Ben's Alibi

www.bensalibi.com.au

Ben's Alibi is a newish breakfast and lunch spot in the city. We've spotted it when driving down Turbot street, so I googled it and realised they served Moroccan and Middle eastern influenced food. 

We didn't realise it was just outside the magistrates court until we arrived there for lunch, and then figured out how they got their name... cute. There is seating indoors, and then larger tables outside, however be wary of catching cigarette fumes from people smoking outside the courthouse. Indoors, the tables and floor could be a bit cleaner I thought, particularly for a place thats not that old.

Lunch items include spicy sausages, Moroccan themed salads, pizzas and sandwiches, pies and pastries. Other extras include various dips, bread and sides, or their sharing platters, which is what we decided to opt for. 

Ben's vegetarian tasting platter for two is priced at $20.80 per person, and can be made to include meaty items (pastries) for an extra $4, so not really a cheap lunch. 


The tasting platter includes hummus with pinenuts, dukkah with oil, a harissa dip, chermoula, turkish bread and pita bread, lebanese cheese cigars, moroccan spiced lentil pies, pastry rolls and a honey bocconcini ball salad.

The hummus was quite tasty particularly with its pinenuts, whereas the dukkah had way too much oil sitting on top, less would have made it more enjoyable. We were a bit confused by the other dips.. one was a tomato salsa type and the other was a creamy dip which had an extremely tangy taste... I assume the tomato one was supposed to be harissa however it wasn't very spicy. The menu stated that the chermoula was supposed to be a dip made from parsley, coriander, onion and garlic, and whilst the white dip was heavily garlic flavoured, I didn't know if this was supposed to be the chermoula or not. It was not what we were expecting anyway.

The hero was the honey bocconcini salad, which was so sweet and delicious, a very tasty and refreshing salad. The various pastries were ok, the cheese cigars were our favourite, whereas the lentil pies (which looked like party pies) were average. 

What we didn't like is how our turkish bread came out extremely buttered. Just a light flick of oil or a rub of garlic or even nothing at all would have been nice, but this made everything we were eating quite butter flavoured. 

The size of the platter was sufficient, and the food was nice, but nothing on the platter was amazing, except maybe for the salad. 

Oh and L ordered a latte here too, which was decent. My glass bottle of coke came out with an accompanying glass with only half an ice cube which wasn't really appreciated!

The pizzas coming out to tables around us looked good, similar to the moroccan pizzas at Mecca bah, so I am sure if we returned we would go for this option, and I would definitely recommend these over the platter we ordered. 

Go to Bens if you would like something a bit different for a casual city lunch. 

Love, 
C