Upscale Iraqi restaurant that upholds tradition
Joummar is probably the only restaurant of its kind for hundreds of kilometers: an upper-tier Iraqi restaurant. The setting is elegant and more importantly, the food is bountiful and tasty.
Joummar
Tag: Middle Eastern
The shawarmas of Ottawa
So many shawarma places, so few good ones
Ottawa is supposedly the shawarma capital of Canada, based on the high density of restaurants. From anywhere in downtown, it’s at most a few minutes walk to a shawarma restaurant. However, in terms of absolute number or quality, the claim is somewhat dubious as Montreal and Toronto have a larger and more diverse Middle Eastern population.
The only true food specialty in Ottawa is BeaverTails, a flat doughnut. If you’ve already tried that, you might as well check out the everyday food of this city. Don’t expect gourmet options. The celebrated shawarmas cost less than $10 and are considered fast food. From what I can taste, there isn’t anything unique about it. It’s close to Lebanese-style and similar to other places in Canada.
Here are some shawarma places that are consistently at the top of “best of” lists. For a fair comparison, I ordered the same thing at all restaurants: a small chicken shawarma wrap with all toppings and sauces.
Limon
Artisanal Israeli street food
Toronto has no shortage of good falafel and shawarma places. New entrant Limon had to differentiate themselves from the crowd. Their answer: fresh ingredients and popping Israeli flavours. They appear to be doing quite well, despite opening just before the pandemic.
Fattoush Levantine Diner
Small but excellent selection of Lebanese snacks
Yet another entry into the crowded Lebanese space, Fattoush is targeted towards the breakfast and light lunch crowd. Fattoush is also the name of a Middle-Eastern dish, which this restaurant also offers. Note to restaurateurs: pick an unambiguous name that stands out when searching online.
Name aside, the food is great. Almost everything is made fresh in-store, including the breads.
Cafe Landwer (downtown)
Competent crowd pleasers with a contemporary Israeli flair
I’ve passed by Cafe Landwer over a hundred times but have never tried it until last year. Before COVID-19, it was rather popular but cafe fare like salads, sandwiches, and hummus didn’t seem that interesting to me. The pandemic provided the opportunity for me to give it a shot during one of my downtown strolls. And it exceeded my expectations. 10% off online orders helped too.
Cafe Landwer is an chain cafe from Israel. The downtown branch is the second in Canada, opened a year after the first one in Vaughan. Its international presence is tiny compared to its home base at Israel. Cafe Landwer only started expanding overseas in 2017 starting with Canada then USA. If its popularity is any indication, they are set to grow rapidly.
Monosaba
The perfect mandi
There are less than 10 Yemeni restaurants in the Greater Toronto Area. All of them serve mandi. It goes to show what the most popular export of that nation is. While none of them cook it in the traditional way (in an underground pit), they are all still pretty tasty. Of these restaurants, Monasaba is by far the best in every aspect.
Mandi—A celebratory rice feast
Mandi (مندي) is a rice dish cooked with meat stock and spices reminiscent of North India. While the rice cooks, meat is placed on top of it so that its juices can seep down. It reminds me of Indian biryani and that is not coincidental. Yemen had strong historical trade links with India. Traditionally, mandi is served during feasts since it is laborious to prepare. It’s doesn’t make sense to cook a small portion after going through the hassle of setting up an underground oven. So, Yemenis use a large vat that can feed multiple families.
Today, mandi can be found around the Arabian peninsula. In Dubai, it has become a food fad with food court stalls and fancy restaurants popping up with their own renditions. Since visiting Yemen and Saudi Arabia is out of the question for most foreigners, Dubai is the most accessible place to try mandi. And if you can’t travel to the Middle East, Monasaba in Mississauga has an excellent version as well.
Papyrus
Simple Egyptian street food done exceedingly well
Egyptian food isn’t typically my first choice of Middle Eastern cuisine. There are not many unique dishes and flavours are muted. Vegetarians will have an easy time as the dominant street food in Egypt is the trinity of koshari (كشري; rice, lentils, macaroni, spicy tomato sauce), ful medames (فول مدمس; mashed fava beans), and taameya (الطعمية; falafel). In fact, these three dishes are usually found together at street stands.
I remember surviving for weeks in Egypt on these fast foods. Ful doesn’t appeal to me because it’s heavy and an unappetizing shade of grey. Taameya is all right as all deep-fried foods are. But the Egyptian food highlight has got to be koshari. The tomato sauce gives a much-needed tangy kick to an otherwise bland cuisine. The different starches also add textural complexity.
There are only a handful of restaurants in Toronto that have koshari. Papyrus is the best of them. It also excels in taameya and the humble baladi (بلدي; Egyptian flatbread). Their key to success is having a simple menu and executing each component well.
Garni Bakery
Giant Iranian breads and the best Napoleon cakes in Toronto
One of my favourite memories of Iran is the morning buzz at bakeries, churning out piles of barbari and the customers that lug these unwieldy breads. I am fortunate to be able to re-live that memory in Toronto, albeit in more sterile conditions.
There are only a couple of Iranian bakeries in Toronto. Garni Bakery is the best place for barbari (نان بربری). Barbari is a giant wheat flour bread measuring about 70 cm by 30 cm, with sesame seeds sprinkled on top. The dough has large and uneven air pockets like Italian focaccia, which gives it its pillowy texture. The other place I know that makes this is Khorak Supermarket.
It might surprise most that European pastries are quite popular in Tehran. Naturally, Garni Bakery has those too. In fact, they don’t make any traditional Iranian shirini (sweet confections).
Al’deewan Bakery
The ultimate Lebanese manakeesh
This bakery has two things going for it: the ridiculously good manakeesh and the ridiculously low prices.
Manakeesh (مناقيش) is a round, Middle Eastern flatbread with toppings. It goes by slightly different spellings because there is no standard transliteration for Arabic. The classic topping is za’atar, a mixture of dried thyme and oregano, brushed with olive oil. At Al’deewan, you can find this and a respectable range of toppings.
