Middle Eastern food and art...the art was better

Fairouz Restaurant & Gallery
3166 Midway Dr
Ste 102
San Diego, CA 92110
(619) 225-0308

http://alnashashibi.com/

I often use yelp to find new places to try out. The reviews are usually pretty candid and accurate. I was on the hunt for more Mediterranean food and I was very stoked to read about a buffet place in a part of town that I still haven't explored nearly enough: Sports Arena/Midway. The place has been here forever (25 years) and I was a bit surprised to hear about it so late since it seems like something right up my alley. They're in a strip mall (like all good buffets) so they're easily missed.

The yelp community told me that the owner was exceptionally nice and the art on the walls was weird and cool...but the food was lacking. This synopsis was spot on. The buffet was $12/person and you could also order from the menu but, as is often the case in such places, the buffet seems like a much better value, as most of the dishes from the menu are between $9 and $16.

Upon entering, the art is striking. The place is jam-packed full of art and after a short while it becomes obvious that despite the variety in styles, every piece is painted by the same person. The host told me that his brother is the artist and apparently he's been painting for a long time as many of the pieces are dated from the 80s (and just as many are from last year). Some of the pieces are incredibly intricate. Some are realistic, others are abstract, and all of them are quite good.

But the art I'm interested in is on the end of my fork. The buffet has a ton of vegetarian options. There is a variety of hot vegetable dishes, cold salads and decent selection of deserts. My wife, her friend and I stuffed ourselves silly. Unfortunately, there were only a couple of dishes that were really, truly good. The rest of them were either a bit dry or flavorless or both. I think the buffet in general is too ambitious. They've tried to put out too many different dishes and in the process they sit out longer than they should and probably don't allow the chef to pay them their due attention. It also has the effect of forcing me to try everything on the buffet...which is dangerous. The cuisine was (from what I can tell) a mix of Lebanese, Greek and Persian. I think narrowing down the selections to about HALF their current number could drastically improve the quality and enjoyability of the selections.

The chef is the wife of the operation's host, so this is decidedly a family business and super authentic. The host was the most remarkable part of the evening. He was so amazingly friendly that I felt bad for not having discovered his place before. He will talk to you as much as you care to (the place wasn't very busy, but I get the feeling he'd go out of his way to make time to chat no matter how busy they get). He asked if everything was okay EVERY time we went to the buffet. I'm almost uncomfortable with this level of service because no one pays so much attention to the customers these days. It's sad that this exceptional service makes me feel awkward. It should be the standard of any sit-down restaurant.

I think I'd like to hit this place again for lunch to give them a fair chance to serve something fresh with a bit more care put into it. One unusual aspect of the buffet is that it seemed to have very little in common with the selections available via the menu. Not sure if this is a deliberate strategy or not, but I definitely want to see their take on spanikopita (on the menu, but not the buffet). Will report back when we're able to do that.

Vegetarian / Vegan Cooking Club

For some time now, I've been trying to find a casual group of people that I can get together with and learn to cook. Of course, I have a basic need that other cooking groups may only partially fill: I want to cook and eat exclusively vegetarian food. I found a couple Yahoo groups with general San Diego Cooking themes...but they only had about 10-30 people in them and were decidedly defunct looking (no messages in the past couple months). So I decided to start my own group.

We met for the first time this past weekend and though there was only a couple people that attended, we were pretty enthused about the idea of a group that focused on vegetarian cooking. A couple of the people that showed up still "cheated" with meat now and then for different reasons, but they were about 90% vegetarian. I decided not to promote the group too much for fear of too many people coming, but that fear was apparently not very well founded ;^) Now that I have a clearer idea of how many people will come based on how many people SAID they would come (a percentage) I can know how many to invite to get the actual number I want (8-12).

I'll post a few flyers in strategic places (Rancho's, Whole Foods, etc.) and see if I can hit my magic number for the next meeting. Next meeting is slated for Saturday, January 12th @ 4pm at my place in North Park. If you're interested in attending, join the Yahoo group (I'll send out more info, address, etc. via that group): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sdveggiecooks

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European Market and Deli

4135 Park Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92103

619-298-8661

Daily 10 am-5:30 pm

The wife and I were in the mood for something new this weekend but we didn't want to venture too far outside of North Park. We were going to drop by Henry's and pick up some stuff to make sandwiches. Right next to Henry's is this place that I've wanted to check out for some time now. They were small and quaint and I had a feeling they had some good imported cheese and possibly some bread. By the way, I'm still on my quest for bread. I've been to a number of places and found a few recommendations, but I have a few other bakeries I need to check out before writing my complete review. So be patient, it's coming...eventually.

Okay back to the deli. We walked in and it was about as small as it looked from the outside. There's about 5 tables (seating for about 16) inside and a patio with another couple tables. The walls are lined with imported goods (pastas, oils, sauces, etc.) and about half of them are predominantly covered with Greek lettering. Very many of them have no English written on them at all. That's a good sign. To date, I had been going down to Little Italy to get imported goods from the Mona Lisa restaurant. But there's no quick way to get down to Little Italy from North Park and I'm walking more these days, so finding a closer imports place is a huge benefit to me.

As soon as we walked in, a large lady with a thick Greek accent greeted us. I knew we were in the right place. The display case at the front counter had spanikopita, two types of Feta (a French and a Greek...I'd never heard of French feta before) as well as some enormous beans (thought they were Fava since they were so large, but they're a form of mild butter bean). In another case there were trays full of bakalava and other assorted pastries. The first thing I was afraid of was that we would be breaking the bank on what I wanted to be a light lunch. It wasn't obvious where the menus were, but there were two people cooking. We found the menus and were shocked to see that the prices were so reasonable. We got a vegetarian sampler plate for $6 and a veggie pita for $5. That would be pretty good if the serving size were the same as most places, but the sampler plate ended up being about twice as much food as other places' samplers. There was a generous serving of hummus, these giants butter beans, tziziki sauce, a piece of spanikopita, two domales (stuffed grape leaves) and pita. There was too much hummus and not enough pita, but the whole plate was about a pound of food.

The wife didn't like the hummus, but I did. It's a light fluffy bean whip...whereas many places spike it with a lot of garlic and lemon and many leave it a bit chunky. This one was silky smooth and just light and airy. So if you've had a bad experience with hummus in the past, this would be a great place to give it a second shot. The flavor is mild and there's no beanie (or tahini) aftertaste. The spanikopita was about perfect (they charge $1.50 per piece at the case and it's a decent size). Kyla (the wife...have I formally introduced her?) was particularly in love with the tziziki sauce. It was much richer and creamier than any we've had before.

My pita wrap was also quite good and pretty much what you'd find at any Greek cafe: tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and lettuce...but there were two things that made it above average they put a spicy feta mix on top (they call it Feta Diablou) and I'm pretty sure the vinaigrette Was made in house. The second (okay third...who's counting?) thing that made it great was the pita. I'm pretty sure they make their own pita on site. It was very fresh and there was still flour on the outside of it that you could feel on your hands. They have piles of pita bread stacked up at the front of the display case and it's better than any other store-bought pita I've had before, so if you're planning a Greek night and don't want the hassle of making your own pita (it's a good deal of work) this is the only substitute I've found worth buying.

There's also lamb and many other traditional meat dishes. But I was pleased to find a few choices for vegetarian on their very very small menu. They also cater (I think that's where they do most of their business) and their menu mentions you can go "off menu" when making a catering order. I wonder if I can convince my employer to hook that up...probably not...

The service was also top notch. The place is family owned and operated and you know it as soon as you step in the door as you're greeted warmly. The lady there might as well be the Greek mother you never had but always wanted (why can't I be from an ethnic family dammit?).

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Yves - Chicken and Beef Skewers

This is a quick review of a newish product offered by Yves (I think it's pronounced like EE-veez). You may be familiar with the Yves brand for their mock meats in the deli section (refrigerator case, NOT freezer case like most mock meats). They have a nice variety of cold cuts (ham, bologna, turkey, salami, pepperoni) as well as some other items (on their website but that I have yet to find in stores). But their latest creation are called skewers. They're kabobs, really: pre-seasoned, lumpy (in a good way) and hearty.

So far, I've only found the skewers at Whole Foods. They were on sale until this weekend but they're still pretty affordable at $3.79. Now you only get two skewers per package, but these things are hearty and flavorful. What you'll want to do is stretch them a bit by throwing them in a nice pita (you can get some great pita at the European Market and Deli) and maybe throw some tziziki sauce on there too. The chciken comes flavored in a lemon pepper sauce (no messy sauce in the package, it's just baked right in there) and the beef is in a pretty normal BBQ flavor (again, no sauce. if you want sauce, get those GardenBurger ribs).

Preparation could be any kind of grill really. The wife put these on the Foreman Grill (our favorite household appliance) and they work out really well. They have a very strong flavor to them so no additional flavor is needed. You could put some fresh cracked pepper on them if you really wanted to. One of these will fill up a hungry person. They're a continuous stick of mock meat, so after grilling, you may want to pull it off the skewer and break it into chunks, if you're going to serve it with something. It pulls apart beautifully, and that's why I mostly recommend these items. The texture is better than any other mock meat I've had (and I've had a lot). I like the Quorn brand specifically for their texture and they use egg and mushroom components to get that texture just right, but their flavor is often a bit off. These excel in flavor and texture. If I can complain about anything, I think it's that they overdid it on the spices. It's just a little too concentrated and doesn't allow the room for people to add any of their own flavor to the meat. The trade off, of course, is that they're super easy to prepare. They're not froxen, just refrigerated, so that means you have the option to take them off the skewers, break them up into chunks (something I think they should do for you) and insert onions, peppers, tomatoes, etc. between the pieces.

For more info (and some recipes) check out the Yves site.

NOTE TO VEGANS the chicken skewers contain egg components and both packages mention that they are produced in a facility that uses eggs, so the chicken will probably be out for you. Depending on how strict you are in your diet, the beef may also be a little too likely to have trace eggs amounts in them.