So that menu above needs some explaining. It was from the September 17 Culinary Experience Dinner at El Encanto, a series I've had the good fortune to write about before for the Indy. Most of the Culinary Experience evenings have invited a guest from south of the border; that story, if you don't visit the link, was about chef Rodrigo Rivera-Río from Monterrey (the 2 R one). So it's easy to assume what you're going to get at one of these is something elevated, often Michelin-starred, from Mexico.
Estrella Jafif, the September 17 chef, lives and works as a caterer and cookbook author in Mexico City. But if you peruse the menu above you'll quickly catch on that Jafif, as she puts it, "grew up surrounded by a lot of cultures and a lot of flavors." Turns out she's a Mexican Jewish chef with roots in Lebanon and Cuba. It's easy to see why she insists, "Food is the best language."
Food, it turns out, can be an offhandedly charming centerpiece for a table, too. The evening's diners were sat at long tables and served relaxed, family style, even while the attentive service was quick to adapt for any eater's or drinker's needs. People across from us got dishes provided free of nuts to avoid allergies; my wife Chryss got a NA pairing that nearly made alcoholic me (wait, I didn't put that right, did I?) jealous. If you want to know, check out the fine product from French Bloom.
I'm going to avoid writing about every last dish extensively because, as you can see from the number of photos, that's a lot of dishes, and somehow I didn't get snaps of the olives or either of the desserts. But that's a creamy and luscious babaganoush above, a delight scooped with fresh-made, airy pitas.
And the hummus got a different twist with both pomegranate seeds and pomegranate molasses, both an acidic bite and some tart-sweetness.
These fried kibbeh crunched but then crumbled as their insides were tender ground beef studded with pine nuts and bulgur. People all do their own kibbeh thing--if Wikipedia can be trusted just the city ofAleppo boasts 17 varieties--so it's hard to be an expert. But I found these hitting that fried food sweet spot. This opening salvo of dishes got elevated by the wine pairing, Villa Bon, “Accueil Les Danaides,” Vandieres, Champagne NV. Bubbles sure can magically re-awaken your taste buds between every bite.
This signature watermelon salad makes a good transition, as it's a favorite dish of Wero Cham of Vinos Boutique, who served as lead sommelier for the night. Plus, it was his recommendation that got Chef Jafif the gig. So she had to make the salad, and a fine one it was for late summer, the melon perhaps somewhat compressed (?), lightly dressed with oil and herbs and spice including nigella seeds, and set off by tufts of a creamy house cheese blend (feta-esque). A scatter of pistachios added more flavor, crunch, and salt. Thanks, Wero, for the menu request!
Beetroot salad could be considered a bore by now (they trended back when Ron Reagan was president!), but this one, with the earthy globes roasted in salt, kept a surprising firmness and tenderness at once. And then their sugar got met with the acid from orange supremes and labneh, and some more pomegranate molasses.
In a meal aiming for homey comfort, the kibbeh tartare above was the closest to a challenge food, for your eyes aren't deceiving you--that's about a half inch thick of raw ground beef in the bowl. Spread across some toasted bread it worked, if finding a place between domesticated animal and something gamier without being wild. The heat from a slice of jalapeño also served as a way to cut the meat's meatiness a bit. And sure, there's bulgur, again, and some tamarind to give the typically Lebanese dish bit of a Mexican accent.
As if to mirror the international house of flavors approach, Cham choose to pour two wines with this set of dishes: Barrigón, Charelo-Albariño, Queréraro 2022 and a Bruno Giacosa, Barbera D-Alba, Piedmont 2022. The Mexican Barrigón was described as an orange wine, as it had some skin contact, but you had to squint to glimpse that color. The flavor was grippy and lovely, though. And the Barbera had its tannic grip and rich red fruit that helped open up the tartare into something more encompassing than its initial one-note hit might suggest.
More wine, crummier photos, sorry. But that's a couple servings of the local vermillion rockfish, topped with tahini and chermoula, and sat on some more oil-based chermoula and labneh (there should be walnuts and almonds, but we got the remaining pieces from the no-nuts diners). Quite a delish dish that made sure the fish was the star. It paired perfectly with the one local pour, a Sanguis, Chardonnay, “Whale Song,” Sta. Rita Hills, 2023--dry, mineral, with a waft of lemon blossoms.
Let's do these together, as they went together so well, too. Sometimes meat and potatoes, even when they are "just" meat and potatoes, aren't just meat and potatoes. That's a platter of wood-fire crusted Baharat ribeye with roasted tomatoes, and potato confit, sliced thin as window panes. Crusted isn't just aspirational--the steak crunched--yet as you can see, was immaculately medium rare every other bit of its insides. Baharat, a spice mixture that's been around at least 10 centuries, so, yeah, there's a variation or a thousand, means all sorts of rich flavors engulf the tender beef, from paprika to cumin to cardamom. Every time I think, for my own health, the health of the planet, the kindness of sweet cow faces, and the fact that eating a whole steak I always get bored 2/3 of the way in, somebody serves me a dish like this. I might just be damned to be an occasional carnivore.
Particularly so there's something perfect to pair with that wine, a Chateau Musar, Red Blend, Bekaa Valley 2004. Yep, a wine old enough to vote, from Lebanon (how fitting!), silky, fruit-forward (black cherries and raspberries, and even some dried fruit notes) without being a fruit bomb blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault, and Carignan.
Even better, it rang nostalgic bells for the long gone but not forgotten weekend wine bar Five & a 1/4 run by Jeremy Bohrer back in the day, the kind of place where some Chateau Masur was almost expected.
So the meal did that, too, creating circles of culinary delight, not to mention truly connecting chats with the folks across the table from you.
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