Marhaba - Lambertville, NJ

After a day of kayaking, I was starving, and in need of a little sustenance in my tummy.  On such a gorgeous day, I decided to take a drive out to Lambertville, as I had a gyro craving, so I headed straight to Marhaba.  I arrived about a quarter to 4, and there were maybe 3 other tables or so seated.  I was greeted and told to pick a table, so I grabbed an open two top on the right hand side of the restaurant.

Browsed the menu for about 30 seconds, and ordered the gyro with no lettuce, as well as a side of rice.  I’ve never understood the whole lettuce thing on gyro’s, and am assuming it is an East Coast thing as it was never an option back in Chicago.  Odd!  My server brought a Coca Cola over seconds later, and I took a few minutes to browse some recipes on my iPad.  About 6 minutes went by and my gyro came out, wrapped in foil, and packed with meat!  Nice, thinly sliced tomato and chunks of cucumber topped my sandwich, as well as some tzatziki sauce.

The first thing I noticed was the fresh, made in house pita, that was very thin, and grilled to give it a nice little crunch.  The meat was shaved thick, and had great flavors.  This is a combination of beef and lamb, and just tasted really nice on its own.  The tzatziki wasn’t traditional by any means, and seemed to lack that nice cucumber and dill flavor.  This was more of a garlic and spice type sauce, and I assume they wanted the cucumber flavor to come from the fresh, thin sliced cucumbers on the sandwich.  The sauce was nice, but I prefer a good, originally inspired sauce.  The side of rice was OK, with nice color and spice, but the carrots and pea’s seemed a bit overcooked and mushy.  Would have preferred fries on the side, but this wasn’t an option.

All in all, nice flavors, and it’s always good to have a decent gyro, which is hard to find around here.  The ambiance was nice, and the service was great.  The food came out fast, and what else could you ask for?  This is a good BYO, and a nice resource to have in Lambertville for some good Mediterranean inspired cuisine.  Will definitely be back in the future.  Cheers!  -F. Scott

Marhaba
South Union Street
Lambertville, NJ
Phone: (609)387-7777
Http://www.marhabalambertville.com/