Balade Restaurant Review

208 First Ave. (E. 13th St.) Send to Phone

212-529-6868 | Make Restaurant Reservations | Menu

Price

$$$$$

Lebanese cuisine and hospitality at an East Village pitza and grill.

Cuisine

Open

Lunch & Dinner daily, Brunch Sat.-Sun.

Features

Reservations suggested
Casual

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Fitting neatly into the neighborhood restaurant scene along First Avenue, Balade welcomes diners with Lebanese comfort cuisine and distinctive pita-based pitzas. The long menu offers many vegetarian as well as meat selections with standouts of tabbouleh (fresh bulghur salad of onions, tomatoes and parsley), chicken shwarma and kebbeh (a blend of beef and cracked wheat filled with ground beef, onions and pine nuts) served with laban (Lebanese yogurt). Dip everything in the signature olive oil spiced up with dried thyme and get ready for a Middle Eastern feast. Try the makanek, a flambéed spiced beef sausage, or select lamb, char-grilled or marinated, and served en kebab. Distinctive floral notes pervade the menu from the homemade sparkling rose wine, made with rose water, to the milk pudding dessert with sugar syrup and ground pistachios, and the café blanc digestif, named for coffee but tasting more like an orange-infused herbal tea. On Thursday nights, a musician playing a traditional Lebanese oud sets up in the front of the cozy restaurant inviting you to enjoy a cultural immersion beyond dining.

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