Just some smaller eats of note this time, with two spots I particularly wanted to mention. The first was a very unassuming Lebanese restaurant called Beirut Grill that’s about ten minutes from Globe Life Field. That might be the best baba ghanouj I have ever had, and if not, it’s very close. It was smoky, garlicky, and incredibly bright, and I almost could have made a meal of that alone, as I think the appetizer portion was one entire eggplant and came with five or six large, warm pitas. I did, however, order an actual main course, the tawook sandwich with shish tawook (marinated, grilled chunks of chicken breast) with tomatoes, parsley, and toum (garlic sauce) wrapped in a thin bread that I think was markook, since it was thinner than a pita or laffa. The chicken was still juicy and had the brightness of the lemon juice in the marinade, and the toum … well, it’s mostly garlic, so I’m a fan, but that’s the sort of thing you’ll probably love or hate. Those two items plus a sparking water came to about $19 before tip. I’ve been thinking about the baba ghanouj for three days now.
I was in San Antonio for part of the day on Saturday and found a food hall in the city called Make Ready, where I ate at Four Brothers, a Venezuelan food stand that sells arepas – two for $12.99, to be precise, so I got one with chicken and one vegan one with black beans, both with sliced avocado, maduros (sweet plantains), garlic sauce, onions, and more. The chicken one was so stuffed it fell apart before I could finish it, but that was the winner of the two, just because the chicken itself had so much flavor, smoky and salty and a tiny bit spicy. The vegan arepa was perfectly fine, but it missed the extra flavors from the sauce on the chicken itself. I’m trying to eat less meat in general, but on both my trips to Texas in the last three weeks, I’ve had narrow windows to eat, and usually that means chicken is involved somehow. I also got the yucca fries, but I’d give those a miss; they definitely needed more salt, but also they just weren’t necessary given the size of the two arepas.
I revisited Smoke ‘n Ash, the Ethiopian/Texas BBQ fusion spot in south Arlington that earned a writeup in the New York Times two years ago, and ended up ordering almost the same thing I did last July, with some small modifications. I will say having had the chicken and the ribs both with and without the Ethiopian awaze seasoning, I’d pay the upcharge to add it every time. Without is good; with is divine. I tried the ye’abasha gomen, listed on the menu as vegan collard greens to distinguish them from the “beefy collard greens,” which I believe contain beef. I’ve never had collards like these and I honestly don’t know how I feel about them; they’re very gingery, with garlic, cardamom, and coriander, so they also come across as very earthy in flavor. The collards themselves were extremely well cooked, tender but not mushy, and the whole thing had plenty of salt; it’s also just possible that it didn’t meld well with the other flavors on the plate. I still love this place and wish there were more things for me to try.
I’ll also vouch again for Nehemiah Coffee, a local coffee shop maybe 7-8 minutes from Globe Life up on Lamar. They’re open till 10 pm and serve some food and some beer and wine later in the day; their coffee is the best I’ve had in the area, and I really love their simple breakfast sandwich because of the chipotle aioli they put on it. It’s also a very appealing space in which to sit and work or read or just relax, because it’s open and gets a lot of natural light through the windows. That’s become my morning stop every time I’m in Arlington now.
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