Samarkanda

Loved this place!!! Great food. After a long hot day at the Alhambra the hubby and I were looking for a delicious meal. We learned that Granada has some pretty bad tourist restaurants the first couple of days we were here (a lot of places serve microwave frozen crap) so we were being picky for a fresh meal. This place fit the bill. It is Lebanese and we loved everything we ordered. The hummus was some of the best I’ve ever had. My husband ordered Kafta in a sesame sauce that was sooooooo good. I got BBQ lamb which was so so so delicious. We plan to go back before we leave granada. Oh ps, I asked for some vodka in my mint lemonade and it was awesome.

I’m not sure how it came to be that this is classified on Unilocal as Moroccan because it is Lebanese food!
The space itself feels very tired — the walls are decorated with tourist posters of Beirut, random masks and fake flowers, and last night, which was admittedly a cold night in Granada, this place was freezing. And unpopular– we showed up at 9:30 and it was us and another couple in a fairly large space.
What we sampled here was fine — a but underseasoned especially the chicken taouck which was border line bland and a hair overcooked. Better was the rice and lentils served with grilled onions (the taouck also came with grilled onions which made for an onion heavy meal). Skip the hummus– it’s too sour and too monotonous and it is serves with cold, hard pita. Dinner for two came to 27euros.

This was a pretty sub-​par meal and not cheap either. I should begin by stating that my partner and I have travelled extensively in the middle east, and have eaten the cuisine in the US and abroad many times. It seems to me the only way the other reviewers could have given this 5 stars is if they themselves have never tasted good, authentic Lebanese food. The lamb tagine at Samarkand was bland and tasteless — the meat was well-​cooked but the rest of the vegetables were sloppy and overcooked, and the flavor was much too mild. The couscous was decent, though how hard is it to get couscous right really? The Fattoush salad was tiny and plain tasting. The Hamara was good but again, a portion so small you could barely make a sandwich of it. To top of the unimpressive food, and small portions, the prices were steep — our bill came to 40+ euros and we hadn’t even had wine or desserts. The service was ok at best … surly, and oddly suspicious of my partner who is white but spoke to them in fluent arabic (we could hear them talking about us in the other room). I would say that in a town with such a large Arab population, there’s got to be somewhere better to get Middle Eastern food!

We read some great reviews elsewhere and ended up here. It opened at 7:30 and was not crowded. We ordered the dinner for 2 which came with a bottle of Lebanese wine, hummus, tabbouleh salad, grape leaf wrapped thing, kafta and the best falafel I’ve ever had. Never liked falafel but I liked these. Then when we thought we were done, we got very tasty meat kabob with deliciously spiced rice. Everything was so fresh and went so well together. After having lunch at the Alhambra palace terrace with the beautiful view I didn’t think I’ll be impressed but I was. Definitely worth the try at a very good price!

After a semi-​exhausting hike to the Mirador de San Nicolas (a square at the top of a hill in Albaicín) to see the Alhambra at sunset, we navigated through a series of narrow, winding cobblestone streets (alleyways would be more apropos) in hopes of finding Samarkanda. Because the streets in this area of Granada are not clearly labeled, we trusted that Jen F.‘s iPhone would lead us to the restaurant and not to a dead-​end street.
Although we had made quite a descent from the Mirador, Samarkanda is still situated on a hill. In all seriousness: the tables outside of the restaurant are clamped and bolted down to the ground because the grade is still fairly steep.
The food is extremely well-​priced Lebanese fare (with a few Moroccan classics) and some of the best that I have had in in the US or abroad (although I have not yet traveled to the Middle East). Our waiter also happened to be the owner of the restaurant and made it a point that our table and the table adjacent to us felt welcomed. After reviewing the wine list, we selected a reasonably priced Rioja from Marques de Caceres.
To start, we ordered hummus and hammara. Because of the spread-​like quality of both of these appetizers, we had to order pita bread (it costs 1 euro, so not expensive). We also ordered fattoush, which had some of the freshest vegetables (lettuce, tomato, purslane, mint) that I have tasted in this type of cuisine.
As a main course, I ordered the maklube, which was an incredible dish that layered rice, chicken, and eggplant. The maklube was hearty and retained lots of juices and hints of allspice and cardamom. I also had a small taste of the pastilla, a traditional Moroccan meat pie. It had a hint of sweetness and cinnamon that satiated both my dinner AND dessert cravings. Although I did not try the lamb kafta, I was assured that these skewers were both flavorful and juicy. Jen F.‘s tagine looked as tasty as it did aromatic.
Ironically enough, this was one of the least expensive dinners that we had in Andalucia, but also one of the most enjoyable and memorable.