Thursday 11th November 2010
I knew I’d have to go to Edgware Road, miles away – as soon as I saw it was Lebanese. Labneh, that is. It’s strained yoghurt.
But still I dragged against my fate.
I’d been hurtled by Ottolenghi, needless to say, into an unfamiliar recipe for my dinner last Saturday. Sea bass with labneh, preserved lemon and tomato salsa.
I tried Borough Market, a restaurant near Borough Market and two other local shops. ‘Are you Lebanese?’ I demanded of the bewildered owners. It was hopeless, as I’d known really all along it would be. There was no avoiding it. I must embrace Edgware Road, where the Lebanese shops are.
I could have made do with ordinary yoghurt; Borough Market had yielded up preserved lemons at least (there’s a big drama with Borough Market, by the way; essentially it’s been replaced).
On the other hand, I absolutely could not – make do, that is.
So I gained Edgware Road, the Marble Arch end. Luckily I knew that, because it’s ten miles long. I forged into a likely looking store. Yes, they’d got labneh. I had a religious moment. But there was more stoniness to come. In the fridge, they said, on the left. I faced rows of milky products labelled in Arabic. Which was it? I asked another assistant who mumbled that labneh’s a drink but handed me a pot of solid-looking white stuff, beaming in a curiously irrelevant way. I couldn’t have been less convinced but I was too polite not to buy it, hatching a plot the while to try another shop. ‘What is this?’ I asked, in the other shop, wielding the Arabic product. ‘It’s labneh,’ they said, ‘but very cheap.’ I bought some of theirs, more expensive.
So I was double-labneh. It’s quite nice.
What an adventure though, going to Edgware Road. It’s very exotic, just as if you were actually in Lebanon.

Cheap Labneh - What How do You Know?