Mediterranean Garden Grill ~ 335 W. Foothill Blvd. Monrovia, CA 91016 ~ (626) 301-0555

Generally, when I write about a restaurant, it’s based on a one-time experience. Even if I like it or love it, I may not go back for a variety of reasons. It may be too far or my pocketbook can only handle a yearly visit. Usually, it’s because I love eating out and checking out other eateries so much that I’d rather concentrate on new finds as opposed to re-visiting old haunts. However, if a restaurant scores the double whammy of serving delicious food and being close to where I live, than I will take the opportunity to return. Such is the case with the Mediterranean Garden Grill in Monrovia.

Before I go any further, I want to mention that it’s an interesting restaurant space. My first visit there was during lunch time and the dining room had an enclosed patio kind of feel with the windows open to let the air in, but at a later dinner visit, they closed up all the windows and it felt like a regular indoor restaurant.

As mentioned, my first meal there was for lunch. Wanting something a little tart, I started with the beautifully pink pickle plate. Silly question, but why are those pickles pink and are they actually cucumbers or a different pickled vegetable altogether? I’ve always wanted to know.

While I was perusing the menu, an appetizer caught my eye, so I decided to order the Mouhamana, which is chopped walnuts with spicy red peppers and pomegranate juice. I loved the mixture of flavors that included nutty, sweet, tangy and with a little kick. I could have easily just eaten that with the pita bread or even just crackers and I would have been happy, but soon enough, my lule kebab arrived.

Lule Kebab is lean ground beef mixed with onions and spices, seasoned, skewered and grilled, served with rice, grilled vegetables and a pita bread. Taking my first look at it, I really could see all the seasonings embedded in the meat and with just my first bite, I could taste all the great flavors the seasonings imparted. Surprisingly, even though the ground beef was lean, meaning less fat, the lule kebab still had a little juiciness to it and of course, I loved the texture of its charred surface.


I wasn’t even considering dessert, but an enticing photo of their Ashta dessert was just too irresistible. Ashta is sheramoya fruit mixed with whipped cream and rose water and sprinkled with crushed pistachios and honey and this tasty mixture is placed on top of fresh cut bananas. Wow, what an awesome dessert. I’d go back just for this. It was a light and refreshing dessert, absolutely perfect anytime, but maybe even more so on a warmer day.

My first visit was definitely a hit, so much so that I went back a few days later and unfortunately, that was not a good experience. I was seated, got a glass of water, perused the menu and made my choices and than proceeded to wait and wait and wait. The restaurant wasn’t that busy. There was only one large group on the other side of the room and me. Granted, I could have waved someone over, but come on. My menu was down and there were waiters walking back and forth in front of my table. One of them could have stopped to ask me if I was ready to order. I decided to clock how long it would take for a waiter and after 10 minutes, I just walked out.

I wasn’t sure if a third visit would be imminent, but I really enjoyed the food so I thought I’d give it another try. This time, I brought a friend for dinner a couple of weeks later. I’m not sure if they had remembered me walking out or perhaps, the wait staff was just more attentive that evening, but this time around, the service was much better.

For my second meal there, my friend and I shared the marinated and seasoned black and green olives as well as the Baba Ghanouj, which is basically BBQ eggplant and sesame paste. What I liked about the Baba Ghanouj was that it was full of chunky eggplant goodness and not pureed down to the point that you’re not even sure if there’s eggplant in the dish.

As for my entree, I ordered the Beef Shawarma, which is basically seasoned and marinated pan flamed beef brochettes served with tahini sauce, rice and hummus. I actually preferred the lule kebab that I had at my first visit. The beef was a little chewier than I would have liked and needed a little more flavor. I did get a chance to sample my friend’s Chicken Shawarma and thought the chicken was nicely seasoned and was even tender and juicy. This time, no room for dessert. It wasn’t as stellar a meal as at my first visit, but still pretty good.

The very last time I visited, I was in the mood for soup and ordered their Swiss Char Lentil Soup, which is vegetarian. The ingredients for this soup are whole lentils cooked with Swiss char and roasted garlic and the flavor is both tangy and lemony, flavors near and dear to my Filipino palate.

Except for that one major hiccup on my second visit, I really enjoy dining at the Mediterranean Garden Grill and with it being only a few miles away, I can always give in to my Ashta and Swiss Chard and Lentil Soup craving whenever I’d like, or at least when the restaurant is open.

To see pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157610169651215/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157612218331081/

Mediterranean Garden Grill
335 W. Foothill Blvd.
Monrovia, CA 91016
(626) 301-0555
http://www.mediterraneangardengrill.com/

If you’re into ethnic food, check out the Pleasure Palate blog for more tasty discoveries!

Gridskipper, a helpful map-based travel site, has a list of the best Middle Eastern Restaurants in Los Angeles. Their list is OK but they’ve forgotten a couple of spots that really should be on there:

1. Sunnin Cafe. This Westwood hole-in-the-wall can be inconsistent but it’s generally got the best Middle Eastern fast food in the city limits. The hummos is great, the spinach pies are excellent, and the kebab and shish tawaouk sandwiches are tops.

2. Carnival. A Valley restaurant that gets crowded with Israelis and Palestinians alike for a reason– the food is good, the price is right, and everything is fresh and authentic.

3. Alcazar. I haven’t actually been here but J. Gold loves it and it sounds amazing. Plus, they serve Arak.

4. Anaheim. There are more good middle eastern restaurants in Anaheim then all of Los Angeles combined.

Falafel Express ~ 5577 Reseda Blvd. Tarzana , CA 91356 ~ 818-345-5660 (TACO Guide)

I used to survive off of falafel when I lived in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. First Mamoun’s and later dabbling at Sam’s, then back to Mamoun’s, especially when makdous was in season. These falafel balls of mashed, fried chickpea batter with tahini sauce and crisp salad in pita pockets are cheap, delicious, and go off into the late night where first-gen Middle Eastern descended Americans bump bass on Arabic-skewed techno, a scene that is definitely taco material despite its Atlantic origins.

I hadn’t fucked with falafel on my beloved west coast homeland since coming back a few years ago. Maybe I’ve been to Pita Hut or whatever it’s called on LaBrea, but I like, totally forget dudes. So I was pretty stoked on what these stone-cold characters were serving here in Tarzana, a short roll off the 101. Its small diner space resembled a religious experience, packed with observers of the Jewish faith. In fact, the food at the creatively named Falafel Express is Glatt Kosher, which means its taken a trip to the Exorcist (In this case Rabbi Bukspan) for a good purging of its sinful nature.

You know this here poster that sort of looks like the severed head of that Gogol Bordello singer, if he was a little more aggro and fatter and deader? I was sitting next to that guy, the same exact head sitting on a average-built, though slightly physically challenged body. The kid was really smart, he was talking all about Ford-era economics or something, and his sister was a totally bangin’ blonde with big breasts who could not have cared less, I think she was missing Sweet Sixteen on MTV and was bummed. It might have been my imagination, but we kind of exchanged looks and the whole entire time I was eating my falafel, I saw this severed head dude in my periphery kind of looking at me like he could read my evil intentions in his girl or sister or whoever she was.

The falafel takes a hot minute or minute or two, like all good things, it needs its time. The structure of the joint has an early nose on the East Coast competition with a pita that actually stands its ground. Dearest Mamoun, Allah bless you and the whole crew, but sometimes your pita comes apart all over someone’s stoop and its a mess for everyone involved. The salad here is really fresh, with a little herby twist, juicy chopped tomatoes, dark green ruffiage, and crunchy diced cucumber layered thick on top of the joint, which means it will be a cooling munchie come summer.

The falafel itself is very clean, not sloppy, which could be a plus or minus. It certainly is very flavorful and tastes great, but like a good taco or burger shouldn’t be afraid of a little dirt on its hands. Each falafel bite maintains a great crunch which reveals a simple but zesty blast of hot sesame mash and spices. Its dark on the outside, but not at all overcooked as its insides are golden green and earthy. Overall, an excellent, conveniently solid bite with a slathering of tasty tahini and creamy hummus mixed onto the top and sides.

If I’d been hungrier or richer, I might have fucked with some of the other things on the menu, as their falafel seems a good testament to the cleanliness and care that goes into their dishes. Bowls full of avocado dip and hummus, alongside plates of olive and carrot salads, kabobs, shawarma, latkes, baklava, and something called Sambusak, will hopefully bring me back to see what’s up. I once heard about some place in new York where you’d ask for Turkish Coffee and they’d make it with hash, so naturally, hoping against hope, I ordered it at Turkish Express, getting nothing more than a very expensive thimble of Popeye-strong espresso that got me spazzing hard.

Making an exit, the homie next to me and I exchanged pleasantries on our way out the door, and his sister didn’t seem to be feeling it anyway, proving again that first impressions don’t stick, and that I am a paranoid android with an unhealthy sexual fixation. Meanwhile, score one for West Coast falafels with Falafel Express holding it down for the San Fernando Valley!!!!

Shafaa Halal Foods ~ 12211 Hawthorne Blvd. Hawthorne, CA 90250 ~ (310) 675-3400 (TACO Guide)

Some of the tastiest food comes from some of the most unkempt places. Shafaa Turkish restaurant bucks this trend. They invested some time and care in their recipes, just as they have invested some serious bucks in the decor and the building itself. The outside presents the streetside viewer with intricate arabesque design on the columns, arches, and other surfaces of the facade.

Inside, the one encounters walls draped in fabric, censers and tassels hanging from the ceilings and walls, small cut-glass (or is it Lucite?) chandeliers, fringed bolsters and pillows in some of the booths. You know how much it probably cost to flameproof all of that fabric hanging on the walls? I assume it is flameproofed, per municipal codes. To make a long story short, this place is nicer that most places with comparable menu prices.

With my partner in tasting (and other things) at my side, I started off with a hummus and pita bread appetizer. I have considered Turkish humus to be the best of all hummi when I became a regular at a Turkish café that opened up in my neighborhood when I was in college. I found it to be spicier, creamier, and thicker then humus typically encountered. I returned a few years later and the place was closed, and I have searched for a humus that will be the equal of the one I found there. The hummus at Shafaa was good, but it cannot compete with the hummus that I remember, the hummus that has probably become idealized in my mind. I paraphrase Paul Simon’s song, Kodachrome: “If you took all of the Turkish humus chicken pitas I ate in college/ and brought ‘em altogether for one night/ you know they’d never match my sweet imagination/ everything tastes worse in black and white.”

For the entree, we did have more humus by selecting the vegetable combo to share, and beef kabobs to share. I had milk tea, she had Turkish mint tea.

I love tabouli, and this one was spiced up by the addition of scallions into the mix. I’ve never had it that way before, and it was different, although whereas the heavy parsley content of tabouli typically sweetens the breath, the breath was not-so-sweet after a few scalliony bites. But, sweet breath was not really part of the equation any more after a taking a few samples of the very garlicky baba ghanoush. Watch out for the big chunks of garlic clove mixed in there! The dolmas were moist throughout and flavorful. The only thing that didn’t quite live up to it’s promise was the falafel, which seemed like it might have been fried a bit too long and was a bit dry.

The beef kabobs were awesome. Juicy and super tender, I’d love to know what they marinated them in. There was definitely a taste of something a bit sweet, my tasting companion said maybe orange zest. The rice was awesome, too: perfect consistency, it had a very subtle sweet seasoning too it. Subtle; I’ve definitely been to some Middle Eastern or South Asian places where the savory rice is sweetened too much, or the cinnamon or raison that is used is too dominant, but this was perfect, and made the exact spices used hard to discern, at least for my rather amateur palate. Allspice, perhaps?

Everything was so pleasing we had to hit up the desserts, of which two were available: baklava and katayif. Neither of them seem super-fresh, but they were both sweet and good.

This place definitely has the air of a hidden gem. Some of the parts of the experience reminded me of genuinely being in a foreign country: communication with the waitress wasn’t always smooth and complete, due to a bit of lack of language mastery. And while take out was an option, the lack of a take out menu revealed a certain lack of organization. The place itself wasn’t too busy, but those people that were there seemed to be in the know. There were some older women in hijabs, couples on dates reminiscing about birthplaces in Arab countries, African Americans wearing kufi skullcaps and flowing kaftans over jeans and Timberland boots. I heard that a man who came with his wife and three kids was a local imam – there is a community Islamic Center set off from the street that shares a parking lot with Shaffa, but I gotta think that all of these people wouldn’t patronize the restaurant unless they felt it was authentic and consistently tasty.

Like so many ethnic restaurants, there is also a small selection of groceries from the appropriate motherland. Shafaa is no exception, and one can find a small rack of bagged pitas, Turkish tea, sardines, and a few other sundry consumables. I found a Moroccan hot sauce in a can there called harissa; I never (knowingly) tried it before, so of course I had to buy it and bring it home.

When you sit down at a table at Shafaa, you might notice the red ground red pepper replacing the black pepper in its shaker, announcing that you’ve arrived to a new realm of taste. All of this great food, can of hot sauce included, set me back $24.32.