Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Dec 26 2009
In Beirut, Raw Materials Meet Magic
Saturday, December 26, 2009
By SETH SHERWOOD, The New York Times
ON a balmy Middle Eastern night, our feast was rolling along
fabulously on the outdoor roof terrace of Abd el Wahab, a vaulted and
marbled Beirut gastropalace, when a flock of birds made a sudden
appearance.
They came not from the sky but on a large plate, served by a suited,
poker-faced waiter. Their blackened headless carcasses, each barely
palm-sized, were soaked in a dark sauce that gave off a tangy aroma.
Through wisps of sweet chicha smoke exhaled by boisterous groups at
nearby tables, my Lebanese companions explained that the birds are
traditionally eaten whole. I was dubious.
Hesitantly, I popped one in my mouth. Tiny bones cracked like
toothpicks. In a quick burst, succulent meat mingled with the
sweet-sour basting sauce. It was sublime. A miniature Hitchcockian
menace had been transformed into an unexpected gastronomic gem.
"What kind of birds are they?" I asked the waiter.
"Small birds," he said.
Such moments are blissfully common in Lebanon, where even the most
bland produce or unlikely meats undergo culinary hocus-pocus and
emerge, Cinderella-like, as belles of the ball. Parsley, elsewhere
found more often as a throw-away garnish, becomes the basis of that
zesty, lemony, tomato-filled, bulgur-sewn refresher known as
tabbouleh. Instead of appearing as a flavorless blob, as it often
does, eggplant is combined with sesame paste and lemon juice to create
tangy moutabal, a dip similar to the better-known baba ghanouj.
And with a rich agricultural bounty packed into the farms, orchards,
vineyards and waters of their tiny Mediterranean nation, Lebanese
chefs have an impressively vast array of raw materials to valorize.
The upshot is the Middle East’s most ingenious, flavorful cuisine, and
by all indicators its popularity is increasingly spreading beyond
Lebanon’s narrow borders. Around the world, in cities from Paris to
Dubai to Melbourne, the best Middle Eastern restaurants are turning
out food from the Land of the Cedars. Flip on a television in the
Arabic-speaking world, and you might well find a cooking demonstration
by Ramzi Choueiri — better known as Chef Ramzi — a Beiruti who has
become perhaps the top culinary celebrity in the Middle East.
With the Lebanese political landscape remarkably calm in 2009, the
moment seemed ripe to explore the dynamic, cosmopolitan and
multireligious city that was long ago dubbed the Paris of the Middle
East. So, like the oenophile to Bordeaux or the pizza nut to Naples, I
decided in late September to make a pilgrimage to the source, in
search of authenticity and discovery.
Any Beirut dining experience should, and usually does, begin with a
feast of mezze, the catch-all term for an array of appetizers that
range from grilled chicken livers to exotic bread dips. Just don’t
make the common foreigner’s mistake of comparing them to Spanish
tapas.
"Mezze is not tapas, because tapas is something you nibble with a
drink," said Kamal Mouzawak, a food journalist and the founder of Souk
El-Tayeb, the city’s popular farmers’ market.
He explained that in Lebanese culture, a meal is an intimate
experience. "Mezze is food. The concept is sharing," he said. "You
have to be at least five or six people, and you must order at least 15
or 20 plates that you eat together."
Abd el Wahab
Thus instructed, I booked a table at Abd el Wahab, one of the city’s
top destinations for mezze, and recruited some Lebanese dining pals:
Rabih, a fashion designer; Ranya, an artist; and Mona, a television
producer.
Once we were installed on the terrace, Rabih rattled off a long order.
First up: hummus. Call it sacrilege, but I have never been excited by
this humdrum dip. But the others insisted, in a flurry of English and
French (both of which are widely spoken in Beirut, though Lebanon’s
official language is Arabic).
"Hummus is the best barometer of a Lebanese restaurant’s quality,"
Ranya explained.
Following her lead, I took a corner of warm bread, rolled it into a
cone (a nifty trick for scooping up dips) and tasted. It was
excellent: lush, mouth-filling, creamy and flavorful — like an earthy
milkshake.
More plates arrived. The zesty tabbouleh, everyone showed me, should
be eaten not with a fork, but wrapped in a lettuce leaf. In the
moutabal, the sweetness of sesame-laden tahini and the gentle sourness
of lemon juice played off each other amid a gorgeously gloppy eggplant
purée.
Also in the onslaught were a fine raw kibbeh (a velvety veal tartare),
some so-so mekanek (grilled sausages) and, of course, the swarm of
delicious, unidentified birds.
To cut the food’s heaviness, we consumed milky glasses of arrak mixed
with water. Arrak, the national hooch of choice, is made from grape
liquor and flavored with anise seed, and serves as an astringent
palate cleanser. The meal’s coda was bowls of molasses and sesame
paste, which we swirled together and ate on sweet dessert bread.
"This is a very peasant dish, because it’s cheap," Rabih said. But as
the smell of our neighbors’ sweet tobacco mingled with the warm air
and candylike bread, I felt far more like a sated sultan.
Varouj
Abd el Wahab had provided me with a classic Lebanese dining
experience. But throughout my stay, I kept hearing that one of the
city’s most original dining experiences was an Armenian restaurant,
Varouj. As it is hidden in the maze of streets in Bourj Hammoud, a
somewhat dingy Armenian neighborhood in predominantly Christian East
Beirut, I needed a guide to find it. Fortunately, I was able to
recruit Carla, a Lebanese native with an Armenian father — and
training as a tour guide. She guided us through the darkened,
abandoned streets to the restaurant’s welcoming pink neon light.
Inside the minuscule dining room, the pleasantly rustic décor was at
odds with the charmless neighborhood. After pouring our arrak, the
owner briskly rattled off in Arabic the dishes available that night.
There was no printed menu, and no English spoken.
We started with spicy fried sojuk sausage and some basterma, a cold
cut typically made from soaking veal or beef for weeks in chaimen — a
mix of garlic, paprika, cumin, salt and other spices — then
air-drying it. The result is a spicy beet-red meat, sliced razor thin.
Despite its tartare-like appearance, the muhammara turned out to be a
mix of chopped nuts, bread crumbs, garlic and red pepper, seasoned
with olive oil, lemon juice, pomegranate juice and spices. It burst on
the tongue, unleashing hot, sweet, crunchy, chewy, soft and tangy
accents. A winner.
Our manteh — crunchy pasta tubes filled with lamb — came in a
yogurt-garlic sauce so acidic that it could unclog a drain. But all
was redeemed when more birds alighted at our table. These tiny,
featherless creatures were every bit as crunchy and juicy as at Abd el
Wahab, and the sweet-sour sauce even tastier.
Walimat Wardeh
Having sampled high-end mezze and Armenian specialties, I was eager to
explore workaday Beirut and its cheap eats. The path first led to
Hamra, a pleasant, religiously mixed district centered near the
verdant campus of the American University of Beirut. By day, academic
types, artists, bohemians, cross-wearing Christian shopkeepers and
fully veiled Muslim women all commingled in the buzzing taxi-filled
streets.
After sunset, in a hipster hangout called Walimat Wardeh, I devoured
some serviceable roast peppers stuffed with meat and rice while
Lebanese cool kids danced to a rollicking Arabian band.
Istambouli
Better was Istambouli, a windowless basement restaurant whose menu
seemed designed for enthusiastic carnivores like me: kefta meatballs
in bread, lamb cutlets, grilled chicken wings, kidneys, sweetbreads.
The suited waiters looked bored to the point of suffocation, but I was
in paradise as I bit into a deeply flavorful and moist chicken kebab
(given excellent zip from a white garlic sauce), accompanied by
super-smooth hummus topped by pine nuts and tiny pellets of grilled
meat. Only the raw kibbeh, overly chilled and gritty, was subpar.
Le Chef
But I was most curious about Le Chef, an old-school home-style joint
niched like a fossil among the trendy new bars and sleek restaurants
of the fast-rising Gemmayzeh neighborhood. Scattered around the
greasy-spoon throwback, a mix of European expat hipsters and
working-class Lebanese men nibbled on grilled fish, kefta and other
dishes brought by waiters in white soda-jerk hats.
My appetizer, a one-dollar bowl of dirty dishwater passed off as
vegetable soup, was pitiful. But as I tried to figure out the Arabic
phrase for "dine and dash," the main dish arrived: a tender and
robustly flavorful lamb, served over white rice laced with nuts and
raisins. While not a culinary innovation, the dish was a blend of
sweet and savory, and an interplay of contrasting textures.
Even better was dessert. Rice pudding, often a lackluster bowl of
white slop, here was firm, substantial and infused with accents of
rose water and orange-flower water. The combination lent an exotic
Middle Eastern blossomy flavor and smell that could have perfumed a
pasha’s wife. Another culinary Cinderella story in Beirut.
IF YOU GO
Prices reflect a three-course meal for two people, without drinks,
except where otherwise noted.
Abd el Wahab, Rue Abdel Wahab el Ingeezee; (961-1) 200-550. A
four-person mezze feast runs from 120,000 to 180,000 Lebanese pounds,
or $83 to $125 at 1,444 Lebanese pounds to the dollar.
Varouj, near the Cinema Royal in Bourj Hammoud; 961-3-882-933. About
85,000 Lebanese pounds.
Walimat Wardeh, Rue Makdissi, Hamra; (961-1) 343-128. The plat du jour
runs from 10,000 to 14,000 Lebanese pounds.
Istambouli, Rue Commodore, Hamra; (961-1) 352-049. Around 70,000
Lebanese pounds.
Le Chef, Rue Gouraud, Gemmayzeh; (961-1) 445-373. Around 25,000
Lebanese pounds.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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