What makes Lebanese meals so great and so dangerous?

You always get more food than you can possibly eat … and about 90 percent of it is starch. Even when it looks like paste.

Take, for example, the Lebanese Flower, what must be the most popular Lebanese restaurant in Abu Dhabi.

The Lebanese Flower takes up two huge building on 11th Street, about a block away from Al Wahda Mall.

It is a goin’ concern. That place rocks. People packed inside, people packed outside, a traffic jam on the access road out front, where people are honking their horns demanding curbside service …

At least 30, maybe 40 or 50 guys working, most of them wearing red ties, rushing around, bringing huge mounds of flat bread to your table, and hummous you can dip the bread in and falafal you can dip, top, and it’s all bread or chick peas with a little deep frying.

Leah recently declared Lebanese Flower’s falafel to be “the best I’ve ever had.” Which is like Wimpy declaring some store’s hamburger the best he’s had. The woman knows falafel. “I think it’s the cinnamon.”

She had chicken shwarma and a side of falafel. The shwarma came with … more bread. I had the Lebanese Flower grill. My dish also featured … more bread. In addition to the round stack of flat bread they brought us when we sat down … and when they put out nuts, pickled vegetables, hummous and … bread.

I actually couldn’t eat any more even before my grill arrived. I picked at the lamb and chicken, managed to eat the thin meat pastries (think “quesadilla”)  and begged them to box up the lamb kebabs to take home, because to eat them too might have killed me.

They then brought us hot tea (which kept me up till 4 a.m., but I should have known better) and about half a watermelon. Gratis.  Just part of what they do. The watermelon was cold and crisp and sweet, and a grand gesture for someone eating outside on a “still 95 degrees” night. But watermelon also is very filling — just like everything else at a Lebanese resto.

So, after admiring all the shisha pipes (the reason most people sit outside), we waddled out to look for a cab. Me clutching the bag of leftovers that would feed both of us (again) the next day and thinking “I love this place so much I better not come here more often than about twice a year.” I’m covered now till March.