By Yana Krasnitskaya
If I had to choose just one cuisine to eat for the rest of my life, it would be Mediterranean. I could live off kebabs, dips, and pita bread and be completely satisfied. So naturally, I was excited to try Bustan earlier this week – a restaurant that’s been on my list for quite some time.
Mediterranean food isn’t actually a single cuisine but rather an amalgamation of cuisines from countries bordering the Mediterranean — Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and Morocco, just to name a few — so it goes without saying that it’s nearly impossible to neatly define Mediterranean food. Bustan doesn’t even try.
Citing influences from Southern Europe and North Africa, Bustan refers to itself as pan-Mediterranean fare, and the menu reflects that.
From mixed olives to babaganoush to whole Moroccan fish, the restaurant offers a veritable journey across the shores of the sea, a bit like EPCOT, if EPCOT resembled a dining room full of dark wood tables slotted so close together so as to give the impression that everyone is seated at one long communal bench. The menu is categorized by small, medium and large plates, all designed to be shared. The portions are appropriately generous, and some of the dishes even come with a bit of artistic flare – as in the case of the Kebab Halabi ($37) – which also happened to be a dish I haven’t stopped thinking about since my visit.
If you just go by the menu description, the Kebab Halabi seems like a pretty standard entree – ground lamb, roasted vegetables, tahini. The element that is crucial here is that it’s baked in a bread dome, which is basically an edible lid: a thin layer of pita bread draped over the clay pot to seal the treasures inside as they cook. Pictures of this dish can’t possibly capture the surprise on my face (and those of the people around me) when the dish was delivered and the top cut open tableside. It was so unexpected, I didn’t have time to take a proper video of the unveiling. So let me tell you how it tasted instead.
You have to be a fan of onion if you’re going to enjoy this dish. While there are also juicy half-moon pieces of roasted Roma tomatoes, and very mild but flavorful Italian hot pepper, the onion is the real standout. Red and white varieties are cut into thick segments that are softened ever so slightly by the cooking so as to retain their texture but eliminate the bite that comes with raw onion. Roasting brings out the onion’s sweetness, and because onions absorb the flavor around them so beautifully, the smoky nuttiness of the tahini seeps through as well.
The kebab itself is tender and juicy with a nice crisp coating and a depth of flavor that can stand up to both the tahini and onion. This is where the name – Kebab Halabi — comes from. The direct translation is “kebab in the style of Aleppo,” referring to the historical city of Aleppo in Syria. (I told you Mediterranean food was eclectic!) The lamb is ground, and just like the onion, it soaks up all the juices and flavors surrounding it, creating a very memorable bite. I enjoyed tearing pieces of the thin bread dome – which was studded generously with sesame seeds – and dipping them into the bottom of the clay pot, picking up the delicious remnants of the lamb and onion, with the occasional pistachio.
This was also the strategy I used when sampling Bustan’s dips. I dragged steaming pieces of the Housemade Taboon Bread ($4) through both the Spicy Feta ($9) and Hummus ($9). With a small mountain of chickpeas swimming in a center olive oil nest, the hummus was visually arresting, but it was the salty, creamy feta with a definite kick that stole the dip show for me. The bread was the perfect airy, chewy vehicle for this adventure.
While Mediterranean food can’t be pigeonholed, there are a few shared traditions and cooking philosophies tying this collection of cuisines together. There’s usually an emphasis on fresh produce, with legumes and nuts ever present. It’s always olive oil, never butter, and the breads double as utensils in the best way.
Here, the ingredients don’t need fancy cooking techniques to shine – they speak for themselves, borrowing both from land and sea. The Kebab Halabi is a perfect representation of that philosophy and well worth the trip to Bustan, tableside theatrics and all.
The Dish: Kebab Halabi ($38)
The Restaurant: Bustan, 487 Amsterdam Avenue, (between West 83rd & 84th streets) Open Monday to Thursday, 5 to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Read all Here’s the UWS Dish columns here.
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