Since we weren’t invited anywhere for Christmas this year and we didn’t feel festive enough to put together our own holiday meal, we decided to eat out. Perhaps we got the idea to go to Mamoun’s in New Haven
from the head scarves that the ladies of the house received as Christmas gifts earlier in the day.
Mamoun’s is a great off-times destination, as it’s not only open every day of the year but keeps late hours. But it’s also a personal favorite dating back to the 1970s, the yardstick against which I measure other Middle Eastern eateries. It has sibling restaurants in New York and New Jersey, but I believe it’s the second oldest of them.
Although Mamoun’s offers meat dishes like shawarma, lamb steak and chicken and kafta kebabs, I usually elect to eat vegetarian there. Thus, I was excited to introduce our vegetarian daughter to the restaurant at about the same age I must have first tried it.
Our daughter opted for Mamoun’s great lemonade,
while my wife and I went for the tamarind juice.
Not only did my daughter opt for a vegetarian platter,
accompanied by pita bread,
but so did her mother.
I decided to have a falafel (deep-fried chickpea balls) sandwich and a makdous (stuffed, oil-cured eggplants) sandwich.
We also had Syrian rice (the redness is from tomato paste, nothing spicy)
and mjedra (lentils, cracked wheat and fried onions), a dish of a thousand spellings.
The food is healthy and delicious, and it usually won’t occur to you that you’re eating vegetarian, assuming you elect to do so.
For dessert, we had baklava,
two kinds of halvah,
regular
and chocolate,
almond delight (a variation on Turkish delight, also offered)
and wonderful strong thick Turkish coffee.
And even though no one invited us to join them for Christmas, we didn’t falafel at all.
Mamoun’s Falafel Restaurant, 85 Howe Street, New Haven, 203-562-8444, www.mamouns.com