A lot of young people have expanded on the New Orleans food scene in the last decade, and especially in the last few years by offering food they miss from their place of origin. Since this is my place of origin, and the food is world-famous, I usually discount these newcomers as inferior to what we already have here.
But recently we had a young lady on The Food Show who intrigued me for two reasons: she was interesting, and she was serving Mediterranean food, which I have romantic notions about. Mediterranean food excites me because it has two traits that are rarely seen together: it is healthy and delicious.
Smoke & Honey is located in a little space in Mid-City recently vacated by Piece of Meat Butcher. Vassiliki Ellwood Yiagazis is serving Israeli and Greek “street food,” whatever that means. After looking at the menu I decided it means all the things I love. They import bagels from New York so I had to try them. And a look at the rest of the menu made me need to go there.
I had to have some of their grilled chicken and Greek Village Salad. There is Boureka, lamb, different gyro platters, and housecut fries, as well as an eggplant sandwich that has generated a lot of buzz.
We tried to go to Smoke & Honey a few times with no luck. Each time made me want to come back and try again. The place is cute, and it got cuter with each visit. Painted bright yellow, just the look even from afar makes you curious about the place. Hanging lights add to the allure. Inside is tiny with a big open kitchen where all the cooking is done. It smells divine in there, and everyone is very friendly, even when they have bad news to impart. On one visit they were shut down because of Entergy and could only sell bagels.
On another try, I couldn’t figure out how to call them on the phone, and that annoyed me. From my compromised online skills, it seemed to me they only take orders online, but I did have some questions. I resolved to just let it go.
And then one day Tom and I were riding around just because that’s what we do now. I decided to give it one last try. We got two bagels and a gyro platter with chicken. It came with the housecut fries and the Village Salad. And we got a matzo ball soup which they had just run out of. It would take 40 minutes to get more. So we ran another errand but were not able to return until the time between service. They closed at 3 but we didn’t make it back until 3:30. I was worried the doors would be locked, but then realized they couldn’t possibly be closed because no one leaves when the kitchen closes.
Except they did. The place must have cleared out at exactly 3. There was no one there but the people in the kitchen. They assured me they were waiting just for me to return. They couldn’t have been nicer.
We didn’t do this gyro platter justice. We ate it in the car. I just couldn’t believe how fantastic it was! It was coated with so much stuff I would have been afraid to do that. Whatever the spices were they were everywhere. The chicken was oily with these plentiful herbs. I think this was the best of this I have ever had. But the chicken was hardly the star of this plate.
Move over Alon Shaya. The pillowy pita he made famous doesn’t stand up to this pita with the grill marks and more herbs and oil. Fantastic! The fries had been sitting for a long time and they were still good cold. This combination of flavors and textures was superb, and I have thought about it a lot since. That rarely happens. I loved the Village Salad. What's not to love about a salad of fresh chopped cucumber and pickled onions, tomatoes, and olives, with feta, herbs, and lots of lemon and olive oil?
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The matzo ball soup had a great broth, but flavorful as it was, I’m just not a fan of the texture of matzo balls. But this version would thrill fans of the dish, I think.
When I got home I tried the bagel. It was an everything bagel, and I was underwhelmed by it. I figured if Vassilliki was going through the trouble of importing them here, they must be something. Maybe my expectations were too high but these didn’t move me at all.
The menu here is not as large as I’d like, but I'm not sure I can get past that grilled chicken anyway. Worth a trip all by itself.
