I stand staring up at the big menu hung above the counter at Mawadda Cafe.
Peter Mumford
Cabbies love this, and you should too.
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Mawadda Cafe 4433 S. Graham St., 760-0911, mawaddacafe.com. Daily, lunch and dinner.
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Owner Rami Al-Jebori stands on the other side of the counter, staring at me.
I say, "Uh..."
Al-Jebori waits with a pen in his hand.
I say, "OK, um..."
There is no one in line behind me; no one hurrying me. On this warm afternoon in Hillman City, there is only one other customer at Mawadda: a cabbie sitting at the high counter by the windows, reading a tiny book and sipping a bottle of lassi.
I'm not confused. Contrary to how it might appear, I'm not stricken with indecision. This is my second time here, and I know exactly what I want. But standing slack-jawed and stupid before the overblown menu, with its pictures of shawarma and kabob and rice tinted an unnatural, atomic yellow by the sun, I am momentarily stunned by the smell of the tiny, bunker-ish kitchen in the center of the restaurant. I'm light-headed from it—a little bit high on the combined odors of garlic and marinade, fresh pita, hummus and oil, red onions under the blade of a kitchen knife, smoke from the broiler, and a million competing spices. My eyes flutter as I breathe in this shifting instant, then the next: an entire history of men and cuisine and motion told in a breath of cumin, turmeric, cardamom, and char.
I want gyros—beautiful, thin-cut slabs of spiced lamb, ground and compressed, crisp around the edges and tasting of a dozen spices, with a bucket of Al-Jebori's creamy garlic sauce on the side. I'd had the gyros here a couple days ago, and after getting my first taste had crouched over the plate like some kind of feral creature, picking them up with my fingers, folding them into torn bits of pita, and eating them with a fixity of attention generally reserved for far less public displays of love and hunger. This time through, I told myself, I need to order more—to order differently, to get a sense of the depth and breadth of Mawadda's menu: shawarma, kebab, maybe a little falafel (because it is supposed to be so good—the best in the state), a slice of baklava from the tray of it under glass, bleeding oil and honey onto wax paper. The lamb kabobs look really good. There is tzatziki sauce, just made, sitting out on the cutting board. Al-Jebori waits with a serene patience and half a smile on his face.
"Gyros plate," I say. "Number 13. With an extra side of garlic sauce."
Dammit—did it again.
Those of us who dine as true enthusiasts and choose where we eat for reasons more complex than just the intake of fuel have become adept at navigating a world of mixed messages and crossed signals, where a restaurant can be dubbed the BEST THING EVER and the worst thing ever, all in the space of a few words. But there are still more primeval and old-fashioned ways to find the best restaurants and hunt up the most authentic flavors of a hundred distant homes—tricks that one develops over the years and holds to like ancient magic.
When looking for Mexican food, there's the Piñata Principle: Find a neighborhood that looks promising, count the number of places selling piñatas, try to triangulate an area of maximum piñata density, and then eat tacos or tortas smack in the middle of that area. Finding good dim sum requires less geometry; the wise gastronaut just drives around likely neighborhoods on a Sunday morning and looks for the lines. As for French food, I look online for whatever restaurant is most beloved by the local foodistas and avoid it like it was on fire.
I found Mawadda by counting the cabs parked on the side street that runs beside the strip mall it calls home. My first time through was a three-cabbie day. I knew right then—before even walking in the door—that it was going to be good.
What I didn't know was how good. That was the surprise. Al-Jebori stood in the kitchen, he and one other cook assembling and wrapping massive shawarma sandwiches for the drivers who waited, lingering at the tables or by the door. My first time, I ordered broadly: platters of chicken kabob over rice turned yellow by turmeric and the gyros that would haunt me later, long gone from the restaurant but still tasting the grease on my lips and tongue. I asked for basha and got a massive plate of more shaved gyro meat, marinated cubes of lamb dressed in tiny flecks of herb and spice, and chicken breast cut roughly into a hash and mixed with soft onions, cumin, more turmeric, and more garlic. I ordered by number, off the hung menu that's actually meant to help guide the take-out trade, then added on, asking for beef sambosa and Greek fries with feta and garlic sauce, like a Mediterranean poutine.
Sitting in the 25-seat dining room, I sipped spicy chai tea from the pot always kept warm by the counter—a heady, sharp blend, rich with cinnamon and cream, then spiked with mint and clove that stings like sweet lightning. It is so unlike the nutless faux chai sold all over the place these days as to be like a completely different beverage—the true flavor of something that had to be blunted, sugared, and robbed of its best properties before it could find a place among the soy lattes and tall Americanos of suburban coffee shops.
