January 28, 2007: Flavours of Lakhoum

Update, 31/12/2014: Flavours of Lakhoum is closed, replaced by Noir, a fancy looking French restaurant.

After our lazy Saturday, Cindy and I decided to make Sunday a bit more active. We started with a trip to the sneakers exhibition at the NGV, an entertaining pop-culture diversion amongst the 18th century European art, and then wandered around the Yarra until we hit Richmond.

Our target for the day was Flavours of Lakhoum, a Middle-Eastern cafe famous for its delicious, cheap food and the coffee art of Chris Phillips. The interior was cool and welcoming after our hot walk to get there, and the coffee art adorning the walls convinced me that we'd be sticking around for post-lunch lattes. The service was a bit erratic, keeping up with the floods of weekend patrons seems to stretch the staff to capacity. The vegetarian options on the menu were not overly numerous: a haloumi and spinach pastry, wraps, sandwiches and meal plates based on either zucchini pancakes or felafel along with a decent array of salads to accompany them. Cindy chose the zuchinni pancake, with tzatziki, tabouleh and a mediterranean salad, which she enjoyed immensely. I went for a felafel wrap - pita bread stuffed with felafel, tabouleh, hummus and salad. It was probably the best felafel wrap I've ever had - the $3.50 specials at King Ahiram were tremendous value, but the felafel at Flavours of Lakhoum was far superior. And it was gigantic - I struggled to fit it all in, but the flavour went all the way to the bottom of the wrap, so I had to keep going.

After a brief post-lunch breather, it was time for the coffee art! Cindy was too full for coffee, but I had to have one just to get a first hand look at the artwork. My flat white came complete with a mysterious woman peering out of the froth - an impressive effort. Luckily, the taste was at least as good as the art - strong and rich, leaving me recharged for the rest of the day.

Address: 175 Swan Street, Richmond
Ph: 9425 9805
Price: veg mains $8-$12