Karamalicious on 4th Ave. in Brooklyn.
Ah, Christmas. There's no better time of year to get the hell away from Manhattan and eat some extremely delicious food that costs almost nothing. Find Karam just outside the penultimate stop on the R train. It's a shawarma stand, pretty much. But if the same exact dishes were served in a dining room, foodies would be beating a path to Bay Ridge every weekend. If that non-existent dining room were magically transported to Manhattan, there'd be three-hour waits for a table.
Karam serves top-notch Lebanese cuisine. Imagine Supper's homestyle Italian fare slung out of some outerborough pizza joint. Translate to Arabic, and you've got the idea.
The harsh reality of the place is, it's nothing even close to a dining room, just a few tables against the narrow room's wall, with no protection from the dinner rush. That's likely to include large numbers of white-ethnic teenagers in hiphop gear calling each other "nigga." The lighting is fluorescent and crazy bright. There's a bathroom, at least?though it stinks. Consider yourself warned that there's no justifying a trip to Karam to someone who doesn't truly love to eat.
More for the rest of us. The first thing you see upon entering Karam is a bountiful display of what the menu calls "pies." These are traditional Lebanese snacks?doughy baked morsels of meat or veggies with characteristic traditional spices. Absolutely extraordinary is Karam's zaatar. The chewy flatbread's herb-mix topping combines in a resounding, earthy flavor, almost like a woody mushroom. Lahmajeen is the same round bread with meat, onion, parsley, tomato, pepper and spices ground up, spread atop and baked in. We judged the spinach and cheese a notch below those two pies, but as they all go for a buck or two, you don't need an expense account to run the gamut for yourself.
Next, you'll want to sample Karam's array of side salads. They, too, are on display. Though they don't appear as savory as the pies, they're not to be skipped. I went gaga over the moujadara?a lentil paste made with rice and caramelized onion. Sounds boring, and looks like mortar, but I could've eaten a vat of it. Eggplant and tomato salad was another knockout. Its seasoning came off unhurried and wise, as if lemon, garlic, cumin and parsley were old friends chatting around the hookah.
Hummus and baba invoke the same sagacity?the former nutty and peanut-butter thick, the latter swirled with equal parts smoke and verdant olive oil.
Karam's lentil soup is a dense, yellow puree, packing as lush a lentil flavor as you're likely to find anywhere. The tabouleh is unusually light on cracked wheat, so the salad looks like a pile of parsley, though kisses of lemon, tomato and oil ensure that the fresh little leaves are at their best. Small portions of all of Karam's salads are priced under $5. A drawback is that some of them are served too cold?as likely the result of Department of Health harassment as of some oversight on the restaurant's part.
On to the entrees. Yet another must-have is the lamb kebab. Not of the super-tenderized, meticulously butchered cube variety, Karam's lamb scores major-league points for flavor. The marinade and grilling are as robust as the weighty chunks of meat that, raw on their skewers, are arrayed in the restaurant's display case between the pies and the salads. The best way to enjoy your charcoal-flame-seared lamb is with a side of cool yogurt "salad." Despite the presence of cucumber and fresh mint, it's really more of a sauce.
While most of Karam's dishes are basically the same as what's offered in other Middle Eastern restaurants, only better, the falafel stands out as unique. The balls are non-greasy and light?though certainly fried, they flaunt some of the texture of a baked good. Also, in this falafel, sesame plays a supporting role to chickpea. It's rare to taste a falafel so worthy of a plate. It works fine crammed into the back-end of a pita sandwich, too.
Karam's entrees come as platters ($7-10, or $9-13 with two sides of your choice) or sandwiches (most $4.50). Besides the lamb kebab, there's marinated beef and chicken, and two kinds of shawarma. Most of the meat dishes come with homemade pickles. Be careful with those: They have even more zing than Karam's vinegary house hot sauce.
Specials are posted in Arabic only, but taking that as an indicator of extra-specialness was a mistake. One, an entree version of kibbeh (a meal of ground beef and cracked wheat with sweet onion and pine nuts), turned out to be a wedge of Lebanese meatloaf, baked in a crust not unpleasantly reminiscent of pumpkin pie. Another special, involving beef with potato slices and tomato sauce, was the only clunker we encountered at Karam. I'd have thought it an ill-advised sop to Bay Ridge's shrinking Italian-American majority, if only the dish had been advertised in English.
Desserts at Karam include passable versions of traditional Lebanese puddings, including milk (mhalabia) and rice (moughleh), both seasoned with crushed pistachio and rosewater. When they're perfect, those are significantly more delicate. Much the same can be said for the baklava and ladyfingers shipped in from Montreal?home of one of North America's most vibrant Lebanese communities. More than a little dry after the long trip to Brooklyn, they're nearly awesome anyway.
Jewel Bako
One would be justifiably skeptical toward Jewel Bako, a much-praised and popular East Village sushi restaurant. I know I was, and not only because, historically, you could always do better for sushi than trying some much-praised and popular East Village sushi joint. Then there's the fact that this miniscule restaurant is decorated to resemble a precious little box, with overhead bamboo arches that unwittingly reference the old, wicker-appointed subway cars on display at the Transit Museum.
All that's forgiven now, on account of a hair-raisingly good platter of fish and rice I encountered at Jewel Bako. At $29, it was the least expensive combo on the menu, and a bargain at that. Tremendously tasty eel, fatty tuna, raw shrimp and New Zealand salmon were among the highlights. I finished with a victory lap of specials, including a herring roe piece that branded my memory with its flavor. The chef's cuts were exquisite?"teeth are not necessary," is how my partner put it?and the restaurant's service is smart and attentive. Great sake list too. Believe the hype.
Jewel Bako, 239 5th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.), 212-979-1012