Neni, Langstrasse, Zurich

Neni at Langstrasse sent me an incessant amount of emails trying to persuade me to show up to one of their press events. I sometimes fail to see where the delineation between bribery and influencer marketing is. Nevertheless a few weeks after the opening of the place on the corner of Lager- and Langstrasse we show up for dinner as always anonymous and unannounced. Neni has a clear middle-eastern type of menu with a cool city vibe, another clear sign of the Europaallee radiating into the former red light district.

The options on the menu are plentiful so we took the easy route and settled on the Balagan style meal, which is a slew of mezze, mains and dessert in a self-proclaimed “chaotic” fashion. First we get pita, olives and a bit of dip. All pretty good but we’re already a bit stuffed on the pita bread. Appetizers had were pretty stunning, loved the Falafel, loved the cheese filo sticks (I’m sure there’s a better name), loved the baba ganoush and the absolutely divine sweet potatoes.

The meal continued with mains. We already ate quite a lot of pita bread and we received even more and some of the dishes (eg. the shrimp) even contained additional bread to scoop up the sauce. Hence we were a bit stuffed and started to feel like it was simply too much. We did enjoy the shrimp, but the other dishes after the fireworks with the starters were a tad duller.

By now we were completely stuffed and dessert seemed more like a must than the glorious end of a meal. A lava cake (molten chocolate on the inside) felt a little dated, presentation was too whimsical and we didn’t care to finish it. Summing it up, next time we’ll lay off the bread and go for a lot of small plates instead of the complete menu. With the Mezze you can’t go wrong, the vibe is good and service is quick. One of the key things which made the night a pretty good one, was the fasntastic service. The lady was dealing with a 20-top table next to us and never missed a beat with us and kept us happy – well done!