much anticipated birthday dinner comes to fruition. FINALLY

last night, trifecta +1, sometimes referred to as the supersecret underground restaurant club, had dinner at ZAHAV. we had planned this dinner as a birthday celebration for soopahpit, but we had postponed it to accommodate the ailments of one miss j. giggles.

i'd say that our group had extremely high expectations going into this dinner for the following reasons:

1. zahav has been on our must-eat list for the longest period of time
2. i had been to zahav before and my experience there had firmly left its mark in my food brain as "the best dining experience i had had in 2009." bold, i know. but it truly was. it even surpassed my first time at modo mio.
3. every blogger, philly food writer, critic, had hailed zahav as the BEST RESTAURANT in philly. 

so clearly, we were anticipating an unforgettable evening.
what we found, though, was a fairly expensive meal that was somewhat disappointing. sad, i know.


:: zahav ::
address: 237 st. james place, phila
what: the ta'yim tasting menu, tempranillo wine, beer 
the four of us ordered the Ta'Yim - the $36 per person tasting menu, which came with the Salatim & Hummus and a choice of one plate from each of the three courses: Halavi (dairy), Basari (meat), and Al Ha'esh (grilled over coals).
SALATIM & HUMMUS course: definitely one of the highlights of the meal.

salatim tower included (clockwise from the upper far left corner): 
TOP TRAY: roasted shredded beets, fennel salad, tabbouleh, marinated eggplant salad
BOTTOM TRAY: pickled cauliflower, marinated pickled okra, pickled carrot salad, tomato and cucumber salad.

the hummus was so good even our +1 friend, chanpion, enjoyed it! (he was definitely not a fan of middle eastern cuisine overall though). don't think HE'll be returning. HOWEVER, extra shoutouts need to go out because he endured this exotic and less than familiar meal just to honor the friendship to soopahpit.
the laffa was thin and soft chewy and the hummus had great flavor. i thought it was a bit on the dry side, but perhaps i just wasn't sopping up enough of the olive oil with each bite.

HALAVI course: crispy haloumi (cypriotic sheep's milk cheese, dates, pine nuts), yirakot (confit of mushrooms, leeks and fennel, almonds), stuffed peppers (egyptian rice, trumpet mushrooms, walnuts), fried cauliflower (labeneh with chive, dill, mint, and garlic).
the only dishes that really stood out here were the cauliflower and the haloumi. everyone enjoyed the fried cauliflower immensely; the mint leaves a refreshing flavor with each bite of the salty garlicy-ness. personally, i enjoyed the haloumi quite a bit. it was one of the dishes i was most looking forward to on this return trip, but the rest of the group HATED it. even j. giggles, whose support i was almost certain i'd have on this, disagreed with my assessment of this cheese.

BASARI course: fried kibbe with tahini (lamb, bulgar wheat, pine nuts), short rib pastel (yemeni spice, potatoes, sesame), roasted veal bone marrow (beluga lentils, pickled lemon).
i really enjoyed the fried kibbe and the short rib pastel. the lamb kibbe tasted a lot like a deep fried empanada with ground up lamb meat, which explains why soopah did not enjoy. the lamb meat tasted very lamb-y, maybe slightly game-y, but not in a bad way. the short rib pastel was a shredded short rib stuffed puff pastry and i found the crust to be flaky and crispy and the meat to be beefy and flavorful.
roasted bone marrow was groooooooooooooooooooooooss. i think maybe this is what separates the real foodies from the fauxdies. the bone marrow was gelatinous and gooey and the fatty flavor was not that appealing to me, even with the combination of saltiness/texture of the lentils.

AL HA'ESH course: the romanian (hanger steak, charred eggplant puree, pine nuts), the farsi (duck two ways, persian rice, pistachios), the jaffa (branzino al ha'esh, fennel, olives). 
the group really enjoyed the hanger steak the most of this course. i think it's because it was just a good piece of steak, but didn't really have particularly middle eastern flavors associated with it. the eggplant purree that accompanied it was pretty tasty, though. we were split on the duck - i hated it, chiho loved it, soopah/j.giggles were ambivalent about it. the duck two ways were a) in a duck meatball and b) rolled up and grilled. i thought it was tough and overcooked, but apparently the second plate of the duck dish had been prepared infinitely better than mine because chiho enjoyed it. the rice that came with it was very fragrant - almost perfumey. i haven't really decided if i liked it or not. the branzino had a very typically branzino-like flavor/smell, so again we were split on this. 

DESSERT course: chocolate konafi (kataifi, chocolate, mascarpone, chocolet sorbet), pistachio cake (poached rhubarb, frozen salep), almond baklava (date jam, milk & honey ice cream), warm chocolate cake (tehina, spiced whipped cream.
of the four desserts that we sampled, the almond baklava was definitely the winner. i had actually ordered this the first time i went to zahav, but i swear it looked/tasted different this time around. still great, but definitely not mind/tastebud-blowing like it had been the last time. the most foreign of the desserts was the chocolate konafi, which if i had to describe it, was similar to shredded wheat formed into a thick round disc shape. i don't think it was particularly an enjoyable dessert, as getting each forkful felt like a bit of a battle - with the shredded pieces clinging to each other, trying to force you to take the entire thing in one bite. the pistachio cake was pleasant. the chocolate cake was gooey, warm, rich and delicious, but i could have done without the tehina and spiced whipped cream. to be honest, i found myself eating the cake around the cream, avoiding that top part of the cake altogether.

OVERALL, i'd say that my initial zahav experience was so wonderful, that i'd definitely warrant a return trip despite being a bit disappointed last night. i'm not sure if soopah, chiho or j. giggles would return though. obviously, there are many more places we'd prefer to visit before we come back to zahav though.

next time, i'll go back to the tried and true classics: chicken freekah, spinach borekas... and of course, the haloumi! yummmmmmmmmmmm.