We chose Gazala Place, the tiniest place on earth, for a dinner for 6 on a Friday night. Yeah, I don't recommend doing that, unless you have the time, patience, and high tolerance for hunger, which I don't, especially the tolerance for hunger thing. Don't do it. Go with 1 maybe 2 or 3 people, but stop there. No more than 4 people on a Friday night. Or else you will pay, in the form of stomach acid eating away your stomach.
We stood outside with our armloads of alcohol, watching our beers get warm and the lucky diners inside chomping on burekas. The burekas were piled in delicious stacks by the window, taunting us. They are kind of the main reason Kim and I go back to Gazala again and again. As soon as we sat down, we ordered two for the table to share. Okay, actually, when we sat down, I cracked open a beer while guzzling my wine (to stave off hunger, I swear). Then we ordered the burekas. Order them as soon as you sit down, they take awhile to warm up in the oven, which is the magic that makes the crust even flakier and the cheese inside hot and fragrant. Also, don't get greedy and order too many. These babies are dense. Just take some to go for breakfast the next day. We got a goat cheese and tomato bureka and another flavor that completely escapes me. Yeah... sorry... both were good, we ate them all.
We ordered a gazillion dishes, but I forgot to take pictures due to my excitement over finally getting nourishment into my body. By the time I remembered to take pics, we pretty much ate all the apps. We got babaganush, various grape leaves (meat and non-meat), the artichoke special. We ate everything. But I, unfortunately, don't remember enough to describe the food sufficiently. sorry... again... But the falafels! I do have a crappy picture of that and do remember it, cuz I LOVE their falafels! They were smaller than usual. Very pretty green, and very flavorful. They were also fried to a crisp with a really crunchy shell. The accompanying tahini sauce was garlicky and yum. Hmm.. okay, I guess my description still sucks.
The chak choka is a bubbling tomato stew with two eggs plopped in it. I think the idea of it is much more interesting than the actual execution. I ate it, but didn't love it. It has all the predictable flavors. I guess my problem with it was that I wasn't quite sure how to eat it - with a spoon? dip a pita? It was too thick for a spoon and too thin to really scoop up with pita. Also, the plopped eggs were cooked through so quickly. So we basically ate two sunny side up eggs in tomato stew.
Our favorite dish by far was the whole fish special. It didn't look like much, but oh man, so delicious. The fish was deep fried in its entirety and garnished with a super duper garlicky lemony sauce. OMG the sauce. I can probably eat candle wax if it were drizzled in that sauce. How can something that simple be so delicious. We literally, no joke, asked for a spoon for the sauce at the end. Yep, got no shame.
Our other entrees were a grilled chicken special. It was flavored well, but kinda dry. Dryness is the reason why if I were to eat chicken at a restaurant, it has to be fried or in a pot pie. We also got the stuffed zucchini special. The zucchinis were hollowed out and stuffed with most rice and a tiiiiny bit of minced meat. It was fine, but so not worthy of room in my tummy. After the dish arrived, I remembered that we had it last time and wasn't impressed. D'oh....
Even though Gazala has gems and un-gems, I still love the place. BYOB, cheap plates, complimentary yummy corn/lettuce salad (oh corn, how I love thee) and grape leaves for almost every entree. I'll probably be back soon, even if it's just to get burekas to go.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment