Moustache

[Pan]

Tonight, on the strength of recommendations from a longstanding non-eGulleteer friend, and also from Suvir, Simon Majumdar, and Tommy in the West Village Restaurants under $30 thread, I finally went to the 90 Bedford St. location of this restaurant, with a friend. The food was just splendid, and this restaurant has to be among the best values in New York.

We each started with lentil soup ($3.50), which was a delicious and light puree and made with wonderful caramelized fried onions, really superior. We also shared a hummos platter ($4) with a slice of pita ($1). The hummos was outstanding, with a wonderful fresh taste and plenty of lemon juice (also a lot of olive oil, in the center of the plate), and their pita is very interesting because it comes puffed up and has a light texture.

We then shared a lahambajin ($7.50) and a seafood pitza ($10). The lahambajin was incredible! Its description in the menu as "Mideastern pitza with lamb, onions, tomatoes, parsley and spices" doesn't come close to describing the miraculous alchemy of this dish. It's made from great ingredients, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Also, the crust is crunchy. By contrast, the seafood pitza is merely good. It is tasty and made from good ingredients, but because it has shrimps on it, it can't be cooked very long and the crust is, therefore, softer and can't attain a state of crunchiness.

Having had such an outstanding meal until then, I couldn't resist ordering a dessert of Basboussa ("Semolina cake with yogurt and honey," with the yogurt and honey baked into the cake; $3). A sizeable piece of this delectable cake came. It had a nice consistency that reminded my dining partner of good cornbread, getting moister toward the center, and its taste was a subtle blend. I'm really not doing it justice, but it was very pleasurable. Matthew liked his taste of cake so much that he ordered his own piece of it, shooting his Atkins diet to Hell for the night.

The only thing just a little lame about the meal was that the mint tea ($2) was a little weak and should have had more mint taste.

The total bill was $42 and change before tip.

This place easily belongs on a top-20 list of inexpensive or informal restaurants in New York, and I will reference this review in a post on that thread.

[Eric_Malson]

Interesting....I, too, went to Moustache in the West Village for the very first time a couple of weeks ago, after it had been highly recommended to me several times from different sources. And my experience was....rather different.

For really cheap food, it's pretty good.

The pitas, I have to say, were outstanding--the best part of the meal, by far. The spinach and chick pea salad was also quite nice. For me, the hummos was mediocre at best, as was everything else I tried--the leg of lamb sandwich, the merguez sandwich, falafel, other salads. The baby lamb lamb ribs looked very good--I wish I had ordered them--but I was not offered a taste. They didn't look good enough to get me to go back, however.

I have to admit...I'm spoiled. I lived near a hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop Lebanese restaurant in Cleveland that was (is) the most amazing Middle Eastern restaurant in which I have eaten to date. Nothing I have tried anywhere else comes close, with the sole exception of a joint in Yonkers (not really feasible for city-dwellers without a car, unfortunately....). And it's probably not even possible for a family-run Middle Eastern place to make it, financially, in a high-rent area like Manhattan (and family-run seems to be the common denominator of all the Middle Eastern restaurants I've tried that serve food I think of as good).

It's a shame about Moustache.....I really wanted to like it.

[Pan]

I can understand where you're coming from. For example, Restaurant Malaysia in Flushing would be a revelation to many people, but in Malaysia, the place would be mediocre. But for me, not having been to the Lebanese place in Cleveland, I found Moustache fantastic.

[juuceman]

i've got to side with eric on this one.. i've eaten in the east village location about a dozen times and brought in their food about twice that many times.. living down the block from them, it was a great last minute kind of spot, and the garden in the back is nice.. having since moved away, i've never craved it nor hae i travelled back for their pretty much unique food..

i love the fact that the pita comes freshly baked, from the oven to the table.. their baba and hummous was always good.. i liked the merguez sandwich and the feta and egg pastry.. and the ribs are good.. all in all,the food is pretty solid here..

i guess the reason i've never gone back is the lack of atmosphere the east village location has.. tables are piled on top of each other, but there's not the buzz you'd expect such a configuration to achieve, a la il bagatto, frank, flea market.. maybe the west village locale is different??

that said, i'd like to check out their other place, the one with the ~$30 price fixe multi-course meal, whose name i can never remember..

[Pan]

Mamlouk, I suppose? Moustache had cards for the place. 211 E. 4 St., (212) 529-3477, "Reservations suggested."

I've looked in and it looks nice but the menu looked expensive. I don't remember seeing that prix fixe, though. As I recall, main dishes were around $20 apiece, if I'm not confusing it with some other place around here.

I haven't been to the East Village location of Moustache, but some remarks in the West Village Restaurants under $30 thread were to the effect that the West Village location is nicer.

I have to say I like Il Bagatto for the food and drinks but not the "buzz." I wish the place were a bit quieter and a lot less crowded. What do you really mean by "buzz"? Not that you want to yell across the table, right?

[rstarobi]

Interesting....I, too, went to Moustache in the West Village for the very first time a couple of weeks ago, after it had been highly recommended to me several times from different sources. And my experience was....rather different.

For really cheap food, it's pretty good.

The pitas, I have to say, were outstanding--the best part of the meal, by far. The spinach and chick pea salad was also quite nice. For me, the hummos was mediocre at best, as was everything else I tried--the leg of lamb sandwich, the merguez sandwich, falafel, other salads. The baby lamb lamb ribs looked very good--I wish I had ordered them--but I was not offered a taste. They didn't look good enough to get me to go back, however.

I have to admit...I'm spoiled. I lived near a hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop Lebanese restaurant in Cleveland that was (is) the most amazing Middle Eastern restaurant in which I have eaten to date. Nothing I have tried anywhere else comes close, with the sole exception of a joint in Yonkers (not really feasible for city-dwellers without a car, unfortunately....). And it's probably not even possible for a family-run Middle Eastern place to make it, financially, in a high-rent area like Manhattan (and family-run seems to be the common denominator of all the Middle Eastern restaurants I've tried that serve food I think of as good).

It's a shame about Moustache.....I really wanted to like it.

Eric, could you tell us more about the place in Yonkers?

[Eric_Malson]

The place in Yonkers is:

Ya Hala Restaurant

326 S. Broadway

914-476-4200

Everything I've had has been pretty spectacular. Excellent standards--hummos (with whole chickpeas mixed in), baba ganouj, tabbouleh. They even have labneh (the sort-of cream cheese made by draining the whey off yogurt), though it's not on the menu. It's served with a pool of olive oil on a plate with some slices of cheese and tomato. Okay, I concede the pitas are better at Moustache, since they're fresh and hot there.

Ya Hala also has the best falafel I've had in NY (second only to....you guessed it)--light, the ground bean mixture not too green (this is a matter of taste), and of course freshly fried to order. One of my other starter faves, moojadara (a mixture of lentils and rice with crispy fried onions) is also excellent.

The shawarma is beautifully seasoned, and I can't imagine it being much better. Same goes for the kefta kebab. There are daily specials, too, usually roasts or simmered dishes involving lamb (these tend to sell out, so get there early).

Also not on the menu is fattoosh, the salad of lettuce, tomato, onions (and cucumber? Can't remember) and pieces of toasted pita tossed in some sort of vinaigrette. I don't know how they season it, but it's amazing....I always eat multiple plates of this, and I HATE salad! (If you ask the owner and you've ordered more than one entree, he'll usually just take the salad that would normally come with the entrees and put it into a separate bowl and make fattoosh out of it. Believe me, it's worth requesting!)

I'm beginning to sound like a shill here, but....so be it. Even the baklava is several cuts above the ordinary. There are always several different kinds from which to choose, along with other pastries on display in the case by the kitchen. Everything I've tried has been excellent. I can't tell you how many times I've ordered baklava after a Middle Eastern meal and had it be just plain blah or even--how do they accomplish this?--chalky. Not here.

It's quite informal....lots of families here. And considering the high quality, unbelievably cheap.

Ya Hala website

[Mister_Cutlets]

I am a reluctant fan of Moustache...their phyllo, egg, and cheese roll is one of the best things you can get for under $4 in New York, esp. if they leave it in the oven long enough for the cheese to melt. (It's best to get it to go and make it at home in a toaster oven.)

Of course, I wouldn't have gone there if all they served was hummus; their lamb ribs are a hard-to-find treat, although they are more like breast filets than ribs. But they're delicious, and you can eat one of those grains as an app to "scour the pipes." Moustache's fresh lemonade is good too. I like moustache...