Saturday

Yesterday, my mother arrived just in time for a nice dinner at Lebanese Taverna.* She has come up to DC for a belated birthday celebration, and she will be staying here until Monday. So of course we overdid it a little in the middle eastern food department, ordering pretty much everything on the menu that we really love. By the time all of our order had arrived, there were something like eleven plates littering the table. We ordered shankleesh (feta cheese warmed and rolled in sumac, paprika, and other spices), fattoush (green Lebanese salad with a pomegranate vinaigrette dressing), lebneh (a thick yogurt sauce with lemon), fatayer b’jibne (blended goat cheeses in a fried dumpling), manakish bel zaatar (unleavened bread thickly spread, like a pizza, with thyme and cumin in oil, served with olives and an onion yogurt sauce), mehshi bel zeit (a number of fresh vegetables stuffed with herbs, rice, and feta, baked in tomatoes with rosemary and pine nuts), and French fries (but hey, with a delicious crushed garlic dip). Everything is always so good at the Taverna that I cannot come up with a favorite. Maybe it is the bread service: an occasionally refilled basket of fluffy hot pita that pours steam from its pocket when its gently pulled apart. I also ordered my favorite boutique drink concoction in the area: a blend of gin and lemon juice served shaken in a martini glass rimmed with rich, dark sumac shavings called an "Oasis." Our dinner was about two hours long, and each one of us ate until we were bloated, but there was so much food left over that we still have leftovers in our fridge. But not for long: just writing this Update guarantees that I will eat those leftovers shortly after posting it. [Cavin]