Tuesday, November 30. Byblos. To town, for the first time in a week. The new time of the show is working out even better than I expected. The calls are coming in greater numbers, for one thing. After I signed off, I wrote and recorded a couple of commercials, and still arrived at Byblos in time for the early seating, around seven. This apparently is too early for Uptown. Hardly anyone was there. More people arrived the later it got.
I haven't dined at a full-monte Byblos in quite some time. I'm always running into their delis for chicken shawarma, but those are quite different from the two full-menu restaurants. Tarek Tay, one of the three Lebanese guys who own Byblos, has been on my case for rather some time to take another taste of his lamb chops. They've always been excellent, but he thought they should have finished higher in a top-ten list I ran some months ago.
The first thing I noticed was that the prices are higher here than I remember. But from the opening of the first Byblos on Metairie Road sixteen years ago, the place has always been upscale of the other Middle Eastern restaurants around town. Higher prices, better quality--or so it seemed to me. And even the highest prices in the Lebanese category are good deals.
I started with a five-dollar bowl of their lentil and spinach soup. That's one of my cold remedies. The hotness of it alone makes the symptoms easier to take, and it tastes good, too.
Then the lamb chops. They were saddled up--still connected at the backbone, four sets of two chops in the shape of a heart. Right off the grill, crusty black at the edges and juicy mid-rare in the centers of the eyes. The mild tang of the marinade completed a convincing deliciousness. They wouldn't be at the top of my list, but probably should be higher than I had them. Time to do that list again, anyway.
This came out with the restaurant's basmati rice and pasta pilaf. (This ancient dish is where Rice-A-Roni got its idea.) And hummus, which can be used like a sauce for lamb to excellent effect. Twenty-four bucks the plate, and more than a fair deal at that.
But the great dish of the night was ahead. Byblos introduced ashta to the New Orleans area, for which we are all thankful. Most Middle Eastern desserts and dry little layered cooked with nuts and honey, more like a coffee pastry than a real dessert. Not so ashta. It's a pillow of phyllo pastry wrapped around an incomparably good, cloudlike custard. A syrup flavored with orange flower water and pistachios runs around it. It's easily big enough for two, and perhaps as many as four. It's one of the best desserts of any kind in town, so good it's almost inevitable that you eat too much of it.
With a glass of Joseph Drouhin Pinot Noir, all this came to just under $50. That's about as much as you could spend here without overeating or overdrinking.
What, no belly dancers tonight? Thank God.
On my way out, I looked in on Salu, the new Spanish tapas restaurant the Byblos guys opened in the former Catch. (That was a seafood restaurant that lasted less than a year, the victim of an overambitious menu and cacophonous acoustics.) Salu created a flurry of interest when it opened. I don't know how they do the rest of the week, but on this Tuesday the crowd was sparse. Parking in the neighborhood os becoming scarcer as more restaurants open. On the other hand, there's always a crowd at The Bulldog across the street.
Byblos. Uptown: 3218 Magazine. 504-894-1233.
