mazza star*

The other night H was tied up at work, so I went out to dinner with my work neighbor Jody and her husband Steve.  Jody is a native Salt Lakian as well as a foodie, so she's a great resource when the question is "where should we go out to eat tonight?"  That night, the answer was Mazza, serving Middle Eastern cuisine on 9th and 9th in SLC.  Mazza also has another location at 15th and 15th, but the restaurant there is tiny-tiny and we figured we'd have a better shot at getting a table at the other one.

This Mazza has some outside seating - which makes for great people-watching in the trendy 9th and 9th neighborhood - but as it was again in the 90s, we opted for inside which was pleasantly (not overly) air conditioned.  They have wine and beer, including some local micros, and this location also has booze.  I had a Cutthroat pale ale and Steve had a Uinta Golden Spike hefeweizen, while Jody went with the non-alcoholic but refreshing homemade limeade, flavored with orange blossom water (which she thought tasted a bit like soap).

For a starter, we split an order of hummus b'lahmeh (seasoned fried ground beef - supertasty), served with warm, pillowy pitas.  Jody got the lamb and rice dolaa, which she thought she had had before and loved but which ended up bland and the least tasty of the three entrees; Steve had the musakhan, a flat bread stuffed onion, chicken, herbs and spices and served with a very garlicky sauce; I had chicken and cauliflower kabseh, a sort of hybrid Middle Eastern/Indian dish with curry tomato and onion sauce, fried raisins and pine nuts, and served with rice and a cucumber-garlic (not too garlicky) yogurt.  The portions were ginormous: I ate about a third of my meal, taking the rest with me.

We even got dessert.  Steve loves chocolate cake, so he and Jody split a piece of that, four layers high.  I went the traditional route of kanafeh cream pudding, topped with shredded phyllo (reminiscent of shredded wheat, frankly), chopped pistachios and a light orange blossom syrup.  Yum!

I thought Mazza was great.  There's lots of variety on the menu so H will be able to find something he wants to eat when we go; for the vegetarians, vegans and gluten-intolerant, Mazza has plenty for you as well. Good stuff, this Middle Eastern restaurant in the middle of the American West.

*  Those of you who listened to alt-rock in the 1990s will hopefully get the play-on-words in this post's title.