Mezza Train, Mascot

Mezza Train is a Lebanese restaurant located in Mascot, NSW. The restaurant is very near the airport. Like a sushi train, it serves small dishes, also known as "mezze", on a conveyor belt. My husband loves Lebanese food, so we decided to visit this restaurant on his birthday.

Setting

The restaurant is decorated in somewhat a mix between industrial and modern styles. It has both counter seating, where you can access the food off the conveyor belt, and table seating, where you predominantly order off a menu. The biggest irony (and probably downfall) to this restaurant is that there is a lot more table seating than counter seating. If you don't book in advance, you would probably get a table seat. Most people do come here for the train experience.

However, even if you get a table seat, you can access the conveyor belt by squeezing between 2 sets of diners on the counter. I do admit it does get very awkward after a while.

Food

Lebanese flat bread (fresh and fried) are served complimentary along side with carrot sticks and peanuts. The flat bread is fresh. The carrot sticks need a little more care cutting with a whole bowl of sticks of whole range of thickness.

Clockwise from top left: Baba ghannouj, Carrot sticks, Peanuts, Lebanese flat bread (fresh and fried), Labne

Food from the Train
Overall, the train unlike a sushi train, really lacks variety. Earlier on in the evening, the train was only about 1/2 full. It was hard to pick something off the train to eat.

Baba Ghannouj - Smoked eggplant mashed and blended with tahini, garlic, lemon, cumin, extra virgin olive topped with chopped parsley. Yummy.

Labne - Strained yoghurt with extra virgin olive oil. Very smooth, thick and creamy yoghurt.

Fattoush

Fattoush - Cos lettuce, parsley, cumbers, radish, shallots, pomegranate, tossed with lighted fried Lebanese bread, mint leaves, sumac, garlic and lemon drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and pomegranate molasses dressing. This salad is very fresh, but the amount of lemon dressing used is over the top, rendering it inedible.

Clockwise from top left: Arnabeet (cauliflower), Warra Enab Vegetarian (vine leaf wrap), Sambousek, Falafel, Warra Enab

Arnabeet -  2 half florets of lightly season fried cauliflower topped served with tartour. Tasted pretty ordinary. Tiny portion size for the price.

Warra Enab (Vegetarian) - 3 pieces of vine leaves rolled with rice, tomato, parsley, lemon, oil and spices. Tasted good, but poorly made. It was falling apart.

Sambousek - 2 pieces of seasoned minced beef with onions wrapped in pastry and lightly fried. Tasted good, but needs more consistency of its shape. Too small portion size for the price.

Falafel - Deep fried balls of blended broad beans, garlic, herbs, spice. This is ridiculously expensive for its portion size. But taste wise, it's pretty good.

Warra Enab -  4 pieces of vine leaves rolled with rice, tomato, parsley, minced beef, lemon, oil and spices. Tiny portion size.

Clockwise from top left: Chicken Skewer, Lamb Skewer, Beef Skewer.

Beef Skewers - 4 pieces of marinated beef seasoned and grilled. This is grilled to well-done (not by my choice, and not everyone's cup of tea as I understand). However, it's still relatively tender. Quite a small portion.

Chicken Skewers - 6 pieces of marinated chicken breast, seasoned and grilled, served with a garlic sauce. This is the best of the 3 skewers and the best dish of the night. Full of flavour, juicy and tender.

Lamb Skewers - Marinated lamb, seasoned and grilled, served with flat bread. We waited 1 hour and 15 minutes for this, and felt it was a let down after waiting that long. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't anywhere as fantastic as the chicken skewers.

Price 

The train works by having most dips at yellow ($4) or orange ($4.50) per dish. Most salads are orange ($4.50). Meats, vine leaf wraps and falafels are purple ($6.50).

Dinner for 2 was around $70, with only 1 drink and without desserts. I would consider it more expensive than what you would get in say one of the other Lebanese restaurants in Surry Hills for probably more food too. To be honest some dishes were way overpriced. For example, 2 falafels for $6.50 ($3.25 each)  or 2 half florets of grilled cauliflower for $4 (1 floret for $4) is ridiculous.

No prices on menu.

There is also no pricing on the menu if you are seated at the table (not counter) - a good way to get a bill shock too.

Service

In so many words, service here at Mezza Train is Terrible. I know they've only been operating for 5 weeks, but I'm really not sure if the owner or manager has been evaluating service to nut out the problems.

As advertised on Facebook, the restaurant is opened from 11:00 - 21:30. When we got there at 16:30 the restaurant was shut. So we called the number and asked they were going to be open for dinner. They said yes and at 18:30. We asked if reservations were required, they said just come.

And so at 18:45 we arrived at the restaurant, and that's when trouble started. We were told that there were many bookings for 19:00 and they might not be able to give us a table. The waitress sounded very flustered, we later understood why. We explained that they told us that booking was not needed, and they said that things changed and they had many bookings. That is in the 2 hours between us calling, and us arriving, things changed THAT drastically. After a few minutes of negotiating with the waitress, we were given a table (not a counter seat).

After we ordered our drinks, it took the wait staff more than 20 minutes to serve the drinks - mind you, it's just a bottle of beer. At this point in time, the restaurant was 1/2 full.

The waiting game then continued. As all hot skewers had to be made to order, we ordered 3 skewers. The waiter repeated the order back to us, and we confirmed it. 2 minutes later, a second waitress came back to reconfirm the order, and we reconfirmed it. 25 minutes later, 2 of the 3 skewers arrived. 45 minutes after we first ordered, we asked about the 3rd skewer. They checked with the kitchen, and apparently the order got missed. It eventually came 1 hour and 15 minutes after it was first ordered. This was why we skipped desserts.

Tables left uncleared for 45 minutes

The wait staff were, in general, very disorganised, there wasn't set duties or areas where each of them served. All 3 wait staff covered the whole area, doing the same duties. Counter seats were left uncleared for over 45 minutes, while more patrons stood waiting at the door. Eventually, we watched the poor dish washer coming out from the kitchen to clear dishes off the tables. Management of this place needs to really work on organisation.

The other major problem this restaurant has is the intensive wait labour it does not have for patrons to order off the menu if they are seated at tables (not the counter). Food is then prepared on separate plates and served to these table, instead of pulling the dishes off the train in most sushi shops. This increases workload on wait staff as well. Considering the majority of patrons are not seating at the counter, this workload needs to be taken into consideration.

Overall

The concept of a train is novel for Lebanese food. I'm really not sure if this works out well at all. With dips and salads you eat with your mains, these little plates would actually take up most of the room on your counter table. It does feel very cramped and crowded after a while. Lebanese food is designed to share with your family. It's very hard to share on a counter setting.

Source: Weekend Notes

It would work a lot better if the train was organised that it was running through tables instead of the counter style, like in the photo above. This would allow for people to share food. Wait staff would not have to wait on as many tables.

The food on the train is so-so. The only redeeming factor is the chicken skewers. I personally would have ordered more skewers if it didn't take so long, or if they were on the train itself.

The service and price would really drive one away. For a birthday dinner, this was disappointing and almost upsetting.

I might be back in 6 month to give them another go. But if they don't fix the pricing issues or service, this restaurant won't last long.



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