Bar Bolonat

It took a while for the chef Einat Admony to follow-up Balaboosta, her hit Middle Eastern spot in NoLIta. There were the usual issues with permits and the city’s bureaucratic Department of Buildings. What should’ve taken six months took more than twice that. It’s a wonder anyone opens a restaurant in this town.

Bar Bolonat, which opened in March, offers Admony’s take on the modern Israeli cuisine of her native Tel Aviv. Judging by the crowds, you’d have to wonder why no one thought of this idea sooner. Of course, execution matters. The cooking is more precise and precious than at Balaboosta, but with a rustic soul that is immediately accessible and of-the-moment.

Some of her ideas are less inspired. A restaurant called Bar ______ that is not really a bar is so very 2009. I only wish that were true of Bar Bolonat’s other conceit, a small-plates menu, consisting of plates of unpredictable sizes, which the kitchen sends out in no coherent order, as and when they are ready, regardless of whether you are. Why couldn’t that tired concept have expired in 2009?

But if it must be a small-plates menu, at least it is a good one. The present menu is a tightly-edited list of 14 savory dishes in three bunches (lightest to heaviest). The categories are unlabeled, but they seem to be sort-of-snacks ($6–12), sort-of-starters ($9–16), and sort-of-entrées ($23–31). No guesswork is required to identify the last category, the three desserts ($10–12), which we didn’t try.

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Al Mayass

The New York Times fall restaurant preview issue had a Glenn Collins puff piece about “foreign” restaurateurs aiming to succeed in New York, headlined by Dr. Miguel Sanchez Romera, whose eponymous Romera was one of the quickest flops on record.

Let’s fervently wish better luck to the second restaurant that Collins named, Al Mayass, imported from Lebanan, but run by Armenians and serving the cuisine of both nations. The original Al Mayass opened in Beirut in 1997, with branches today in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Qatar, Riyadh, and now New York.

After much googling, I’m still not sure what the name means. The website says, “The essence of Almayass is best described ‘…when the hanging leaves dance to the rhythm of delicate breeze.’” The logo resembles a falling leaf, so perhaps that’s what it means.

The restaurant also has a tagline, credited to George Bernard Shaw. You’ll see it in the vestibule and on the menu: “There is no love sincerer than the love of food.” Thanks, guys, for clearing that up.

They spent $2 million on the build-out of a space that had been vacant for eight years; but they neglected to spend much outside. The entrance is so inconspicuous, I walked by twice before finding it.

A web search brings up the international Al Mayass site, almayass.com, one of the worst designed restaurant websites I have ever seen. It may take you a while to find the right site, almayassnyc.com.

Fortunately I was persistent.

Once you’re inside Al Mayass is lovely, with a spacious and elegant 80-seat dining room that could double as a modern art gallery. There’s a comfortable, but fung shui-challenged lounge: you have to pass through the back of the restaurant and take an abrupt u-turn to reach it.

Small plates, or mezzes, make up the bulk of the menu. There are about four dozen of them, divided into two groups, hot and cold, in a price range from $4–17 (but most around $8–15). There are about ten entrées ($22–34), most of them kebabs of various sorts.

When the mezzes outnumber the entrées four to one, it comes across as a signal to skip the entrées, and so we did. Five of the mezzes was about the right amount for two people—perhaps even a shade more than we needed.

There are fourteen wines by the glass and around a hundred by the bottle, mostly international, but including a few Lebanese ones. You can spend under $40 or hundreds. A 2007 Barolo was a bargain at $70. At first the staff said they were out of it, but then the manager found a bottle, for which I was charged just $38.

The bread service (above left) included pita and crackers with a dipping sauce. The first of our mezzes was the Soujuk Almayass ($11; above right), an appealing Armenian beef sausage canapé served cold, and topped with fried quail eggs.

Suberg ($8; above left) is an enjoyable oven-baked homemade cheese pastry. Sarma ($9.50; above left), or grape leaves, wrapped with rice and vegetables, were about average.

The Queen’s Delight ($16; above left) offered sliced filet mignon, sautéed in a sweet & sour cherry sauce that made more of an impression than the meat did. Mantee Traditional ($15; above right) consists of large ravioli filled with ground meat and a yogurt sauce, topped with sumac, a shrub frequently used as a spice in Greek cuisine.

Gael Greene visited Al Mayass on opening night — why on earth does she keep doing that? — and found slow, inattentive service. Our visit came a few weeks in, and we had the opposite problem. The five mezzes came rather quickly, and all at once, which is hardly the best way to appreciate them. The food seemed to me about average, though I think it would have made a better impression if it had been presented at a slower pace.

To Al Mayass’s credit, the food is relatively inexpensive, and the dining room is both quiet and comfortable. Business wasn’t bad on a Thursday evening, although it was not full. If they could only get the hang of pacing a meal, Al Mayass could be very good.

Al Mayass (24 E. 21st St. between Broadway & Park Avenue, Flatiron District)

Food: Traditional Lebanese/Armenian, with an emphasis on small plates
Service: Friendly but too fast
Ambiance: A comfortable, upscale, modern room with tablecloths

Rating: ★
Why? We’re not persuaded it’s a destination, but worth a look if you’re nearby

Balaboosta

When they write the tale of Sam Sifton’s failed tenure as a restaurant critic, perhaps his enthusiastic one-star review of Balaboosta will be front and center: four of the first six paragrahs were about the guests and his fantasies about them, rather than the restaurant.

After that review, for about a year, Balaboosta was always booked when I wanted to go. It remains popular, but lately crowds have thinned a bit. You no longer have to do cartwheels (or dine at inhospitable hours) to get in.

The chef, Einat Admony, serves up a pleasing mix of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern (non-Kosher) cuisine from her native Tel Aviv. There aren’t many great examples of this cuisine in Manhattan, a fact that elevates Balaboosta above the merely routine.

The restaurant’s name is Yiddish, and like much of that language, not exactly translatable. The rough meaning is, “perfect housewife,” which, if it were written in English, wouldn’t tell you much, except that the chef is a woman. She also has a West Village falafal restaurant called Taïm, though her blog gives the impression that most of her attention is spent here.

The menu is admirably focused, with about half-a-dozen entries each in three categories: small plates ($5–11), appetizers ($9–14), and entrées ($20–29).

The wine list — all sustainable, organic, or biodynamic — is mostly French and Italian. There are plenty of choices in the $30–50 range, so you can get out of here for less than the $100 per person that seems to be the mid-priced standard nowadays.

While you wait for the food, you can snack on fried Yuca chips (above left), which have the alarming tendency to spoil one’s appetite.

From the “small plates” part of the menu, we shared the Crispy Cauliflower ($10; below left) with currants and pine nuts, an outstanding dish.

A very good whole Branzino ($29; above right) came with grilled asparagus, a beet-citrus salad, and a lemon-dill sauce.

Sifton’s favorite dish was the boneless half chicken cooked “under a brick,” Israeli couscous with dried apricots and green leeks, and gremolata sauce. It wasn’t bad for a $22 entrée, but the chef didn’t coax as much flavor or tenderness out of the bird as the best I have had lately, the chicken at Tiny’s in Tribeca.

We had a fairly early reservation and found the home-spun space delightful before it filled up. But like so many modern downtown restaurants, the exposed brick meme is played out to the hilt. When full, later in the evening, we were shouting to hear each other, and that was with a corner table. In the middle of the room, I suspect it would have been worse.

Balaboosta is a pleasant enough place, though I would probably choose to come back for lunch or at off-peak dinner hours.

Balaboosta (214 Mulberry Street at Spring Street, NoLIta)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Gazala's

Gazala Place in Hell’s Kitchen and Gazala’s on the Upper West Side claim to be the only outposts of Israeli Druze cuisine in New York, or indeed in the country. I’ve no reason to doubt it, given that the entire population of the little-known sect is just 120,00 in Israel.

Gazala Place, named for the chef Gazala Halabi, opened in Hell’s Kitchen in 2008. It seats just 18, and the kitchen is so small that the chef supposedly does some of the cooking at home. It won favorable reviews from Peter Meehan in The Times and Robert Sietsema in the Village Voice.

I won’t try to explain the technicalities of Druze cuisine: Meehan and Sietsema did it far more knowledgeably than I could ever hope to. You’ll find many ingredients familiar from other Middle Eastern cuisines, like goat cheese, grape leaves, bulgur wheat, eggplant, chickpeas, and lamb kebabs. Prices are very modest, with cold appetizers as low as $5 and most entrées below $20.

Gazala’s, the chef’s new place across from the Museum of Natural History, is a bit larger than the original. It takes reservations, but I gather it gets a significant walk-in crowd. Although OpenTable offered any time I wanted on a Thursday evening, the restaurant was just about full for the entire two hours we were there.

Promising food was marred by well-meaning but atrocious service. There seemed to be just one server for the whole dining room, and he couldn’t keep up with the demand. He was also very difficult to hear, in a room with the acoustics of a train station.

We ordered a mixed appetizer platter to start, followed by a whole deep-fried red snapper. A while later, the server returned to ask if we’d mind if both were served together. Yes, we minded. After another wait, the fish arrived, and seconds later, the appetizers. Both wouldn’t have physically fit on the table, even if we’d wanted them.

As we’d already started to dissect the fish, we sent back the appetizers. They returned after we’d finished the red snapper—obviously the same platter they’d brought out before, as items that should be warm were now cold.

Anyhow, I really liked the snapper ($28; above), but the cold appetizer platter ($33; below) had all the appeal of a stale buffet. It is probably better when it is served first, straight out of the kitchen, as was intended to be.

The wine list is mostly inexpensive, but the only Israeli wine on the list was something like $80. I wasn’t about to spend that for an appellation I didn’t recognize, so I ordered an unobjectionable $35 merlot.

If the service improves, Gazala’s could be a decent and inexpensive option on the Upper West Side, well positioned to take walk-ins from museum and park traffic. The space is pretty, but bare-bones, and as noted, punishingly loud when full. I doubt I’ll go again.

Gazala’s (380 Columbus Avenue at 78th Street, Upper West Side)

Balade

On the list of under-represented cuisines in New York City, Lebanese must be pretty close to the top. The Zagat Guide lists just three Lebanese restaurants, of which I’ve tried only one—the over-produced Ilili.

Missing from the Zagat Guide is Balade, which opened in the East Village a year ago. Despite a lack of critical attention (not a single pro review that I can find), it isn’t doing badly—at least on a Friday evening, when it was about 3/4ths full by 8:00 p.m. Nevertheless, it seeks (and in my view deserves) more attention.

(Before I proceed, in the interests of full disclosure, I need to tell you that I dined at Balade at the publicist’s invitation and did not pay for my meal.)

The name Balade means “fresh” in Lebanese. It’s an apt description, as just about everything is made in-house. The one drawback is that many customers are likely to mis-pronounce the name: roughly, it’s bah-lah-day.

The menu rambles a bit, and in its noble eagerness to offer something for everyone, takes a while to parse. There are six categories, plus sides and desserts. Many items have askerisked references to a glossary on the front page. If I were up to me, I’d ditch the glossary and explain each item where it appears.

Outside of a handful of entrées in the high teens (just one over $20), almost everything is below $15, and many are below $10. As is often the case on menus that avoid the term “appetizer” or “entrée,” it can be difficult to tell how much food you’re getting. I wound up with two appetizers and a dessert. I enjoyed everything, but if I were ordering again, I might have chosen a more substantial second course.

The meal starts with warm house-made bread (below left) and a wonderful spiced olive oil for dipping.

There’s an ample selection of vegetarian dishes throughout the menu, including more than half of the eighteen Mezza (starters). They’re $5–9 individually, or $16 for a selection of four vegetarian items. In the photo (above right), I had (clockwise from the top):

1) Tabouleh (parsley salad with burghul wheat, chopped onions, tomatoes, olive oil, and fresh lemon juice)

2) Hummus (chickpea puree with ground sesame seeds and lemon juice)

3) Warak Einab (stuffed grape leaves with chickpeas, tomatoes, garlic, and rice)

4) Labneh with Toum (cream cheese made from Greek yogurt infused with Lebanese thyme and crushed garlic)

There was an additional serving of bread, for spreading, but in the end I decided just to eat off the plate. The Labneh with Toum (nine o’clock in the photo) was deliciously creamy, the Tabouleh (twelve o’clock) a good, spicy contrast to the others. I felt journalistically obligated to try the hummus, and although it was just fine, I think the more unusual dishes are a better bet.

There are menu categories for sandwiches, or sandweechet ($6–10), Lebanese Pizza, or Manakeesh ($6.50–12) and “Pita Pitza” ($10–12). There’s also a “Taste of Lebanon” for $10 that offers three mini-pizzas, and as I was eager to know what Lebanese pizza would be like, I ordered that.

In the photo (below left), clockwise starting from the 10 o’clock position, the selection was:

1) Jabneh (Lebanese white cheese)

2) Zaatar (wild dried thyme, sesame seeds, sumac and olive oil)

3) Lahme Baajin (seasoned ground beef, diced onions and tomatoes)

The dough was thin and baked crisp. Of the three, I liked the spicy Lahme Baajin the best. The Zaatar was interesting, but a bit dry for my taste, and the cheese was pedestrian.

Dessert was flawless: first, two half-scoops of ice cream (above right): pistachio and a creamy native Lebanese flavor with a name I don’t recall. And then the Kenafa ($5; below left): baked ricotta cheese topped with bread crumbs, syrup, and crushed pistachio. This is a wonderful dessert: if you eat nothing else here, you must save room for it.

Lebanese White Coffee ($2.50; above right) is not coffee at all, but uncaffeinated rose water, more like tea, served with a small cup and a personal-size mini-kettle—an excellent way to close.

I can’t opine on the service, since the visit was a pre-arranged comp. Patronage ranged from large groups to solo diners at the bar, and as far as I could tell they were getting the attention they deserved. The 55-seat space is comfortable but un-fancy, in a way that matches the neighborhood.

The term “Neighborhood Lebanese Restaurant” doesn’t really exist in New York, but if it did, Balade would be the model. It’s inexpensive and casual, the food is well made, and there are enough choices for every mood and appetite.

Balade (201 First Avenue between 12th & 13th Streets, East Village)

Shalezeh

Most of the New York City restaurants with Michelin stars are sensible choices, but there are a few head-scratchers. In December we reviewed Rhong-Tiam, which has since moved to a new location after being shut down by the health department.

Then there’s Shalizar, which recently changed its name to Shalezeh, to avoid confusion with an unrelated Shalizaar in California. It’s a rather half-hearted name change, as the menu, the signage, and the credit card bill all still say “Shalizar.”

Like Rhong-Tiam, Shalizar Shalezeh had received no critical attention whatsoever that would suggest it is Michelin material. It has been open since mid-2008, and most of the city’s major publications haven’t reviewed it at all. Its food rating on Zagat is a mere 21 (that is, just a shade above mediocre).

Did Michelin find a hidden gem that all of the other critics had missed? I am afraid not. Shalizar Shalezeh is the kind of moderately diverting place where you’d be happy to drop in if it were nearby, but it is not even remotely close to the kind of “destination restaurant” normally associated with a Michelin star.

The atmosphere is at least comfortable and pleasant, the service friendly and attentive. Prices are modest, with appetizers $8 and under, and entrées mostly $23 and under. Our food bill for two was just $56, and we had plenty to eat for that amount. The warm, house-made bread (right) was wonderful.

We do not have much expertise in Persian cuisine, so we cannot rate Shalizar Shalezeh on authenticity. The menu is heavy on eggplant, yogurts, chicken, and lamb—all very sensible. But are halibut and filet mignon Persian specialties? There we are less sure.

We ordered a tasting of three salads ($14; above left), which would be $6–7 if ordered separately. These are the Shirazi (cucumber, tomato, onion, parsley, and citrus jus), the Tabuleh (diced tomatoes, cracked wheat, chopped parsley, mint, olive oil, and citrus jus), and the Labu (marinated beets, tomato, feta cheese, wild berry, and cherry vinaigrette). I liked the Labu best, but I have a weakness for beets. The Shirazi seemed to be missing the tomatoes that the menu promised, and it tasted a bit monotonous.

We were comped an Olivieh Salad (above right), made with pickles, chicken, potato, English peas, cucumber, eggs, and mayonaise. In short, it was a terrific chicken salad. It would have made a first-class sandwich.

Lamb Kebab ($16; above left) and the Vermont Lamb Shank ($20; above right) both felt under-seasoned to us. The kebab was nicely cooked to a medium rare, and the meat was tender, but there wasn’t much going on besides that. However, we loved the basmati rice with lentil, saffron, and raisin.

The lamb shank was properly braised, but we couldn’t make out the alleged Middle Eastern herbs, and without them it tasted flat. The raisin couscous were more interesting.

We enjoyed most of our meal, especially at these prices, and would happily return when we have business in the neighborhood. Those expecting Michelin-class culinary fireworks will be disappointed.

Shalezeh (1420 Third Avenue between 80th–81st Streets, Upper East Side)

Food: *
Service: *½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: *

Ilili

I love it when restauranteurs take a chance—bringing something truly new to New York, rather than just copying what everyone else is doing.

But there is a line between risk-taking and recklessness, and I almost wonder if the owners of Ilili have crossed it. The massive 5,000-square-foot space accommodates 330 people in multiple bars and dining rooms on two levels. The high-rent neighborhood (Fifth Avenue between 27th and 28th Streets) is dead to evening foot traffic, and Lebanese cuisine has never been especially popular in New York.

It won’t be easy to keep all of those seats occupied. Shortly after it opened in late 2007, Steve Cuozzo of the Post filed a blistering review. They were apparently busy enough that they couldn’t be bothered to give Cuozzo a walk-in table. The Sun’s Paul Adams enjoyed himself, mainly because he didn’t expect much.

An Eater deathwatch may be premature, but on a Friday night in January we found it dead at 6:30 p.m., and only around half-full by the time we left, around 8:00. That’s not good enough. The high-concept design didn’t come cheap, and the owners surely have a huge investment to recoup.

I haven’t figured out what the name means, but it has attracted its share of ridicule. Eater.com readers voted it the worst name of Fall 2007, beating out Bobo, Kurve, and Say.

Bread service

The menu is a mixture of small and medium-sized “tapas-style” plates in various categories, without the usual appetizer–entrée distinction. There is no clue or suggestion about how much to order, which leaves the guest vulnerable to up-selling—which apparently has been a problem at Ilili. However, we must have had one of the more honest servers: when we chose four dishes to share (which turned out to be plenty), he didn’t try to talk us into a fifth.

Fried Brussels Sprouts

Chef Philippe Massoud comes to New York from Washington, D.C., where he served Mediterranean fare at Nayla. The cuisine is nominally Lebanese, but alongside traditional dishes, like shish kebab and falafel, are ingredients probably not common in Beirut, like foie gras and Kobe beef.

The bread service, which the server called an amuse-bouche, consisted of spicy thin crackers with olives. I loved the goat cheese yogurt spread, but the crackers were over-seasoned.

Our server suggested fried Brussels sprouts ($12), with grapes, a fig puree, walnuts and mint. It is a justly popular dish, but as it came out almost instantly, I strongly suspect it was pre-made, and waiting under a heat lamp. The Brussels sprouts were not quite warm enough.

 

Our remaining three dishes were delivered all at once. Manti, or Lebanese Pasta ($14; above left), was the best of the lot, with a nice balance of beef, lamb, mint, and yogurt. Mekanek, or Lamb Sausage ($13; above right) was lightly sautéed in olive oil and lemon, but it didn’t have a very lamb-y taste.

The Mixed Grill ($20) offered a Kafta (spiced ground beef with parsley and onion), chicken kebab and beef kebob. With thought it peculiar that the chicken and beef were sliced in threes, on a plate clearly designed for sharing. The beef kebab was the best in this grouping, as the cubes of meat were tender, rare, and not at all over-cooked.

The wine list was over-priced in relation to the rest of the menu, with few bottles below $50. Several Lebanese wines are offered, but we weren’t feeling that adventurous, so we settled on a Crozes-Hermitage right at $50.

Service was generally competent. We appreciated the server’s sensible ordering advice. But we weren’t as happy to have dessert plates dropped suggestively on our table before we’d indicated whether we wanted any (which we didn’t).

If Ilili isn’t quite hitting its stride, one can nevertheless put together an enjoyable meal here, and the prices (except for alcohol) are reasonable.

Ilili (236 Fifth Avenue between 27th & 28th Streets, Flatiron District)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *½
Overall: *