Kobeda Place

Middle Eastern Kebab House, Wilmslow Rd. Rusholme


Falafel

 Chicken kebab, £3.80
This is our favourite venue for Kobedas. The place itself is fine - reasonably comfy, decent service, consistent and reasonably priced. Currently (APR2011) £3.40 for a single kobeda is pretty decent value, they're large, filling and, for us, Kobeda Place do them best. The  meat's never going to be of the highest quality, as it's minced and only so so - but that's the same everywhere. The bread is top notch, there's a good variety of salad and the sauces are great - in particular the fresh chilli sauce being a sharp contrast to the rich meat and yoghurt. We don't really have anything else here anymore- it's aptly named.

April 2012
So I ended up returning within a week and thought, therefore, I should broaden the horizons a bit - having had many kebabs here. So finally I went for the Qabili Pilau. It's a large dish of rice and lamb on the bone, served with salad and small daal and potato sauce. It was incredibly filling and very tasty. The lamb was tender and the rice savoury and delicious, having been cooked with the meat bones. At £5.30 it was also great value for money. I suppose some could call it bland as it certainly didn't have the same level of spicing as an equivalent Indian or Pakistani dish - but it isn't one. I really enjoyed it.
 
Bit of a refurb going on. We'll see what happens. Everything up to scratch - little more to say about this place - it's great for kobedas.


November 2011 - The standard remains high, still £3.40 for single kobeda and £4.70 for a double, pretty good value. Could have done with a bit more salad today but that's nit-picking. Apologies for the slightly sleazy soft focus - it was an emotional moment.

September & October 2011 - chicken for a change...
It's not the first time I've not had kobeda here but it's pretty rare. I really wanted lamb shish (or tikka or whatever you want to call it) - but none was available, so it was chicken or Kobeda. For once I opted for chicken. It was huge, pretty tender and tasty. Not quite as flavoursome as the pakistani equivalents - with the marinade being more subtle and whatnot, but still pretty good. There were about half a dozen huge pieces of meat that could have come from a pterodactyl as easily as a chicken. I found that slghtly worrying - but still ate it. good value at £3.80.

....And a month later I did the same and regretted it. I think I'm over this fixation with Middle -Eastern tikka, the lack of flavour in the marinade makes the experience a bit flat in comparison with the Pakistani counterparts. Back to the kobeda - or possibly to new a style of kebab for a while.

27/06/11
Had a few too many Kobedas lately so went for something else again, lamb tikka, they didn't have it - again. Unlike the Qabili Pilau, which was not ready yet, the lamb tikka was apparently 'finished' - at 12.30PM. Wonder when it started? - So back to Kobeda. All was fine, just wished I could get something else occaisionally.

June 2011
Not bad but not great by their standards - possibly because I didn't stick to the plan. Having eaten seekhs the day before I opted for Qabili Pilau - which wasn't ready. I then asked for falafel as a sort of starter- unfortunately it arrived after the kebab and managed to be rock solid on the outside and almost gooey-ly underdone in the middle.  The kebab was fine - a very minor complaint was that the salad was chopped too coursely meaning there were rather large chunks of raw onion - but this was a pretty minor gripe. Lesson learnt - stick to the kobedas.


09/04/11
Yes, a return 2 days later - chicken tikka was fine (having had a kobeda on Thursday I thought I'd branch out), but not a reason to come.


07/04/11
Up to the usual high standard. Picured (top).

04/02/11
Doesn't feel like 2 months since we were here. Still good - though a tad low on salad today in comparison with previous visits. That's so minor it's not even a complaint. I'm sure we could have asked for more if we'd wanted.

03/12/10
Pretty much our favourite Kobeda kebabs. There are few contenders, but Kobeda Place has slightly better salad. The margins are tiny really.

03/11/10
Routinely good kobeda. 

08/10/10
A good trip. The tandoor bread was excellent - hot from the oven and crisp. The salad was also very good, as were the yoghurt and fresh chilli sauces. The kobeda was large and succulent and subtly flavoured. An excellent meal and surprisingly filling.

01/08/10
It's been a while since we've been here but as Zam Zam was shut, so we did and it was really good. So why do we not go very often? Two very small reasons: Zam Zam has fresh chilli sauce, not yoghurt based, pappy type stuff and is a tiny bit cheaper. - I know I know - ridiculous, but why pay more for something that's just not quite as good?

For original review see below -
After quite a long break the return visit to Kobeda Place was pretty much business as usual - great kobedas with really nice and varied salad (as shown) and excellent bread. The one sticking point was the chilli sauce, the fresh green chilli sauce we'd had in the past wasn't available and the bright red stuff seemed like chilli poweder stirred into yoghurt.  Just not great and a bit powdery. However, that wasn't much of a negative as Middle Eastern kebabs tend not to benefit from being drowned in sauce and it being served seperately did help. It was a large, filling and tasty meal - which for £3.40 (including a free drink) is pretty good going.
Meat 8.5
Bread 9.5
Salad/Sauces 8.0
Service/Setting 8.0
Average 8.5 

Original review
It sounds obvious, but if you fancy a Kobeda go here. The salad is nice and different, with some care having gone into a finely chopped selection of vegetables garnished with parsley. Olives and hummus are also available for added interest and there is a home made fresh chilli sauce which is excellent. The bread was extremely impressive - being exactly what you want from a clay oven.  Meat, other than the kobedas, had some issues - not a great quantity or quality - however having a kobeda remedies both those points and is also the cheapest.  A well named establishment and very good Middle Eastern Kebab House.
Scores out of 10
Meat 8.5
Bread 9.5
Salad/Sauces 9.0
Service/Setting 8.0
Average 8.8 




1 comment:

  1. very nice food the kobeda was verry nice the keema melted in my mouth

    ReplyDelete