Restaurant Review - Mezza: Spice of life

When I was a kid, I insisted that we go out to dinner on my birthday. This was not the family tradition – you were supposed to have a favorite home-cooked meal and request it for your birthday dinner. But all that was ruined for me when Sarah Sweatman, my childhood best friend, turned 10. Her wealthy father, whom she saw one weekend a month, took us out to one of the fanciest restaurants in town. I was awed, completely smitten by the rich sauces and the chocolate soufflé.

It was the beginning of my lifelong restaurant obsession.

So, for my birthday, I demanded a restaurant meal. My family had less money than Sarah Sweatman’s ostentatious father, and they took me to a family Lebanese restaurant. It was our fallback for a nice evening out, and my parents were crazy about the food. I secretly mourned that we didn’t have the money to eat somewhere more extravagant. As a working-class 10-year-old, I looked down on the poly-cotton maroon tablecloths, the tile floors and the honest food.

I think of this story as one of the great ironies of my life. It’s not uncommon for me to find myself sitting in a fine-dining restaurant, wishing I were eating food closer in spirit to those Lebanese meals I had as a child.

In America, the kind of family Lebanese restaurant my family frequented is not that common, except in certain communities. So it’s a surprise of especially pleasant proportions (spurred on my unyielding sense of nostalgia) to find a place that fits the bill so perfectly in a shopping center on LaVista Road. Mezza is one of the city’s neighborhood treasures, a family restaurant serving delicious Lebanese food to a thankful clientele.

Mezza’s main dining room even has the tile floors and maroon tablecloths, along with black-and-white photos of Beirut on the walls. The restaurant has recently taken over the space next door and created a lounge area stocked with the components that have become fashionable in Middle Eastern restaurants: hookahs and belly dancers. The lounge is only open on weekend nights, and the extra space is welcome. Mezza gets incredibly busy on Friday and Saturday evenings, and the chaos that sometimes ensues is the only thing that might ruin a meal here. More on that later.

But come during the week and you’ll find a relaxed, friendly and knowledgeable staff, and a menu of small plates that are soul-soothing. The menu is broken up into vegetarian and nonvegetarian mezze, but even the most voracious carnivore should pause at the vegetable dishes. The fried cauliflower is especially addictive, the florets practically caramelized and coaxed into the best snack cauliflower could possibly be. For eggplant fans, the fried eggplant with tahini sauce is both crispy and creamy. In fact, if it weren’t for the temptation emanating from the nonvegetarian section of the menu, it would be possible to have a completely vegan (and completely satisfying) meal here and not even notice. The vegetarian grape leaves are lemony-oily tart, almost unbearably so, but that’s one of the great things about the food here. Flavors are unapologetically bold, and nothing is dialed down.

Both beef and chicken shawarma are tender chunks of meat topped with tahini sauce. The absolute don’t-miss meat dish is the lamb, though, stewed in vinegar and spices and served tenderly falling apart with a few veggies. The musk of the lamb dances with the piquant vinegar and is mellowed by rich spice.

My one food complaint is the bread. Food this good deserves fresh-made bread. The pita served alongside these dishes is warmed and passable, but has the slight cardboard quality of store-bought pita full of preservatives.

Service is always good-natured, sometimes beyond the bounds of reason. On a recent Friday evening, a line had piled up out the door, and it was more than 30 minutes before anyone even greeted our party to take a guess at how long the wait would be. Once we were seated (about 15 minutes later), there was another long stretch before a waiter appeared, and catching anyone’s attention was impossible. But whenever someone did show up, the smiles were so genuine it was hard to be exasperated. It was as if the whole staff was in happy denial that anything was amiss, and somehow the trick worked. Once the food started coming, all was forgiven.

Another pleasant surprise is the selection of Lebanese wines. The Chateau Ksara rosé is an especially appropriate match for the food.

And the baklava or one of the homemade ice creams are an especially nice finish to a meal. Perhaps one day they’ll even be gracious enough to put a birthday candle in a bowl of ice cream for me.