Zahav

Oh boy did I ever know I was in for a treat when I texted my dad seeing if my parents could meet me after work in the city for some good eats and he responded “YES!!!”  I had been to Zahav only one time prior: for restaurant week with a friend of mine.  I knew what to expect menu-wise, and was ready for a good time.  I love the ambiance and feel of the restaurant.  They combine industrial/modern feel with the chique of traditional Middle Eastern feel.

We started off with their salatim (variety of salads).  They bring out two teirs of awesome vegetable salads along with pickles and olives, all to be shared at the table:

• tabbouleh
• beet salad
• spicy carrot salad (my favorite)
• pickled kohlrabi
• roasted eggplant (good & smoky)
• okra & tomato
• shaved fennel salad
• classic Israeli salad

All of these salads amazed me, for they were deliciously consistent with what I remember!  Also, they brought out their hummus and laffa bread, which is baked in a hearth visible from the dining room.  How unreal?  It is crispy and delicious around the edges and soft/bready bas you get closer to the center of this flatbread, spread with good olive oil and sprinkled heavily with za’atar spices.  It is the perfect accompaniment to both the hummus and the salads.  We ordered a second one  The hummus came out with chick peas “swimming” in the oil & spice mixture they delicately drizzle over the top of the hummus mound.  Unfortunately, they put too much tahini in the hummus for me to enjoy something like that all the time, but once in a while someone else’s hummus is a nice change to my own!  I highly recommend their salatim/hummus for the table.  You will enjoy.

Then came the small-plates style Israeli food.  I had a fantastic salad of grilled turnips, which melted in the mouth, couscous, almonds, and chantarelle mushrooms.  The turnips were out of this world in terms of texture and flavor, with a nice smoky undertone from the roasting.  Mushrooms…need I say more than that I love them?

My other tasting plate was grilled eggplant with an asparagus puree and shaved, grilled asparagus over a bed of Israeli couscous (yes, it’s different), with the perfect pungency to offset the richness of the eggplant.  Needless to say, my eggplant-loving mother consumed a good portion of the plate, since I was so intent on my other one!  One of the sides of a dish my parents split (lamb sausage) came out with an awesome tomato compote, perfect for scooping with yet another huge piece of laffa into my awaiting mouth.  Yum.

America Day :P

Happy 4th of July!!!

Part 2 of 4: Dinner-on-Tour

Hope you liked my first couple adventures in the Empire State.  It’s always nice to get away for a weekened!!!  I’ll just continue the tale where I left you hanging last time…

Part 1 of 4: Friday and Saturday Morning: NYC-Style1 of 4

Somewhat last-minute I decided to take a trip to NYC with some friends over my birthday weekend (it was really their idea).  My schedule permitted me to go in Friday afternoon, whereas everyone else wouldn’t have made it until the following afternoon.  What luck!?  I decided to spend an evening with my running buddy Robin in her apartment like the last time.

Carrot-Chickpea Salad

This is one of my favorite cold combinations and ranks up there along with the various wheat berry and bulgur salads I have concocted in my lifetime.  With a decidedly Middle Eastern flair, it could easily accompany a meze or even stand alone as a meal on its own, as it did for us earlier this week.  The recipe is an adaptation of something I came accross in Food and Wine last week.  The cilantro “pesto” is really something!

Sprig and Vine Take 2

I very willingly invited a friend of mine to indulge in the deliciousness of Sprig and Vine in New Hope, Pa. This pilgrimage of sorts was my second to the vegetable mecca, visited before with a group of complete, but warm and friendly, strangers.  We ordered various things this time and experienced the same meal to enhance and elicit extra discussion and food exploration.  What an excellent meal it was!

We began with some deliciously pickled vegetables: fennel; turnips; small, sweet carrots; cauliflower; and, one of my favorites, ramps.  The pickles were on the sweeter side, whereas I prefer savory and salty vegatbles.  However, they were still wonderfully prepared and served in such a perfect two-piece-per-veg style for sharing.  Along with the vegetables came the famous Kinnebec potato fries.  If nothing else, know that I can be defined by my love of carrots and kale and dislike of potatoes.  They’ve never done anything for me, and I don’t see these facts changing, for I have disliked them for my entire life.  Anyway, I tried them last time and figured I should give one of the most famous things on the menu a second chance….  They were good for what they were, entirely homemade potato fries with some nice zingy spices and aioli; but they did not convert me to a lover of potatoes.  I had maybe three.  Everyone I have ever talked to about the restaurant or reviews I have read have thrived over the fries, vegetarians and carnivores alike, so I reccomend a tasting, regardless of potato indifference.

The salad was of arugula and beets, not over-dressed in a delicious vinaigrette.  There were some toasted beet greens underneath that retained their oven-induced crispiness, and we enjoyed munching on them along with the perfectly roasted beets.  Yum.

For our main course, we indulged in the coconut risotto cakes, served atop a bed of mild red lentil dal.  The flavors were reminiscent of a variety of Asian influences: the mild seasonings of Japanese cooking with the components of various other regional cuisines.  The sauteed beans and mushrooms piled in the center taking a decidedly Chinese flair, and the dal decidedly Indian.  Everything was delicious, and the oyster mushrooms were, to me, the star of the dish!  I highly recommend the grilled oyster mushroom appetizer if you are even remotely guilty of a love of all things mushroom.

Springtime Risotto

I am not the biggest fan of risotto, but at the urging of my dad and the excess of brown rice we have in the cupboard, I…well…caved. Since risotto is not one of my “standby”s per se, I think it’s something that it turned out as well as it did.  The rice was brown, which really had a nice bite to it.  It didn’t get as creamy as it could’ve, since I was starving and didn’t want to cook it that much longer.  Though the rice was al dente at best, we all really enjoyed this meal.

Risotto is like a pasta dish or a stir-fry in that you can use anything that’s in the pantry or farm market stand at that time of year.  We had some lovely swiss chard, which I love, and some frozen peas in the freezer, the one vegetable that is always redolent of the springtime.  Mushrooms went in as well for earthiness, for they are somewhat a spring “crop” as well.  Green onions serve as the perfect crunchy, pungent contrast to the rich risotto.  This risotto was not supremely rich, since it got its body from the garlic & onions, homemade vegetable stock, and dried porcini mushrooms to go along with the crappy button mushrooms we got at Acme.  TO be fair, they were decent, else we would not have purchased them .

Springtime in a Bowlplate

Vegan Mezze

The first day I was home I had a hankering to be in the kitchen.  Little did I know I would be in the kitchen for most of the day after shopping all of the local farm markets, where we picked up some of the most delicious produce ever!  On the menu appeared whole wheat pita, roasted garlic hummus, muhammara, spiced carrot salad, sauteed garlicky swiss chard, and tabbouleh.

NYC For the Win: Day 2

After a perfect NYC dining experience the night before, I couldn’t wait to see what the next day would hold for me!  We began with some delicious in a bowl, aka oatmeal.  We had an ample supply of raisins, peanut butter, and oatmeal.  Did I mention she bought the HUGE-ASS size canister?  It was like the same amount of food as when I go to Whole Foods and load up on oat bran.  In one word, ridiculously fantastic.  I also managed to start my day off with some coffee from a single-cup brewer, but it unfortunately did not have the kick of a rich, dirty Komodo Dragon.  But that’s okay, because even Starbizzle hasn’t been brewing that pot of yum lately (they are this week!).  That seductive mermaid has me coming back for refills all the time.  Side note: good news is that I am officially not addicted to coffee!

NYC For the Win: Day 1

What an incredible opportunity I had to visit a friend in the Big Apple.  After reading about Anglica Kitchen on Gena’s blog, we both knew that it would be the ideal place for us to eat dinner together.  I rode NJ transit up in the morning and got into the city in the early afternoon: just in time for lunch.  I stopped by the Union Square Farm Market to get a wheatgrass shot (because where else can you get them than NYC?) and an apple for a later snack.  I think the best thing about the market was the one stall’s ample samples of every type of apple and jam that they were selling.  Oh my goodness did I overindulge on apple samples!  This resulted in no hunger for lunch until about 3pm….