i tried.....

I love Italian food. I love Chinese food. I love Greek food. Hey, I just love food so I thought at the very least I would like Middle Eastern food. I was wrong.

I went out to eat dinner with some friends at a local Mediterranean restaurant that had come highly recommended. From before we even got seated I knew we were in trouble, at least I was. I felt like a traitor. Like any one of the waiters could have been flying a plane through a building by tomorrow morning. If I had thought about it I would have worn an American flag draped around my neck. But I am so politically incorrect these days, that I thought I would just give this place a chance since the Greek diner we eat at regularly had grown boring. The place was big and airy and filled with mostly middle easterners which if true be told, it is always a good sign if the regulars are of the same culture. While it didn’t seem to bother the others, it gave me the creeps.

The menu was large and varied as was the wine list. The waiter (more Russian looking than Middle Eastern) was tall and dumb and spoke little English. We tried to order drinks. Mine was easy. A glass of Merlot. Where it got trickier was when he was asked what liquor they had. My friend got a vodka and cranberry…score one for the waiter. But when a Bloody Mary was ordered, well…we lost him. I think he heard the word bloody and started picturing the 72 virgins he was promised. The makings of a Bloody Mary explained we moved onto the appetizer. Let me just say, it was delicious. It had a bunch of unrecognizable things pulverized into an even more unrecognizable paste that you ate with delicious bread that you broke rather than sliced. Chick peas, eggplant, and green olives became hummus, Baba Gannouj and something called Fattoush. There were two dipping sauces where the ketchup should have been …..a cucumber yogurt dipping sauce with dill and feta cheese and a spicy tahini sauce and they were NASTY! At least I thought so.

As we figured out what we were having for our main course it dawned on me that I don’t like lamb or seafood so the only thing left on the menu was chicken. No pasta, no BLT, no tuna on Rye. It was about now I started missing my boring Greek diner and the tub of old pickles. Everyone ordered and I got the chicken kebobs which I assumed were like, well shish-kebobs. (What is a shish anyway?) The meal came and there were chunks of chicken, on top of raw onions, on top of a tomato slice, and a burnt hot pepper over a bed of flavorless rice. I guess in the middle east they don’t believe in giving you the shish with your kebobs since I didn’t even get a stick. Dry, tasteless, boring.

Dessert seemed more promising. The sweet desserts, I had heard were to die for. Got that one right. If this didn’t send me into a diabetic coma nothing ever would. The waiter brought a tray of desserts to look at. Halvah, marble halvah, rugala, a rugala assortment, something he said was rugala but wasn’t, and some flat thing that sounded like he said was chocolate cake. That would have been the safe bet, but since I felt like I had already abandoned my country I would try the rugala. I got the ‘something he said was rugala‘….which was basically shredded wheat soaked in way too much honey with pecans and apricot jam. Oh and a dusting of pistachio nuts that made the whole thing look like it had mold on it. And coffee. The coffee was great and the dessert made my teeth hurt, but I ate most of it anyway, just out of principle of course.

We paid the bill and left the undeserving waiter a decent tip so that he kept serving tables and didn’t go and join some sleeper cell. Next weekend I am going back to my Greek diner, where I can order a three egg omelet, waffles and home fries no matter what time of day it is. Opa!