- A common question is what is the difference between Lebanese food and Syrian food.
The answer is Lebanese food is more skewed towards vegetables dishes and Syrian Food towards meat (mainly Lamb) dishes.
- The second question is what is the difference between Aleppo food and Damascus food.
The short answer is Aleppo food is miles more sophisticated.
In this instance, this is a Damascus food type table away from the standard fair you get in restaurants being them Lebanese - Syrian or Levantine.
We start with the ubiquitous pickles and olives:
Pickled garlic - cucumbers - green olives - Turnips - green peppers - black olives - cabbage leaves.
- A famous Damascus appetizer is called Harak Esbaoh which means burned fingers.
Lentils cooked in Tamarind sauce and mixed with Pomegranate seeds - Fried onions and garlic and flat Arabic bread and dressed with EVOO.
It looks a bit messy as someone could not wait and mixed it up before I had the chance to take a pic.
- Mutabal special edition or whatever you wish to call it.
It is the basic Aubergine dip with Tahineh - garlic - EVOO and dressed with a spicy tomato sauce using Aleppo pepper and fried pine nuts. A variant is to add fried Lamb meat to the mix.
- Chicken Liver with Pomegranate Molasses (common dish to the Levant)
- Sharhat Mutafaeyh
Grilled Lamb steak fillet with garlic - lemon juice and tomato + Aleppo pepper paste.
- Izmirl Kabab which is Lamb mince with Arabic spices mixed with white unsalted cheese....deliciousness.
- Grilled Kibbeh balls on a skewer (de-skewered)......just luv it
