinian restaurant, Tabun Kitchen, launch their Christmas menu

THE Palestinian restaurant, Tabun Kitchen, is launching a Christmas set menu. The dishes are inspired by traditional dishes from Jerusalem and Bethlehem in order to give Londoners the chance to try food similar to that which may well have been eaten on the first Christmas Day.

Tabun KitchenInterior of the Tabun Kitchen

Tabun Kitchen was founded by Hanan Kattan whose parents are from Jerusalem and Bethlehem. She has worked hard to incorporate fresh Middle Eastern flavours into the Christmas menu to make it as authentic as possible. The menu includes meatball soup, grilled tahini aubergine or roasted sumac-marinated Poussin with maftool, Palestinian couscous, and some traditional Palestinian desserts, such as Christmas Knafeh which is cheese, shredded pastry and orange blossom syrup and Muhalabieh, which is rose-scented milk, crusted pistachios and orange blossom honey.

Glass visited Tabun Kitchen to taste the Christmas set menu. We started off our meal with a delicious pomegranate Bellini – the cocktail was very refreshing and pomegranate complemented the Prosecco much better than I had anticipated. We tried both the meze platter and the meatball soup as a starter. I was concerned that the soup would be quite spicy – but it was the perfect level of spice, plus there was a generous amount of meatballs in the soup. We loved the couscous salad in the meze platter as well as uddsieh, which is a citrus flavoured hummus-based sauce with beans and cumin. The uddsieh goes perfectly with the Palestinian bread which was baked fresh in front of us.

Tabun Kitchen Mini meze

I would recommend sharing the mains since they offer something different and exciting from each other. However, we did prefer the Lamb Makloubeh from the Poussin. The lamb was beautifully tender and went perfectly with the pomegranate, aubergine and rice sides. The poussin was just not as individual and exclusive, though still very tasty.

Tabun KitchenGrilled tahini aubergine

We ended our amazing meal with dessert  – the best of which was the Christmas Knafeh. I have never tasted anything quite like it before – the closest thing I have had is Baklava. The Knafeh is layers of crispy pastry, soaked in orange blossom syrup, and filled with cheese  –  I think all the cheese does is give a bit of substance to the dessert. The orange blossom syrup is prevented from overpowering the dessert by the accompaniment of pistachios.

Tabun KitchenHariseh Cake

by Allie Nawrat 

The Christmas set menu is available at Tabun Kitchen now. The set menu costs £40 per person for the three courses and a welcome cocktail. Guests can hire intimate booths for small groups and larger tables for big groups. Additionally, the Jerusalem Room is to privately hire for Christmas parties

Tabun Kitchen, 77 Berwick Street, Soho, London, W1F 8TH

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