I have a soft spot for Lebanon despite never having been there. Many of my best friend's best friends when I first moved to London after uni were Lebanese. They were rich and glamorous and kind and funny. Some became my friends and their stories of a perfect country at the end of the Mediterranean with its castles and coast and wine and olive groves and beaches and mountains was alluring.

I longed to visit, but the country was then, and remains, in a perpetual state of war.  There aren't enough bits and bytes left on my computer to explain why, but suffice to say that the Brits screwed up Palestine and the French screwed up Lebanon.

A couple of weeks previously my wife and I booked the trip of a lifetime to Jordan and Egypt with some of her Dubai based colleagues. My wife has always wanted to visit Petra and the Pyramids (I have seen both before meeting her). On a previous business trip to Israel she had booked and paid for the trip into Jordan before fate and the Israeli military intervened.

These are the risks you take in engaging at all with this very broken part of the world.

But it seemed that the least you can do is support the Lebanese in any way you can as they are caught between the murderous Hezbollah and the genocidal Israeli-US military machine.

Lebanon is known for its cuisine and its wine, so no further excuse was needed as G and I headed through the gloom to Oracle Riverside once more.

For a town with so many ethnic restaurants from Romanian to Afghan, from Polish to Cuban (for now) we have some glaring gaps. There is no tapas, no Mexican, only Côte as a 'French' restaurants. No Spanish or Portuguese (any more). No Turkish, no Syrian nor Moroccan. There is no Israeli restaurant nor Egyptian. The Mediterranean is badly represented in Reading.

But we have four Lebanese restaurants - Lebanese Flavours (previously Bakery House) in London Road, Hala Lebanese on Wokingham Road, Lebanese Village in Caversham and Comptoir Libanais, which, this being Reading, is part of a chain of eighteen UK and four international restaurants.

I had visited this branch once before and was totally underwhelmed so never bothered to revisit until now.

We decided to go all in with the 'Feast' which is hardly a bargain at £37.50 per head.

For that you get a dish of dips - hummus, fatteh, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh salad, a couple of cheese borek and a couple of falafel with two large bouncy soft flatbread slathered in butter.

It was all very pleasant, but nowhere as good as the Greek Souvlaki's mixed starter.

Now, I have a thing about falafel having lived near the Jewish quarter in Paris' Marais. (I am also hoping to revisit Felfela's in Cairo if I managed to get out there next month.) The problem with most falafel is that they are made only with chickpeas, but this makes for a dry mix. The trick is to mix the chickpeas with broad beans which makes it moister inside. These were chickpea only although did have a good mix of herbs running through them and were nice and crunchy.

In a vain effort to help the economy of this bedevilled nation we started with a bottle of house white from the Bekka Valley and it was a fine choice, slightly sharp with a flowery tint. Lebanon is known for its reds such as the famous Chateau Mansour, but their white wine making has come along leaps and bounds.

As ever, G and I were caught up in conversations about the latest developments in the tech world and his recent visit to the Florida panhandle. (Apparently tourism to Florida has fallen off a cliff leaving the 'Gulf Of America' to the Statesiders.)

The polite waitress came over a couple of times to ask we were ready for mains, but we weren't, which may be the precursor to how this meal went badly downhill.

For mains, as part of the 'Feast' we ordered and share a mixed grill and a salmon.

They were dreadful. The salmon had been cooked so long that the ends were solid and the middle was dry and nasty. The accompanying chickpeas in tomato sauce was a strange accompaniment and was also pretty horrid. Imagine baked beans made with chickpeas. Some fresh parsley may have helped, but as it stood it was a bad, paltry dish and easily the worst thing I have been served in Reading over the past decade (which is saying something).

By now we had moved onto the house red which is light and quite delicious. We were clearly doing much better with the booze than the food.

 

The mixed grill was three meaty skewers with rice and salad. The lamb and chicken kofta were rubbery and totally underwhelming and the chicken taouk had dried out to be just this side of edible.

Even the accompanying chilli and yoghurt sauces, which came in thimbles, were pretty bad.

I don't know if this was our 'fault' for taking long over starters, but it was a dreadful meal in a town where there are fifty great places to get better grilled meat. In these difficult times for restaurants the heavy hand of the accountants can be seen everywhere.

At the end of the meal we were served a small piece of baklava each alongside mint tea.

It was a bad meal made barrable by the company and the wine. I have always wanted to like this chain but they are not a patch on London's long standing Sofra chain.

Unfortunately Comptoir Libanais is as much of a disaster zone as its country of origin. This is a place to avoid - take a stroll up London Road to Lebanese Flavours, or jump on the 17 bus to Hala in Earley. Or if you want perfect kebabs travel up to our erstwhile 'town of culture' and go to our restaurant of the year, Yaprak in Woodley.