Baydar

When you want a taste of some aromatic Lebanese cuisine, Baydar would be the ideal stop.

Baydar is a lovely little dine-in on the first floor of Al Barsha Mall. Right off the bat, this place treats you to an AMAZING view where you get the beautiful and serene Al Barsha pond park upfront, the Burj Al Arab and a faint Burj Khalifa. The décor is contemporary with a sense of elegance, well lit and spacious. The place gives out a warm and pleasant vibe. It’s perfect for families, colleagues and friends to relax and enjoy a meal together.

Another bonus here is that Baydar is joined with another restaurant offering freshly baked flatbreads and mostly Italian cuisine. So there’s no limitation to choice here. You can have your pick at both the restaurants at one place.

Unfortunately, we were so stuffed with the food from Baydar that we didn’t get a chance to try some of what Sandella has to offer. But it’s a good option for people who want some interesting variety of food on the table!

Bite Board

1. Fresh Juices: We had tried the apple juice, watermelon juice, orange juice and the lemonade. They all looked vibrant and tasted really fresh. We had a little problem with the apple due to it discoloring a little bit as we kept it aside for too long but in the restaurant’s defense our server did warn us about that.

2. Hommos: Hands down one of the best we’ve tried so far. It was perfect texture wise, creamy, fresh and tasted delicious. Along with the steamy hot baked bread served, it was a match made in heaven.

3. Moutabal: This is an aubergine dip. It had the right balance and was perfect texture wise as well. The moutabal was fresh and blended flawlessly. We loved the smoky flavour of it all. A definite win in our books.

4. Rocca Zaatar: A revelation and now, one of our favorite go-to salads of all time. One bite of this and you’re hooked. It’s has a tangy taste to it and the ingredients used were all fresh. We loved this one and definitely recommend it.

5. Cheese Manakish: One of the best manakish we have tried and on top of our best Lebanese dishes one must try. Served with a soft thin bread base and a generous serving of cheese and zaatar, which tasted heavenly and was gulped down in minutes.

6. ½ Grilled Chicken: The chicken was cooked really well. In terms of quantity also, it was pretty sufficient, if not more. The meat was tender and soft. We really enjoyed the marination, as it had the perfect seasoning.

7. Mix Grill kebab platter – This one was a wonderful feast for all the meat lovers. The platter served to us consisted of shish taouk, meat arayes and shish kebab. We devoured the arayas in seconds cause they were just that good! Arayas are pita bread stuffed with minced lamb meat, tomato, onion and different spices. They are usually served crispy on the outside and juicy inside. The Shish taouk and shish kebab though flavorful and delicious we found it a little too dry for our liking. The platter also comes with some lovely crispy fries and bread as well.

8. Kebab Joojeh: An Iranian origin kebab joojeh consists of deliciously marinated pieces of chicken served on a bed of flavored Iranian rice. The chicken was so juicy and delectable, and complimented the rice served alongwith really well.

9. Lamb chops: Quite a generous serving of chops. The lamb was juicy and tender and cooked to perfection. Recommend this to all the meatheads, this one is sure to please.

10. Umm Ali: This was such a warm homely dessert. It’s served with some warm milk that has to be poured over a bread based pudding that’s garnished with sliced almonds. It was sweet, milky and crunchy because of the nuts. An absolute favourite of ours.

The service here was impeccable! The staff were all so friendly and courteous. An extra shout out to our server Jasmine for making us feel relaxed and comfortable, we truly enjoyed our time here.

The serving portions are quite generous for the money charged. All in all, this place is a real steal. We can guarantee you can leave the restaurant with a full stomach and still have your wallet intact.

I will make everyone's lives easier by letting you know that Baydar is on the upper floor next to Union Co-Op, otherwise you may spend some time looking for it like we did.

I thought the price was fair for the quality that Baydar serves, the portion sizes are decent and food is prepared in a respectable amount of time. Service can be slow and not attentive at times. HOWEVER, when I did get service, it was great.

Most restaurants that serves this type of cuisines tend to over grill their mixed grills, but Baydar does a decent job of making sure that the meat was cooked properly and not burnt.

The vermicelli rice was flavorful and tender. Their desserts are fairly large and will surely finish you off, if you are not full by that point. What I particularly enjoyed was that the desserts were not overly sweet, you can actually finish the portion without feeling grossed out.

Overall, pretty good experience.

If i could give a HALF STAR, I would!!!!!
Never,Ever Again!!!!Dreadful experience ????
Food was boring,never thought something cooked in duck fat could taste so bland!
I would not recommend this restaurant!
Extremely disappointed!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yet another good Lebanese restaurant you can surely visit . Although some food items are bit pricey but overall its a good restaurant to visit . Starting from the interiors, simple yet well maintained . The staffs and service is really good .
The drink which I had was the Avocado served with pistachio and cream .Great combination with great taste . The appetisers from Cold Mezze was the Tabouleh ,fattosh ,hummos ,Moutabul served with fresh hot assorted breads and pickles. Totally delicious ,yet amazing flavours . Then was the Hot Mezze from batata harra fresh crispy on outside soft from inside , chicken livers with molases and mezze platter which included spinach fatayer ,vine leaves , samousas ,meat kibbeh .The quality and quantity was quite good .
Then was the mains which was mixed grill and secondly lamb chops. Lamb chops were too dry and not well sliced .
The desserts were the Cheese Kunafa and muhalabieh totally smooth ,soft with amazing balanced of citrus flavour .

Al barsha mall is a treat for hungry people in that area who do not want to go through crowded places like oasis Centre and MOE just for a quick meal!

We just felt like Lebanese at the time and decided to give Baydar a try! The menu was more or less the same like every Lebanese restaurant so we ordered our favorites like Shish Tawook and Jujeh kebab and on the recommendation of our server we ordered something called a shish kebab.

The order arrived in like 10 minutes and we dug in. It was interesting to see a big bowl of yogurt being served to us with the kebabs.. Anyways the tawook and the jujeh were demolished within minutes and literally the serving plate was wiped clean of every last morsel of rice the buttery jujeh was served on and every last bit of pita for the Shish tawook!

The only thing we couldn't digest were the Shish kebabs as they were way too chewy for our liking and kind of unappetizing!

So Baydar is primarily a Lebanese place but they also serve Italian food! We didn't try it the other day but I guess it's a good option for people for some interesting variety of food on the table!

-- A drop of ink may make a million think.
Pawan Manghnani

Poor service. I requested for a panini and waited until all the food came and even started eating but, no panini. I inquired from the woman who was there but she just came and said that it was not ordered. No apologies nothing and then I saw her just singing songs near the cash register

Am a regular customer since 2014
And i am so disappointed in my recent visits to the restaurant .. am always shocked of the poor service provided by the staff specially lady called “Louis “
The moment u walk into the store she never welcome you she just look at you in strange anger way & never smile and interact in a very very very rude way ..
I never wrote a review only for this i had to do so i can reach to the owners and give them my feedback cuz am in love with the Food since..
i would suggest u send mystery shoppers and u ll be shocked as me ..

Worst experience in my life hair inside the sandwich!!!!!