Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Habib's Charcoal Chicken - Bankstown


Habib's Charcoal Chicken

Recently, I have been going visiting a Lebanese Chicken place in Granville once or twice a week. So, I was pleasantly surprised when we decided to head down to Bankstown for Habib's. I've heard a lot about this place. Many of my friends have mentioned how awesomeness the garlic sauce is.

Our chicken is cooking!

Chips with Chicken salt, or should I say heaps of chicken salt with some sprinkles of chips on the side. If you love chicken salt, you would love this place as they provide chicken salt shakers on each table. These french fries style chips is not really my thing, I prefer the thicker cut chips from El Janna .

Chicken Salt with a side of Chips

The main dish! A whole chicken flattened butterfly style and cooked over a real charcoal grill. Cooking over a real charcoal stove really makes it taste much better than the standard BBQ chicken you get elsewhere. This chicken was beautifully cooked, it was not dry and tasted really Charcoaly.

The Charcoal Chicken

The chicken is good, but it's really the condiments that lifts this place above the competition. Garlic sauce is simply divine. I could finish two of these plates of garlic sauce myself. The sauce is very creamy and VERY 'Garlicy'. If you have a date planned for the next 2-3 days, you might want to avoid it. However, this garlic sauce is so nice that its probably worth postponing a date for. The radish and gherkin are quite pickled potent in taste. Its quite overwhelming when eating it by itself. But, with the Lebanese bread, chicken and garlic sauce, it is the perfect addition.

Habib's Famous Garlic Sauce

Assorted Pickles

Tabouli

Lebanese Bread

This is an example of how to eat Habib's Charcoal Chicken.

1. Pull apart the bread
2. Spread garlic sauce on the base of the bread
3. Top with chicken, pickles, and tabouli (fries optional)
4. Roll up and eat

How we eat are Charcoal Chicken

Overall, I was quite impressed from the food. The place is quite big, much bigger than El Jannah and hence would be a nice place for a casual feed for a large group. We came here with about 20 people, the service was good and the staff were friendly. The food is served quite fast and relatively well priced (cheaper than El Jannah).

Compared to El Jannah, this place is actually quite similar. The garlic sauce is probably nicer here, a little bit more creamy and more garlic taste (but very similar) and its cheaper than El Jannah. However, the chicken at El Jannah suits my tastes more because its more crispy on the outside and generally tastes fresher and more grilled.

Ratings
Food - 8.5/10
Service - 7.5/10
Ambiance - 6.5/10
Value for Money - 7/10
Overall - 29.5/40

Habib's Charcoal Chicken
24 Restwell Street
Bankstown
NSW 2200
tel: (02) 9708 2219

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

comparing this place to el jannah at granville.

You can not replace pickles with lettuce and tomatoes comes with a charge of $3.50 if u wanted to do this. The fries were a disaster i personally prefer the thick cut chips at el jannah. Taboulli tasted a bit leafy too much thick pieces. The chicken itself had no flavour whatsoever it was bland and dull and disgusting even an oven baked chicken at coles would have been a better choice. I did not like the food here. Wasnt pleasing it wasnt worth the 27$ when i could have ate at El jannah and be more satisfied. Number 1 medium business yeah right. The chicken wasnt even charcoal had no taste and would not recommend this place to anyone very very
disappointed. Food= bad
Service was poor the service by the 2 novices had no idea what they were doing.