On Saturday I went to a Middle Eastern restaurant in my area that has received stellar reviews and I have to say that I’m glad I went. I tried several things that I had never had before and I loved them all!
Baba Ghanoush
Labneh
Tabouli
Halloumi
I’m assuming we have others here who have enjoyed Middle Eastern cuisine? I think I’m already hooked.
My wife is vegetarian. We eat a lot of Middle Eastern and Asian dishes in this house.
You haven’t lived until you have had a proper Turkish kebab. There was a little restaurant, just around the road from us in Canberra, that did awesome takeaway kebabs and pide (Turkish pizza) and their desserts, especially the baklava were the best. The big surprise was that they also made cannolis to die for!
This is a longshot. But i remember eating a kebab in the business district of Canberra (on a random night out on the ■■■■) and it was queued out the door and absolutely bloody amazing.
I also somehow managed to both blag a job that night with a kiwi who ran a construction company in Melbourne running B-doubles AND sweet talk a lovely little aussie girl into the sack.
One of my more successful evenings. I really liked Canberra
One of the advantages we have here in Germany is that the Turkish immigrants (and a few others) brought all their great food with them.
We have great kebab here.
I like a freshly made Döner kebab or a Dürüm (a Turkish burrito if you will).
I also enjoy Pide a lot, many variants of it. Like its cousin the pizza you can put a lot of different things on it.
My favourites are the one with cheese and spinach, and the other one is with Sucuk, which is a Turkish sausage, a bit similar to Salami, made with garlic. Delicious! Sucuk is also great when you just throw it onto a grill.
Lahmacun is also very diverse, a piece of flat bread with minced meat spread on it, and then something else on top. Sometimes rolled like a Dürüm so you can eat it while walking.
The other thing I really enjoy are Falafel, I regularly make them myself. You just need to be careful to really cook them properly, as they are literally poisonous when raw (because of the chick peas they are made of).
I like to eat a yogurt-based dip with garlic, cucumber and dill with them (basically Tzatziki) but in Turkey they often put mint into it as well.
And lastly: stuff made of Bulgur (cracked wheat, parboiled). They make Pilaf out of it, or use it for salads like Kisir.
I could live happily and well on bread, olives, olive oil and a bit of cheese on occasion. Where these things intersect with Lebanese and other Mediterranean cuisines, I am in gastronomic heaven. But as soon as meat is involved, the magic is gone. Don’t get me wrong. I am no vegetarian. It’s just that I see Middle-eastern and North African foods peak with me when the meat is off the plate.