Quote:
Originally Posted by elston
MidwesternBookWorm
When you have settled on what your ordering at Lulu's please tell us how it was and what it was....I am not familiar with Middle Eastern food.
Enjoy the concert!
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Elston, I suspect you may be a lot more familiar with some Middle-Eastern foods than you think. Have you ever had hummus? Pita bread? Tabbouleh? Falafel? All those would qualify as Middle-Eastern.
LuLu's is all that and a lot more. It's been around for at least 25 years, and is owned and run by a large family from Lebanon. Their menu includes Arab dishes, Moroccan food, Lebanese food, some dishes that are more Greek than anything else, and then some. Wonderful stuff, all of it.
Middle-Eastern food tends to be seasoned with sour things. Lemon juice, sumac powder and yogurt are all commonly found ingredients. Spicing is usually complex and nuanced, though not necessarily hot-spicy. Legumes are used a lot, and lamb and chicken are the most frequently used meats, though beef is used as well.
Tonight's supper was a good example. We all four started with the lentil soup, a dish we love so much that the spouse spent months trying to duplicate the recipe at home. He did a pretty good job of it, actually; if you're interested, it's on the fourth page of the "frugal recipes" thread. The daughter's sig-other was a bit taken aback at first by the dominant lemon/sumac flavor in the soup, but quickly decided he liked it.
We all went in different directions for the main course. I had hummus bel-lammeh, which is spiced ground beef with toasted pine nuts and whole chickpeas over hummus. Hummus, of course, is a mixture of ground chickpeas, tahini (ground sesame seeds), lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. It comes with a side of tabbouleh (comprised of bulgar, chopped parsley and mint, tomatoes and olive oil), and is one of my favorite dishes at LuLu's.
The spouse had Arabic lamb moussaka'a, which is very, very different from the Greek version. Greek mousssaka'a is a layered casserole-type thing with potatoes, eggplant, ground meat (beef and/or lamb), seasonings, a white sauce like a bechamel, and cheese. Arabic moussaka'a is more of a stew; the sauce is a tomato-based one, and there isn't any cheese. It still includes eggplant and other vegetables, came with a side of rice, and the spouse was very happy with his selection.
Daughter had beef shawirma with yalenjee and hummus. The beef shawirma at LuLu's is thin strips of beef cooked in a yogurt-based sauce, very tasty and very rich, topped with sliced onions. Yalenjee are stuffed grape leaves, what you'd call dolmades at a Greek restaurant. They're stuffed with a rice mixture, and here too, the dominant seasoning is lemon juice.
The daughter's sig-other had never been to a Middle-Eastern restaurant before, and was a bit uncertain what to order, but eventually settled on shish taouk with cous-cous, which he liked very much. Shish taouk is chicken breast pieces seasoned with spices and grilled, a good choice for someone who isn't terribly familiar with Middle-Eastern cuisine. The plate came with hummus, and he was rather non-plused by his first bite, as he thought looking at it that it was mashed potatoes. However, after thinking about it a bit, he allowed as how it wasn't too bad as a dip for pita bread.
We were all pretty full after eating dinner, but the prospect of leaving LuLu's without the traditional bite of Arabic baklava was simply unthinkable. So we split a piece four ways. Arabic baklava has the filo dough pastry like the Greek variety, but is less heavily laden with honey. It's still full of nuts and still very sweet, but the honey doesn't drip off your chin when you're finished.
Elston, if you can find a good Middle-Eastern restaurant out there in Maine, give it a shot; I think you'd enjoy it a good deal. Your partner might find it even more of a cultural leap than stuffed cabbage leaves, but then again, he might like it a lot, too. And if you can't find a good place to try in Maine, head on out to Madison the next time you take a vacation, and have a meal at LuLu's!
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Mashed potato, Country gravy, and spinache with balsamic viniger. Time to clean up
