Day 5 Feast for Eye and Mouth

SYNOPSIS:  COMFORT FOOD ON A RAINY DAYI woke up this morning at 6:30 AM to a full-blown thunderstorm and a downpour that put the last two days to shame.    I was in no mood to even consider leaving the house until this was over.  So I got up to do some work at the computer, but  found myself without electricity!  This is the 3 hour power-outage that rotates through town and time.  Today our turn was 6-9, tomorrow it likely will be 9-12 and so forth.  But when you get to the end of the cycle you have to start counting backwards...  This is way confusing, not even Setareh is trying to predict.  I won't try to figure it out either.   I will just have to work around it.  In short, the circumstances were no great motivators to get up at all, so I slept in..What to do with a day that promises to be nothing but depressing?  I had to think of something comforting.  Thanks, Joe, for scolding me about leaving out Lebanese food.  I decided, this was the day to splurge on the Lebanese Lunch Buffet, served in a trendy, newly renovated establishment right in my apartment building.  I did not even have to pack an umbrella!.I showed up 1/2 hour early and probably drove all the people there nuts.  I had met Gary, the owner, a few days ago in the hallway.   Unsuspectingly, he let me in.  I grilled him and two of his very cute Lebanese waiters about every bit of information on each dish they were willing to divulge. Then I photographed everything..There were three delicious salads.  Your ordinary Tabuli, Rehab Salad, made with very slimy eggplants and a smoky-tasting pomegranate paste that looked like molasses; and Hendbe Salad, named after an herb I had never heard of.  The greens in it looked like spinach, but tasted more like bakchoi (how the heck do you spell that?).  It stuck in my teeth and was a rather annoying dish.  But the finely chopped pieces of onions that topped this salad, fried to a crisp were a true delicacy..For cold parts there was Mtabseh. Patties, soft, yet with texture, created by tiny shards of onions and tomatoes which were worked into a flower-based dough.  Yum.  And the plate full of Fatayer.  Delightful little dough creatures in various shapes filled with either cheese, herbs, or meat.  Not to forget the Kebbeh-bi-sylik which reminded me of what you can buy at Aladdin's Market as Kibbies.  There they are either filled with potatoes or meat.  Here, they were filled with a most tasty mix of herbs.   Very filling..But one of my favorites was a pot full of lentils.  Again, Gary did not really share his secrets.  There must have been  more to it then lentils than he let on.  These were by far the best-tasting lentils I have ever had. But wait, there is more:.The main course was a lamb roasted in vegetables and served with a slightly sour, red-wine-based sauce:  Shehbeye.  I was not too impressed.  It reminded my of the rabbit stew I like to make for Christmas.   The rabbit meat is a lot more tender than his lamb.  Perhaps, they sold him mutton?  To round out the main dish there was rice cooked with vegetables called Frikeh.  Again, this was not the rice I know.  Much softer, almost pasty and soup like.  More like couscous.  A mild dish, but not bad..But speaking of bad, there was the specialty of the day:  Ghameh.  Lamb stomach filled with rice and herbs.  I did not ask if the stomach was eatable.  I had to assume it was; after all they were serving it to dozens of people.!   I stuck to the filling only after one bite...  The resemblance to goose-bumpy testicles was a bit too much for me.  Not what I understand to be a culinary delight..But speaking of culinary delight:  The dessert!  It was delicious.  Picture a white milk-based curd, sandwiched between two layers of brown sugar-based, angel-hair, noodly strings, topped with a few shards of green nuts and a few red highlights of pomegranate.  If that is not enough, pour the honey based syrup over it and you are in heaven. That's Ossmalieh for you.Wash all of this down with water and... Arak - anise liqueur... and you will understand why I did not mind the $25 any more and why I no longer cared about rain or electricity.  What better way to spend a day than to sample Lebanese food for 3 hours!How is that for a culinary report, Joe?  :-)By the time I was finished with lunch around 2:30 PM the rain had actually stopped.   I headed out to walk around for four hours in two of the districts I had not seen yet:  Gemmayzeh and Achrafiye.  Especially Achrafiye is one of the hillier districts.  Beirut as a whole only has a limited flat, coastal area.   Much of the town hugs the hillsides.  I don't know how many steep stairs I have been climbing today.  Punishment, well deserved after a lunch like this.I got home just in time for another thunderstorm to roll in.  It has been raging out there since...Oh, did I mention breakfast:  A cup of tea.  And dinner, of course:  Several spoons full of Nutella, right out of the jar.To get this far in my blog took me five frustrating hours of trying to upload images (unsuccessfully), writing, being disconnected, losing text and editing repeatedly!  Frustrating, to say the least!  If my son gets hold of my culinary images, he may post them for you.  If not, you have to wait until I have more than the "very low" connectivity I have been battling all day long.Good night.UPDATE:In Tripoli for lunch I had Khusa Bleban. It's a stuffed vegetable.  Looks like a cucumber, but it's probably in the zucchini family.  The stuffing consists of rice and meat.   And the whole thing is cooked in a milky sauce . Yum.