Hanam's, Edinburgh
I’M not usually one for giving the punchline away early but Hanam’s here, award-winning as it may be, doesn’t really blow the socks off. It’s not by any means bad. They do a lovely Kurdish nan bread, all hot and light and puffy. The kebabs, too, are good. And the location. We’re so close to Edinburgh Castle that if you fell out the stand at the Tattoo then there’s a pretty good chance you would end up in a dish of fattoush. If you bounced just the once. I suppose I’d bounce a few times.
But that fattoush? Honestly? I was a little perplexed when it arrived. Expecting the bread cubes obviously, that’s what makes this Levantine salad so famous, but I wasn’t expecting so much pitta bread. Where are the greens? Why does it look like nothing more than a dish of toasted pitta cubes with some olives on top and sliced radishes underneath? I can taste the lemony sumac, if not the mint, I can see the tomatoes, but flavoured as it undeniably is, it is somehow just too hard and crunchy and too much like eating a moistened bowl of croutons. It’s a bit vinegary too.
In fact, looking right now, as I write this, at the very photo I took last night it looks like a bowl of pasta. Strange.
Anyway, lets move on. Scarlet walls, cottons hanging from the ceiling like a tent, the staff are quiet, reserved, but simply lifting the eyes from a dish is enough to get the waiter to pop over to the table. Water is brought in a jug without asking, an extra dish of garlic sauce delivered with the main courses, and there’s no pushy hard-sell on the drinks. If anybody is upselling anything they’re doing it so subtly I can't detect it.
And even when the waiter has to start writing the whole order again after I spot the soujuk in tomato and chilli, and cancel what I by then realise was going to be a second kebab, it's all done with a kind of calm smile. Those soujuk? Thick, fat sliced Lebanese sausage, sauteed in tomato, yet for all those appetising flavours it's surprisingly mild. There’s not even much of a punch from the chilli, but the flavours in the tomato stew at least are deep and almost sweet and certainly not acidic.
There’s a mini mound of a moist rice, on the side, sweetly flavoured with pomegranate, if pomegranate ever really flavours anything.
And the kebabs? Yes, the kebabs. I’m not really one for ordering kebabs, not in this country anyway, pretentious as it sounds. They’re simply better hot and crisp and juicy from a Mediterranean charcoal grill when the sun has been shining all day.
But as we came in and looked around at the tables, largely full this Monday evening, it seemed everyone else was ordering kebabs. Dish after dish layered with grilled meats and puffed with salad leaves were being carried out to tables.
And when ours came? Hands up we really like the minced lamb kebab, it’s light and crisp to the bite, not too powerful, but the chicken and lamb kebabs, while slightly charred, are a bit too dry and chewy. Pretty dry and chewy actually. Maybe we just ordered wrong.
Sitting down initially and looking at the starters on the menu, Luca and I both want about six of them. There are shawarmas, kubbas, dolmas aubergines, and that’s before we get to the cold starters.
There’s a sharing dish, but it has hummus and yoghurt and frankly doesn’t cover the bases. So we have the kulicha at a fiver. A fried and quartered piece of dough, not unlike the fried pizza you get in Naples with a dip. And the borek – little spring rolls filled with cheese. Kinda dull.
Maybe we ordered wrongly. Maybe we came on the wrong night. But Hanam’s is just a little dull tonight.
Hanam's 3 Johnston Terrace, Edinburgh.
0131 225 1329
Menu: All the boom is in the Kurdish and Middle Eastern dishes in the extensive starter lists. After that it's famous for its kebabs. 3/5
Atmosphere: Crimson walls, hanging drapes from the ceiling, not overdone but clearly a Middle Eastern restaurant. 3/5
Price: Reasonably priced for Edinburgh at around £5 to £6 for starters, though really you would want to be able to try a lot more. Mains at around £13. 4/5
Service: Reserved waiting staff are not pushy and yet always manage to be there when something is needed. Good. 5/5 Food: Hanam's has a great reputation and has won awards but on the night it was all rather dull, ordinary and a little disappointing. 6/10
Total: 21/30
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