Manakish

I’m a softie for any Middle Eastern place that sells fresh ka’ak — round sesame bread — because I don’t often stumble upon it.
After excitedly ordering that, my mister and I shared a classic trio of dips (hummus, labne and baba ghannouj), a sizzling clay pot of lamb and prune tagine, and one foul medammas (brown fava beans in olive oil and lemon).
The hummus was one of the favorites that I’d tried lately. It wasn’t pulverized into a pasty, pallid mess. Instead, it still had a bit of texture from the chick peas, and plenty of tahini and lemon, just how I like it.
What particularly struck me about Manakish, though, is that if you order an Arabic coffee to finish your meal (which you should), it’s served very hot, in your own ibrik (coffee pot). This tells me:
1) You aren’t getting the sludgy dredges of someone else’s coffee, and
2) It was made fresh in a small batch, for optimum flavor
If you’ve got time on your hands, head to Manakish and share a variety of mezze, then leisurely walk down to Classic Cinema for a movie for a casual night out.

If you have ever been to the Middle East or Northern Africa and you liked everything about it, then you are going to like it here too. Everything on their menu is tempting, the best way to eat here would be to bring a couple of friends and all order different things so you get to sample more of the menu than with just one other person.
In terms of coffee and tea, when I come here I opt for the more traditional and get a pot of Turkish coffee or a pot of fresh mint tea. That’s how it’s done.