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Here’s a handy word to know for your
next vacation in Arabic-speaking lands: taboon. As in
domed oven used for baking puffy flatbread.
Then again, if you tend to heed State Department warnings, travel
instead to Taboon at 52nd and Tenth Avenue. Open for two
years, Taboon has beguiled the neighborhood, and now the word is
out: Taboon is hot. With its white-washed wood tables and white
chairs and white-bricked walls, the room flushed with candlelight
and sheltered from the street with gauzy curtains, Taboon creates an
oasis in the middle of a rather desolate section of Tenth Avenue.
Once winter hits, this room might be just the thing.
As
it is, you walk in and feel immediately at home. You could be in
some Middle Eastern restaurant in the Marais in Paris, or some
Mediterranean boite in Marseille. The staff has that European
professionalism, whereby they understand that your dinner
conversation is more important than a histrionic re-enactment of the
daily specials.
As
for the food, think seriously about ordering another flatbread –
even when you’re only halfway through the first one which arrives
unbidden on your table. This puffy flatbread, somewhat lighter than
foccacia, but drizzled with olive oil, sage, and rosemary, is
sublime – and particularly when sprinkled with the sea salt served
alongside it in a small porcelain bowl. Hummus is spiked with
jalapeno, and the tzatziki is tangy and creamy – and both beg for
continuous dipping. Order an ouzo-based drink, frothed with mint
and grapefruit juice – and with the bread and the tzatziki, you’ve
got yourself a meal.
Of
course, there are also well-balanced salads and fifteen varieties of
meze with which to make a picnic at the table. And for dessert,
toasty and crumbly meringues – as well as a sponge date cake with
vanilla gelato which gives dates a good name for life.
Finish off the meal with a Turkish coffee – and read your future in
the grounds. Whether or not you end up in an Arabic-speaking
country, Taboon, at this destination, means delicious.
Best always,
Mark and Robert
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