eG Foodblog: Hassouni (2012) - Beirut and beyond

[Kim Shook]

What a fantastic blog, Chris! I am so looking forward to this week. Like Andie, I adore Lebanese food. In Richmond, where I live, all the best ‘Greek’ restaurants are owned and run by Lebanese folks. I had a Lebanese friend who once quizzed me on my favorite ‘Greek’ restaurants here and delighted in letting me know that they were all Lebanese owned! We have a wonderful Lebanese food festival here in the spring run by the Maronite Catholic church, and it is our favorite food festival in the area! I really loved your breakfast – once I found a place that sold labne, I was in heaven! Best stuff on earth!

[christine007]

Now, I could be in the wrong culture, but do you sit on the floor and eat with your hands?

I'm not sure.

My high school girlfried was Lebanese and when we went there, her mom would get so mad if we refused to eat. We were served on a tablecloth on the floor, and God help you if you didn't stuff yourself.

Edited February 28, 2012 by christine007 (log)

[nikkib]

Kefraya and ksara are probably the two highest producing wineries and from experience people tend to fall into one or other camp ( despite the gave they are actually pretty similar) of the newer wineries, massya (in particular their arak) is worth trying as is Ixsir who are rapidly expanding. Musar whilst being well known is very dissimilar to the rest of Lebanese wines, using varieties such as merweh and obeideh, only really found in the Bekaa. Domaine de Baal at the higher end of the market produces consistently good wines and Karams cloud 9 is fascinating as it is so different from other Lebanese wines (much more floral than the more common blanc de blanc from ksara, kefraya etc) hassouni you should contact massaya and see if they have space on Sunday at brunch in their winery - not far from chtoura. Open wine and arak and a small but delicious selection of mezzo and grills. *snap out of it Nikki*

[nikkib]

Oh and marsyas also do very good wines (similar price to domaine de Baal) so really pretty hard to go wrong where Lebanese wines are concerned...

[Hassouni]

Good morning, bonjour, sabah al-kheir!

To respond to posts since last night:

Christine - we definitely don't eat on the floor!

Nikki - you know far more about Leb wine than I do. My Saidawi friend asked me if there's somewhere I'd like to go next weekend that I haven't been, I may just suggest the Massaya vineyard! I like Massaya wine, very reasonably priced, but their 'araq is rather expensive....

Now, a quick update from last night. After the deliciousness of murgat ardhishoki, we gathered in the family room for talk of my new car, funny videos, and traditional after dinner munchies (following the fruit served at the dinner table). There were some mixed nuts and some frankly dry looking dates* but there was also a box from the relatively famous shop Halwachy Tofiq, from Iraqi Kurdistan, the city of Sulaimaniya, I think. (Halwa-chi = Iraqi Arabic/Kurdish/Turkish for someone who makes/sells sweets and halwa). Their specialty is mann al-sima, which literally means "manna from heaven." It's a type of nougat, I suppose, very similar to the Iranian gaz, but I believe what differentiates it and makes it mann al-sima is that the main ingredient is resin from the tamarisk tree. I don't have internet as I write this, but I believe tamarisk resin is thought by some biblical historians as one of the sources for the mana mentioned in Exodus. HOWEVER, the box did not have mann al-sima, it had something I'd never seen before:

When I asked what it was, I was told it was walnuts (which I could see), and grapes! I guess the grapes are turned into a soft fruit leather and wrapped around the walnuts. The pic is after I took a bit, but the stuff in the box looked like it was all rolled and sliced, makizushi style. Pretty good, given that it wasn't the chocolate I thought it was!

Breakfast today at the hotel was the same as yesterday's, except now we were armed with ground coffee we picked up from Caffè Nero at Heathrow, a French press and a baggie of za'tar from the flat, and the bread from Bread Republic:

Labne without za'tar seems wrong, so here we go, the classic combo of labne, zeit w za'tar (zeit = oil, in this case olive oil - zeit zeitoun):

The real Lebanese thing is to make a wrap of labne called 'aroos labne (oddly, a "labne bride"), which can contain all the things in the following picture, though usually without za'tar. I tried to make my own 'aroos, with labne, za'tar, cucumbers, mint, tomatoes, and olives, but the wedge of bread wasn't wide enough to get a tight roll. Still delicious though.

Finally, to answer the question about how big a bean of foul is, here's one next to a pretty averagely medium-sized olive:

Tonight I'm going out for dinner for proper Lebanese food. I'm going to angle my friends for 'Abd al-Wahhab, unless there's any place you Beirut aficionados can recommend that I may not have been to.

[Hassouni]

What a fantastic blog, Chris! I am so looking forward to this week. Like Andie, I adore Lebanese food. In Richmond, where I live, all the best ‘Greek’ restaurants are owned and run by Lebanese folks. I had a Lebanese friend who once quizzed me on my favorite ‘Greek’ restaurants here and delighted in letting me know that they were all Lebanese owned! We have a wonderful Lebanese food festival here in the spring run by the Maronite Catholic church, and it is our favorite food festival in the area! I really loved your breakfast – once I found a place that sold labne, I was in heaven! Best stuff on earth!

By the way, I'll let you and everyone in on a secret. Labne is VERY easy to make at home. Just line a sieve with a coffee filter or cheesecloth, put some yogurt in it, place it over a pot, and let it drain overnight. Voila! When you buy it, it often has cream and other stuff in it to make it extra thick and creamy. Homemade labne is rather different (and healthier, I think!)

[nikkib]

Yes the arak is expensive but I do enjoy it as a treat, tend to order the local home made stuff on restaurant menus when I'm out of Beirut and am yet to be disappointed... The brunches at massaya are really lovely and any excuse to head into the bekaa is good enough for me! You should try to check out lux at some point, just opened down near the port - I mentioned it in my notes from my last trip, not Lebanese food so get your fill of that first! Have a great day and what I know will be a delicious dinner at abdel wahab. If it fits into your plans, tawlet are doing their Friday lunch/dinner in collaboration with chateau marsyas which should be fun. You should check out souk el tayab on Saturday down by Beirut souks too - especially for jars of pickles/honey or zataar to bring home.

[Hassouni]

Right so, here's a Lebanese cucumber:

And here are pics of the flat.

Gas-canister powered stove and oven, with ever present pot of Turkish coffee (in Lebanese Arabic: rakwe, in Iraqi Arabic: dalla, in Turkish, cezve. This is NOT an ibriq! Ibriq means pitcher)

Sink and prep area

More prep area

Overview from laundry room

All important tea cabinet, featuring Ahmad loose Ceylon and Ahmed English Tea No. 1 bags. Plus some yucky nescafe intruding among the arsenal of tea glasses.

Spice cabinet (I'm actually surprised how empty it is)

found on the counter: Fresh young fava beans (known in Iraqi Arabic is baagilla). This is sort of what foul looks like when it's young, I guess.

Carrot juicer (used daily)

Fridge and bread counter

Contents of fridge. Looks like cheese, various fruits, cake, cactus fruit, and fresh lemon juice (in the pitcher), among other things. Also surprised how empty this is. In the door, mostly jams, and fresh milk (guess I was wrong about that).

Freezer - mostly bread and ice cream

New additions to the balcony are small kumquat and lemon trees:

[Darienne]

Is that aluminum foil lining the burners on the stove? Thanks.

[SylviaLovegren]

Wow. That artichoke stew looks and sounds fabulous. I want to try it, along with the crispy rice. Isn't that rice crust also popular in China?

Looks like the cucumber is an actual cucumber. Many of the "Persian cucumbers" are actually snake melons and not botanically cucumbers, so I was curious.

[Hassouni]

Is that aluminum foil lining the burners on the stove? Thanks.

Yep

Wow. That artichoke stew looks and sounds fabulous. I want to try it, along with the crispy rice. Isn't that rice crust also popular in China?

Looks like the cucumber is an actual cucumber. Many of the "Persian cucumbers" are actually snake melons and not botanically cucumbers, so I was curious.

Rice crust is sort of a byproduct of some claypot rice in China and Vietnam as well as dolsot bibimbap, but as I understand it, in East Asia, it's sort of incidental. In Iraq and Iran it's sort of the most desired part of the meal!

I think snake melons are a different kind of thing entirely (I just looked it up), the Persian cucumbers I've seen in the States look pretty similar to what I showed.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Hassouni (log)

[Kim Shook]

What a fantastic blog, Chris! I am so looking forward to this week. Like Andie, I adore Lebanese food. In Richmond, where I live, all the best ‘Greek’ restaurants are owned and run by Lebanese folks. I had a Lebanese friend who once quizzed me on my favorite ‘Greek’ restaurants here and delighted in letting me know that they were all Lebanese owned! We have a wonderful Lebanese food festival here in the spring run by the Maronite Catholic church, and it is our favorite food festival in the area! I really loved your breakfast – once I found a place that sold labne, I was in heaven! Best stuff on earth!

By the way, I'll let you and everyone in on a secret. Labne is VERY easy to make at home. Just line a sieve with a coffee filter or cheesecloth, put some yogurt in it, place it over a pot, and let it drain overnight. Voila! When you buy it, it often has cream and other stuff in it to make it extra thick and creamy. Homemade labne is rather different (and healthier, I think!)

I do this when I have time, but for a quick fix our local Lebanese owned deli has fine labne.

[Hassouni]

Went to two Beirut landmarks today:

The first, near Downtown, is Falafel M. Sahyoun, arguably the most famous falafel shop in the city, except it's two shops. Founded by Mustafa Sahyoun in 1933, decades later his two sons got into a feud and split the shop in two. They both have the same name, same menu, as far as I can tell the same recipes, but they're now two separate entities and both have fiercely loyal followers. And they're literally next door to each other. I can't tell the difference at all, and consider their products identical, one of the two best falafels in the city (the other being Arax in the Armenian neighborhood of Burj Hammoud) - One is uphill, one is downhill, I go to whichever M Sahyoun happens to be closest to the direction I'm coming from. Today it was the downhill one.

Got a "Sandwich Extra" which has falafel, mint and parsley, radish, tomatoes, and tarator

With some pickled peppers on the side...

And 'ayran, a yogurt drink

The sandwiches aren't huge, and I could easily have two, but I'm going out for a big dinner tonight...

Found myself in Hamra later at Café Younes, a roaster and coffehouse dating back to the French Mandate era. This place is SERIOUS about coffee, and they have arguably the best Western style coffee in the city - French press, espresso-based, and others.

I wanted a Turkish, which they didn't have, but they did have espresso flavored with cardamom:

Edited February 28, 2012 by Hassouni (log)

[FrogPrincesse]

The real Lebanese thing is to make a wrap of labne called 'aroos labne (oddly, a "labne bride"), which can contain all the things in the following picture, though usually without za'tar. I tried to make my own 'aroos, with labne, za'tar, cucumbers, mint, tomatoes, and olives, but the wedge of bread wasn't wide enough to get a tight roll. Still delicious though.

I never thought of a labne wrap as breakfast food, but now I want one! It looks delicious.

[Chris Amirault]

In your opinion, what makes for the best falafel?

[sheepish]

This is great. I was in Lebanon about 10 years ago. Stayed in Beirut and drove around. Never been scared driving before or since :-) Road markings and traffic lights were definitely just there to trick foreign drivers into taking notice of them. Either that red Merc taxi is unusual or the drivers have been replacing the smashed off door mirrors since I was there.

Any chance of a trip to Byblos for a spot of fish?

I recall eating most evenings at a smart row of cafes and restaurants that must have been in walking distance from the Virgin Megastore, because I know we parked there a couple of times. Too much mezze every night. Pretty vague I know, I've been looking on a map but can't work out where they must have been.

Will keep watching, and checking out the price of flights there.

[kayb]

Loving this blog.

What's tarator?

And is it heretical to eat falafel the way I love it, with labneh, sliced cucumbers, za'atar and hummus? I just love the combination of tastes and textures.

[ChefCrash]

Hassouni, I see your bonjour and raise you one. Bonjourain 3zizi. I'm loving this blog, thanks for taking the time on such a short trip.

The view from your apartment looks like it could be at the very end (west side) of Hamra street in the old lighthouse neighborhood.

If you're in Hamra again around lunch time, you may want to try the "Istambouli" restaurant, nothing Turkish about it, they don't even serve Turkish coffee, but they have killer Lamb fat kebabs (lieh) . It is located on the street that runs parallel to Hamra on the south side. The restaurant is across the street from the Commodore Hotel and a little to the east, sort of towards the Barbar complex you spoke of earlier.

Have fun.

[nikkib]

Saba7o! Will you be watching the football (soccer) tonight? Crunch qualifier against UAE....

[Hassouni]

In your opinion, what makes for the best falafel?

Very fresh, light, thin, chewy Arabic bread; moist, light, and crispy falafel balls, and bright, fresh toppings. As much as I like Amsterdam-style falafel, that tends to be a gut bomb. Lebanese style is a wrap, by the way, not stuffed into a pocket.

This is great. I was in Lebanon about 10 years ago. Stayed in Beirut and drove around. Never been scared driving before or since :-) Road markings and traffic lights were definitely just there to trick foreign drivers into taking notice of them. Either that red Merc taxi is unusual or the drivers have been replacing the smashed off door mirrors since I was there.

Any chance of a trip to Byblos for a spot of fish?

I recall eating most evenings at a smart row of cafes and restaurants that must have been in walking distance from the Virgin Megastore, because I know we parked there a couple of times. Too much mezze every night. Pretty vague I know, I've been looking on a map but can't work out where they must have been.

Will keep watching, and checking out the price of flights there.

Yes, driving and even walking here will steel you against everything in the future! Fish in Byblos is a possibility, or alternatively Saida or elsewhere. I've done both quite a lot, but I love both Saida and Jbeil (Byblos), so if push comes to shove I don't mind going back.

That smart row of cafés was the official Downtown area, renovated over the last 15 years and the center of Beirut's revived international tourism. That whole area was either levelled or completely riddled with bullets and bomb blasts from the civil war. I like downtown, there are, despite the obviousness of it, some pretty good places to eat, smoke, or have a drink, but it's best in nice weather, and is NOT nice weather now...

Loving this blog.

What's tarator?

And is it heretical to eat falafel the way I love it, with labneh, sliced cucumbers, za'atar and hummus? I just love the combination of tastes and textures.

Tarator is a sauce. In the original Turkish context it involves walnuts, but in Lebanon it's mostly tahina and lemon based.

You sound like you're combining a labne sandwich with a falafel sandwich with an odd addition of hummus. I don't think anybody will chase you out of town for it, but it's definitely strange!

Hassouni, I see your bonjour and raise you one. Bonjourain 3zizi. I'm loving this blog, thanks for taking the time on such a short trip.

The view from your apartment looks like it could be at the very end (west side) of Hamra street in the old lighthouse neighborhood.

If you're in Hamra again around lunch time, you may want to try the "Istambouli" restaurant, nothing Turkish about it, they don't even serve Turkish coffee, but they have killer Lamb fat kebabs (lieh) . It is located on the street that runs parallel to Hamra on the south side. The restaurant is across the street from the Commodore Hotel and a little to the east, sort of towards the Barbar complex you spoke of earlier.

Have fun.

By the lighthouse neighborhood, you mean sort of Caracas or the hill above Manara? Our place is actually in Ain al-Tineh, tahit min Verdun, hadd beit Nabbouhi....I know Istambouli, but I've never been there. I have to say, the thought of eating just liyeh is kind of not that pleasant!

[Hassouni]

So, here's my catch-up post from tea last night to breakfast this morning, with some of my favorite stuff in the middle.

Tea yesterday evening:

The cake was quite good, it was dense and chewy, but moist with crisp edges. Very nice

Sadly, the tea never got to my desired strength (like I said, I don't make ANYTHING here). The color you see is just too light.

And now, dinner. To Abdel Wahhab, possibly the best upscale traditional Lebanese restaurant in Beirut, and my absolute favorite. The place is enormous:

Went with three friends and we ordered all our favorite mezze:

Fattoush, olives, labne with garlic, waraq 'enab (grape leaves/dolma), a standard plate of garnishes (radishes, onions, hot pepper, mint), and shanklish, a seriously aged cheese crumbled and mixed with olive oil, onions, tomato, and mint

Closeup of the waraq 'enab. These actually were not as good as they usually are here. They tasted great, but were not structurally sound - by which I mean they fell apart.

Kibbe Urfaliye - spiced raw ground lamb and burghul from Urfa (Şanlıurfa - Turkey, very similar to Turkish çiğ köfte). A variation on the well known kibbe neyye, with pine nuts, fried red onion, and parsley. This was AWESOME.

Fried chicken livers (meh, not a fan of liver, but my friend loves it). Below it, fried halloum cheese, also awesome. Seriously, seared cheese, it doesn't get much better!

R'aa'aat (rkakat) jibne, known to the rest of the world as Sigara Böreği, or in Iraq, Bourag. Fried cheese stuffed filo rolls. Mmmmm. Behind it, hummus b'lahme (hummus and meat, I think it was 'aawarma, or lamb confit), and batata ma' kizbara, fried cubes of potatoes with chopped coriander, garlic, and other spices. Lebanese LOVE their potatoes. Even traditional restaurants have fries on the menu. These are a much better option.

Closeup of the hummus and potatoes

Fresh bread. There are two kinds of Arabic bread here. The ultra thin, chewy kind, which always comes pre-packaged from the store, and this, which restaurants offer, the fresh-baked kind, which is thicker and softer, but when hot, quite delicious!

We opted out of coffee and desserts, because just up the street is my other favorite place in Beirut, Al-Falamanki. A sprawling old house with a huge garden (closed for winter), it's open 24/7, has really good food, and probably the best argile in Beirut. What did we do? Got more arak, two argiles, then Turkish coffee and, Lebanon's other great item of culinary fusion - a nutella and halawe saaj.

Here's the menu

The 'arak (or as Iraqis say, 'arag)

The saaj. It's sort of like a wider, much crispier crepe. filled as I said, with nutella and halawe, which is a soft, spreadable version of what most of the world knows as halwa.

Ze coffee:

And that was that. I could literally stay at Falamanki for hours on end, but my friends all had work the next day.

This morning, breakfast at home for a change:

Left to right: bread, coffee, marmalade, strawberry jam, a bunch of cheeses, including shari, za'tar, more jam, olive oil, a KILLER plain omelette, olives, and a plate of mint, tomato, and cucumber. Not shown: ubiquitous labne.

And the Turkish coffee I made:

[nikkib]

Abdel wahab & falamankis :-) ahhh what a great night, glad you enjoyed it! I always used to go to the blue sahyoun falafel shop, not sure where I heard that one was best but it sure is good there. What a lovely week so far - mercy ktir & shukran!

[Hassouni]

Yep, blue is downhill, red is uphill. I honestly can't tell a difference though, I'm sure they use the same recipe their father gave them. For anyone that's interested, on Bourdain's second, more successeful trip to Beirut, he went to one of the Sahyouns.

[LindaK]

I want a place like Al-Falamanki in my neighborhood, too!

That's quite a menu. I notice that among the salads are a couple featuring "wild thyme." What kind of a salad green is that, it isn't just the herb, is it? Also, what do you get when you order "sizzling birds"?

[Hassouni]

I want a place like Al-Falamanki in my neighborhood, too!

That's quite a menu. I notice that among the salads are a couple featuring "wild thyme." What kind of a salad green is that, it isn't just the herb, is it? Also, what do you get when you order "sizzling birds"?

I've been wondering if falamanki wants to franchise in DC...

It's hard to know without seeing the Arabic menu, but I suspect the wild thyme is exactly what it sounds like. So are the birds. Almost guaranteed they're grilled sparrows or, less likely, something like quail