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It was sad when I went to Ayala Center Cebu to eat at Hussam Middle Eastern Cuisine. They had closed their office at Il Corso. They moved out of Ayala Center Cebu at the end of January . I remember talking to someone who said that the old location can be "very hard to find" when you enter the mall. Right now, I remember how trying to find Hussam in Ayala can be comparable to trying to find the magic lamp in Aladdin's  Cave of Wonders. That's what I felt back then, I ate at Hussam back in 2024 . Ayala Center Cebu probably had a low visibility problem. They had their soft opening on Black Saturday. They missed the Hari Raya Puasa date, a holiday for the Muslim population. This time, the use of glass walls makes it obvious to passersby that it's a Middle Eastern restaurant, that grilling is underway, and that it's certified halal .  The place still maintains the same pristine cleanliness I recall from Ayala Center Cebu. The place's transparent glass windows ...

  The last time I ate at a Hussam Middle Eastern Restaurant branch last year, I couldn't give a good assessment. I haven't been to Hussam's main branch at Il Corso, so I didn't formally meet its owner, Hussam Alfakeh Alkourdi. The branch I ate was in Ayala Center Cebu instead. This is the interior of the restaurant. Ayala Center Cebu has Persian Palate on the third floor, above Timezone. Hussam is near one of the entrances of Ayala Center Cebu--near a Chinese restaurant. Persian Palate was my entry point to Middle Eastern cuisine.  Hussam serves authentic Syrian food. There are dishes similar to those from the Persian Palate. They serve Syrian bread, different from my favorite Pita bread served at Shawarma Gourmet (read my review here ), a Lebanese restaurant. So far, I tried their mixed meat platter with Syrian bread. My second dish there was actually baked Arabic rice with grilled beef kebab. I love their tomato sauce (which I mistook for ginger sauce) and garlic sauc...

Food Craving Reviews Tomorrow is Hari Raya Puasa. Previously, I Googled "Mhat Am Kape" some time ago, only to discover that the place had been permanently closed . It was closed in 2020 before the Delta Variant came out in 2021. Their Facebook page is still on, but the place is already closed . I tried eating there, calling the place mediocre, and when I talked with workers for Arabian halal restaurant owners, they mentioned that the place was definitely dirty. I could imagine how the Arab bosses would react to the lack of proper hygiene in the place.  I'd like to share a few photos I took from Mhat Am Kape's Facebook page. One needs to find out why the place closed down. I assume somebody sent these photos to Cebu City Health. The pastils (empanadas) on the floor (right) are an open invitation to pests . As a result, the establishment would be forced to close down. If these photos were taken sometime in July 2020 and the establishment closed in August 2020-- I assum...

Cebu Live I could remember Shawarma Gourmet when it opened at Parkmall but I never got to eat there. Instead, I remembered eating there at the Escario Central Mall in Cebu City to taste the shawarma. I kept hearing it was the best shawarma in town so I wanted to try it. I wanted to give Lebanese food a shot after I was so used to the Persian Palate at Ayala Center-Cebu. I did get to meet Chef Mansour Houran a couple of times after my first meal. So far, it's what I call a lighter approach to Persian Palaate (which is probably still my favorite Middle Eastern restaurant) whcih serves bigger servings. Meanwhile, Shawarma Gourmet's meals can be mixed between lunch meals and snack meals depending on which time of the day. I could go there for a snack (my preferred thing to do) though I would also eat there for lunch. The location in itself is rather convenient though not so big. So far, the Parkmall Branch is no longer operational. Instead, we have the Escario Branch which right ac...