Babtooma Leeds review: We tried the bring your own…

Babtooma Leeds review: We tried the bring your own booze Syrian Roundhay restaurant

Sometimes we all want a lovely meal out with a drink, but would rather not spend too much on said drinks.

Enter; the joy of a bring your own alcohol venue. If you don't feel like dropping £20+ on a bottle of wine you're not sure you like yet, it's a great feeling to turn up ready for good food and a £5-£10 bottle from home.

Syrian restaurant Babtooma in Roundhay lets you do just that. On top of that, the chain - which also has branches in Bradford and York, has made it as a TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice in 2022.

So, it was with high hopes that I took my parents out for a meal at the Leeds restaurant, armed with a bottle of red wine. It was a dreary Monday in early January, but the restaurant was still relatively busy and abuzz with people.

Babtooma is set in a large open space, with vividly colourful bowls and decorations covering the walls. There were many families eating in that evening.

We were provided with wine glasses on request to make use of the bottle we brought, and our order was taken quite quickly. The starters arrived pretty soon after that.

The damas lamb (front) and veggie kebbeh (Jasmine Norden)

We chose to try the veggie kebbeh, which are deep fried wheat balls filled with spinach, garlic chickpeas and lemon juice, and the damas lamb. The latter is lamb strips cooked in a sauce with mushrooms, onions and peppers.

The kebbeh was nice enough, with a crispy outside skin and a light filling inside. The best part of this one was the dip, which was full of pomegranate seeds and worked well to complement the plainer kebbeh.

Tell us the shops and restaurants you'd like to see open in Leeds by completing our poll. You can also do so here.

The damas lamb though, was the star of the whole meal. Tender meat, with a sauce absolutely full of juicy flavour - I could have eaten this all night. Everything was right with this dish, and I wished we'd ordered more of it - both the texture and flavour were wonderful.

Mine and my dad's mains came pretty quickly - we had to wait a little longer for my mum's. I had the Chef Special Kabsa Chicken, which is chicken and rice cooked in spices and a fragrant tomato sauce.

My dad went for the Sujuk Shawarma - wrapped minced lamb with Arabic spices serviced with salad and chips. And mym mum had the minced lamb kebab, which is spiced minced lamb served with rice, in my mum's case (you can also select chips or bread).

Again, they cooked the meat very well here. My chicken fell apart at the slightest touch, and the rice was fragrant and tangy. My favourite bit of mine was the salad, full of dressed cucumber, red onion, tomato and pepper that was the perfect acidic contrast to the meant and rice.

My parents both also enjoyed the spice of their lamb. Though - the damas lamb remains the absolute star, and none of us could help but compare our mains to that. Everything was wonderful, but the flavour and tenderness of that starter was just a cut above everything else we tried.