9/4/2010 @ 11:00

9/4/2010

Overland Park
79th & Santa Fee
Overland Park, KS 66204

Indulgence your appetite with unique foods with reasonable price from Mediterania surrounding with Middle Eastern and Egyptian artwork decorating arround you. it�s easy to get carried away and order more than you can eat just to try all the interesting things. Take, for example, the falafel. Morsels of ground chick peas, fava beans, garlic, and spices are quickly fried in very hot oil. The result is a very crisp falafel ball with a molten interior that snaps as you bite into it. You can get a large bowl for $4.25. Sometimes the simplest dishes tell the most about a restaurant. The baba ghanouj is loaded with good eggplant flavor, balanced with the tahini and lemon. It comes drizzled with olive oil ($4.25). Aladdin�s pita bread stands out from the rest of the Lebanese restaurants in town. It is baked fresh with every order, turning from round little balls of dough to wonderfully hot and delicately crunchy brown discs that are rushed to your table right out of the oven. I I love both the falafel with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and piquant tahini sauce ($4.50), and the lamb shawarma � thin little slices of lamb with tomatoes, pickles and tahini ($4.95). The Kafta (or kofta) sandwich is another favorite. Kofta is a �meatball� of curried minced meat. Here they are redolent of cumin; mixed with all the other ingredients like pickles, parsley, and tahini, all the textures work together to make it a terrific introduction to Lebanese food ($4.95). A selection of traditional salads are available. One of my benchmarks is the fatoush salad � lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, green peppers, and onions. It comes with little �chips� of toasted pita bread which give it a nice crunchy texture, and is finished with sumac, garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice. This will really be a good salad during tomato season, but with all the good spices, it is still worth getting now. You get a portion big enough for two ($4.95). The same thing can be said for the tabouli salad. The parsley is very finely chopped, with tomatoes, onions, and bulgar wheat. It all comes together with a mix of lemon and olive oil, before being mixed with their �special spices�, the bulgur giving it a nice chewy texture. I hope you can join us for September lunch.