An Exclusive Sneak Peek at Crepaway’s New Light Menu Items

March 15, 2017

It’s been exactly one year since Crepaway launched a dozen and half new items to coincide with a picturesque new menu booklet—Mango’s World and Deep Sea Baby for the win! Beginning Monday, March 20, the light menu will debut four salads, two ciabatta sandwiches, a fish platter, and a dessert, and I had the rare privilege to try them all in advance. You read it here first!

Crepaway has jumped on the jar bandwagon, which has been trending across the casual dining sphere for some time now. Jars & Co. was perhaps the first to introduce the concept to Lebanon, and more recently Four Seasons Grill Room has been featuring small-portioned jarred salads and tartares in their Sunday buffet spread.

So, too, is Crepaway gung-ho about layering glass containers with a fresh array of ingredients. The sauce comes on the side, left to you to pour and shake. Who doesn’t enjoy a little play time with their food?

Buffalo chicken salad

First up, the Buffalo Chicken Salad, which combines shredded iceberg, avocado, salsa fresca, sweet corn, kidney beans and cubes of marinated chicken breast in an irresistible honey blue cheese dressing spiced up a notch (352 kcal/10,000 LL). Everything about it is faultless, from the viscosity of the sauce to the temperature of each salad component.

A beautiful mess

Next, the Thai Goodness Salad, which comes in two protein formats but shares a common base: shredded lettuce and carrots, glass noodles, cucumber, scallions, salsa fresca and peanuts. Option 1: stir-fried beef with a light peanut and chili sauce (354 kcal/12,000 LL).

Thai Goodness Salad with stir-fried beef

Option 2: surimi crab sticks, seasoned with light sweet chili sauce, similar to the dipping variety you see at Asian eateries (248.5 kcal/9,000 LL).

Thai Goodness Salad with crab sticks

For something a tad different, how about diced cold cut turkey, fresh mozzarella, sun-dried tomato, and green peas tossed with orzo, a form of short-cut pasta shaped like a large grain of rice? The Perky Turkey Salad (311 kcal/9,000 LL) is perhaps the most subtle of its peers, throttled with a light lemon basil potion.

Perky Turkey Salad

The sandwiches are an ode to meatless Mondays and Lent. Tip Top Tuna (484 kcal/16,500 LL) boasts chunks of the canned meat on a bed of guacamole, slices of tomato, and shredded lettuce and carrot, all inside a gently toasted, seed-studded ciabatta. Garlic chili sauce tempered with tartar gives it a fiery edge.

Tip Top Tuna Sandwich

Tip Top Tuna Sandwich cross-section

The Skinny Crab Sandwich (405 kcal/13,750 LL) can best be described as the crab-carrot-cucumber-and-corn slaw you often see at all-you-can-eat sushi bars. It’s creamy and mild, massaged with light mayo and yuzu ponzu, but in my book, it has the profile of a salad and not a sandwich filler.

Skinny Crab Sandwich

European seabass (known locally as “braa”) fleshes out the Gone Fishing platter with a chilled light lemon basil dressing, quinoa, grilled veggies, and a knob of corn on the cob (697 kcal/31,000 LL). Warning: braa fish is extremely fishy. If like me you can’t bear the smell of the sea in your food, avoid this one.

Gone Fishing platter

Dessert is a bite out of breakfast with a decadent upgrade. Base: Special K crispy granola. Mid-section: sweetened and whipped crème fraiche. Topping: berry coulis. Verdict: fabulous. I love everything about this so-called Cheesecake in a Jar (350 kcal/12,500 LL), fusing both the elements of the creamy and the tangy.