Foodies Anonymous

I always go to Westwood Boulevard thinking that I’ll try something new, but I always inevitably end up at Sunnin Lebanese Cafe. The food is absolutely fabulous, even if served on paper plates with the drinks in those red solo cups that cheap beer is served in at frat parties in undergrad. But the fact is, it doesn’t matter what it’s served on. I’ll eat it.

Sunnin is very vegetarian friendly. I usually stick to their appetizer menu, even though I’ve tried the falafel sandwich and the entrees. Likely because I am desperately in love with their tangy spicy potatoes. Their rekakat (parsley and cheese in a filo dough pastry shell), fatayer (empanada-esque dough stuffed with spinach, pine nuts, and onions) and dolmeh are also delicious (although their dolmeh is a bit on the tart and cold side, if you’re expecting something warm). I also really like the baba ghanouj, being an eggplant fan (the texture is just lovely and smooth, instead of stringy and chunky like some places I’ve been to), and their hummus is really nice and comes topped with olive oil and a dash of red chili pepper. The falafel, the vegetarian’s usual resort in Mediterranean/Middle Eastern places, is seasoned and cooked just right (compared to some of the places I’ve been where it just tastes like deep-fried chickpea/lentil mush). I’ve also really enjoyed their cucumber/yogurt salad. And everything comes with a side of warm, fresh pita.

For non-veggies, my friends claim the chicken shawarma is really fantastic. And the garlic sauce is out of this world. I dream happy dreams of that sauce when I go to sleep at night.

I’m in New York City right now – hands down, one of the most amazing food cities in America. And it’s time-tested and true (scientifically, of course) that you can spend entire days just strolling around and eating at various places. And then, get this! You can totally walk off all those calories all over town, get hungry from walking around, and then eat again! There is NOTHING better than this.

Today, my friend Preeti and I first moseyed on over to 994 Amsterdam Avenue to Bombay Frankie – Roti Roll, a yummy little East meets West find. The fundamental idea is something like a hot dog, minus a sausage or hot dog wiener.So I suppose not really like a hot dog. But there’s this concept of bread, or something bread-like, wrapped around something ridiculously delicious. Here’s what they do. They take a tortilla-type Indian flatbread (roti), fill it with some curried vegetable, meat or paneer (a type of Indian milk-cheese that is absolutely out of this world, especially when seasoned), or a combination thereof, and roll it up. Hence, roti roll. Preeti and I each had an Unda Aloo Masala Roti Roll – a roti filled with spiced potatoes (aloo) and peas, eggs (unda), sliced tomatoes and onions. Being the representative sample of the South Asian region that we are, we asked that our order be spicy. And boy did they deliver. Our rolls came with some kickin’ cilantro-mint chutney that made me fork over a $1 for a bottle of water. That was a drawback. They don’t just let you have a cup of water to quell your flaming tongue! But I suppose a $1 is reasonable. And the bill was cheap. Each roll cost us $3.75! My tastebuds walked out doing a little dance, partially from the fire that had been set under them (completely our fault), but mostly because that roll was just amazing. The aloo was soft and well-spiced with what I sensed was garam masala and some cumin, the chutney was hot and tangy and a nice complement to the aloo, and the roti and eggs helped soothe away the heat. This place is something I’ll definitely dream about when I go back home to Los Angeles.

Next, we hopped on down to The Ayurveda Cafe on 704 Amsterdam Avenue. After our post-chutney crisis, Preeti suggested that we get some mango lassi, an Indian mango yogurt shake, to cool it down. Indian cuisine, you see, is a bit of a science. If you notice, most traditional Indian meals always ends with some kind of dairy or yogurt. The purpose, I think, and certainly, the effect, is to cool off your stomach from the whirlwind combination of spices and chili that you’ve just consumed. The biggest mistake people make when they go to an Indian restaurant, because they think it’s “weird”or something comparable to “weird,” is to skip the dairy/yogurt portion, and instead find themselves inhaling bottles of Pepto Bismol and Tums when they get home and cry themselves to sleep from vigorously spreading heartburn. So please, don’t be proud. Eat the yogurt. And if you can’t handle plain yogurt or plain yogurt with rice, have some mango lassi! Order it at the beginning and nurse it over the course of your dinner. It’s usually what I suggest to my friends, unless I hate them, and it’s positively delicious.

The Ayurveda Cafe’s mango lassi is particularly delightful (sorry, I can’t give you a “yay” or “nay” about the food, because I haven’t tried it!). It’s kind of expensive mango lassi, amounting to about $4.85 before tip (usually, in my experience, they’re about $2.50 or $2.75), but completely worth the money. Unlike the usual radioactive looking mango lassis you tend to get at Indian restaurants, which is a combination of store-bought yogurt and some kind of painfully sweet canned mango puree, The Ayurveda Cafe uses fresh yogurt and real mangoes. Instead of tasting high fructose corn syrup or bags of sugar, you taste real yogurt with its honest-to-goodness homemade tang, and feel like your tongue is closing in on a slew of ripe summer mangoes. It successfully combated the effects the chutney had wreaked on our tongues, and we trekked onwards like triumphant soldiers towards downtown.