Abla's
June 1997
Abla Amad in the kitchen at Abla's
It's almost 19 years since Abla Amad opened her restaurant, Abla's in Elgin Street, Carlton, and she still remembers her first customer. Not only that but he still comes regularly as do many others, people that Abla always recognises and makes welcome in her gentle unassuming way.
Although shy about speaking, Abla likes to go out front and see her customers. Her younger daughter, Margaret-Anne, is usually waiting on the tables and also sometimes her older daughter, Patricia. Both girls also help in the kitchen along with Moura, Honney and Barbara who have been working with Abla for more than twelve years.
Patricia Amad at Abla's
Between them they prepare the traditional Lebanese dishes which Abla's is renowned for. This usually involves chopping at least 20 bunches of parsley just for the delicious tabbouleh (cracked wheat salad of tomato, spring onions, lemon, olive oil and lots of chopped flat leaf parsley).It's sensationally crisp and fresh tasting as Abla mixes it for each order. Australian born chef of Lebanese family, Greg Malouf, loves it and comes regularly to Abla's, that is when he can leave his own very busy and popular kitchen at O'Connells. Greg is one of many from Melbourne's Lebanese community who cherish and enjoy Abla's fresh and authentic food. But some of the Australian customers in the early days would complain about the taste of her baba ganoujh (smoked eggplant dip). "They would send it back and say it was burnt, (so) Iwould go and explain that it had to have this flavour (of smoke) otherwise it wouldn't have been prepared properly." Now Abla says, she sells more eggplant dip than anything and the kitchen sometimes can't keep up with preparing enough.
Abla herself returns often to Lebanon to visit her mother but feels that the best of traditional Lebanese cooking and culture is to be found here in Melbourne. "There's too much fast food there (in Lebanon) now, we are much more careful here with preserving the right ways."
She remembers learning how to prepare vine leaves and stuff cousa (the white marrow) from her mother in Lebanon but learnt most from her uncle, Joe Mansour, here in Melbourne. He was the first Lebanese Consul, "very well known and loved by the community". Abla remembers watching him prepare meals, "he was a wonderful cook and taught me a lot."
Abla still loves to learn and when she finds something she enjoys, can't wait to rush back to her kitchen to try it out.
Cooking and entertaining have always been her life. She loves to feed people. In the early days, when the Lebanese community was much smaller and many young men came out alone from Lebanon, she would invite groups of them back after church on Sunday to eat at her uncle's table. After she was married, she said to her husband that she would love to have her own restaurant when the children ( three boys and two girls) had grown up. "My husband laughed at me then,"; Abla recalls, "but when a restaurant came available beside his brother, Peter's, office in Elgin Street, he took me there and said - do you like it? Well I said yes, and we opened and I'm still here."
Abla with her 'ladies' in the background
"It'll be 19 years in October, a long time since the restaurant started. But it feels like yesterday for me. I still love it, I haven't got sick of it yet."
The restaurant is busier than ever. Abla says that this year has been "really good." She hopes that her daughter, Margaret Anne, will want to continue cooking, "to keep it in the family". Meantime she is planning a cookbook which older daughter, Patricia, who has her own publishing company, will help her with.
Mietta O'Donnell
Published 10/6/97 in the Herald Sun Food & Drink Supplement
©Mietta's 1997