andave's place

Yesterday my uncle's fiance's family invited us to an upscale Lebanese restaurant located right beside a lake.

That meal will probably be one of my favorite memories of this trip to Lebanon. The meal was a mezze, which is a dinner composed of many different foods in small amounts accompanied by talking. It takes three to four hours and you don't pile your food on your plate -- you take a spoonful of something at a time, talk, laugh, give toasts, that sort of thing. Now, between my mom and my research, I knew very well what a mezze was supposed to be.

This blew me away. First of all, it was formal dress, so everyone was dressed really nicely and - get this - in the absolute best of taste. Even I, in my classiest of classic, simple outfits, felt fairly ok about my appearance. Everyone looked stunning, from the host and hostess all the way down to the maitre'd (sp?). Suits. The waiters were in suits. Nothing baggy at all.

The restaurant is called Mhanna's. It overlooks THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA!! Although, I couldn't see very well because it was evening. As it overlooks the water, we got cool breezes blowing in our faces and drying up the sweat of the day (it is majorly hot in Lebanon) Canopies overhead spread out the lighting perfectly, and handsome waiters in spotless dress waited hand and foot on us, even to removing our plates and giving us new ones when we finished whatever taste of a dish we were having. Workers dressed in traditional Lebanese folklore outfits served the coffee after we were finished with all the food. I drank my first cup of true Turkish coffee that night. No sugar or cream but flavored with cardamom. Really really bitter, but I felt so grown up!

And now what I daresay you're all waiting for -- the food. There was at least ten different kinds of dishes, all traditional Lebanese foods worth dying for. Tabbouleh, fettouch, kibbeh, turshi, two kinds of fish, two kinds of bread, sabanagh, casserole, french fries, cheese rolls, vegetables, stuffed grape leaves, mashed potatoes, hummus, zucchini, and many more I can't remember. That's not counting the dessert. It was all heavenly. At a mezze one is supposed to take a little bit of everything. I couldn't, wouldn't because the table was groaning with weight -- we were a lot of people!

The quintessential Lebanese dessert is fruit. At that mezze there was AT LEAST ten kinds of fruit, as well as two different kinds of halawa, turkish delight, jellied eggplants and jellied pumpkin. Yep. The dessert by itself would have been a meal. Figs and loquats and watermelon and plums and apricots and cherries and cantalope and more!

Oh, I tried the national Lebanese alcohol, arak, an anise flavored drink. It's clear, but when you add the water it turns milky. Interesting, but
alcohol is, I think, an acquired taste. At any rate, I had no desire to get drunk in public, so I just took a drink from my mom's cup.

The waiters even called me madam. But my mom says that one does that when unsure if a persobn is married or not. Regardless, that WAS pretty cool.

Cheers to you all!