There are more Lebanese restaurants in Motor City than pizzerias, and believe me, there are a lot of pizzerias. Without exaggerating, I think there are no less than four Lebanese restaurants within a 100-meter radius of The Ribbon, including heavyweights (and rivals) Crumbs and Reem Al Bawadi. So MirAmin, less well known and sandwiched between the two, really has its work cut out. The trio have surprisingly similar two-story layouts, where the downstairs is exclusively for dining, and the upstairs includes shisha smoking and lounging. I’ve not yet been to Reem, but MirAmin feels slightly more upmarket than Crumbs, itself a handsomely decorated restaurant.
The food at MirAmin is by far the better of the lot (which includes Crumbs and Kababji in the immediate vicinity but also Cedar Tree, Al Arrab, etc. – all of which I have visited over the years). My kids and I enjoyed everything we ordered, starting with their amazing salads. I am sensitive to overly sour food and always ask Lebanese restaurants to tone down the sourness of their salad sauce. This is the first restaurant which actually did, and the result was amazing. They brought me a little eyelid-twitchingly-tart pomegranate syrup on the side, just in case. The Shish Taouk they brought my daughter was surprisingly tender and juicy, and the two dishes of the day tasted as homecooked as at Bait Maryam in JLT. Even the Laban Iran with fresh mint was superb, although how and why it got its suffix is still a mystery to me.
Service was friendly and hugely accommodating. Although I think that could be because we were the only ones in the restaurant that lunchtime, in all fairness, it is more likely because that’s just the way these boys roll – in true Lebanese style, they pamper you. So, in an environment over-saturated with Lebanese restaurants, in addition to being spoilt for choice, selecting the right restaurant can also be a little confusing. Having tried all but the recently opened Reem Al Bawadi (which my son and his friends are boycotting over some issue related to Crumbs), I can safely recommend MirAmin as the best of the lot. The only other I hold in the same esteem (for home deliveries) is the amazing little Village Grill (also not far away). For dine-in however, it’s MirAmin all the way.
Waste NOT. Want NOT.
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