Silk Road map

Los Angeles can, yet again, boast about having the most variety, if not depth, of something. Home to the most diverse Muslim population in the United States, Los Angeles County is full of halal restaurants. Halal means permitted or lawful according to Sharia (Islamic) laws. In the realm of dining out, the key factor for observant Muslims -- besides avoiding pork and its byproducts -- is halal meat or meat from animals slaughtered according to religiously proscribed procedures.

As a food-history buff, we couldn't help getting a little dreamy trying dishes with roots in ancient Mesopotamia and cultivated during eras of caliphates, Moors, spice routes, Silk Road caravans and vast colonial empires. Though our actual journey involved a small economy car, every congested freeway in L.A., strip mall dining -- and a parking ticket.

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Phaidon

The Lebanese Kitchen

Among the glories of January: leisurely flipping through a fall cookbook release that deserves dedicated attention, like The Lebanese Kitchen, without a single holiday to-do list. The latest in Phaidon's series of international home cooking bibles dedicated to regional cuisines clocks in at over 500 pages and just as many recipes.

On Amazon, author Salma Hage is touted as a Lebanese housewife with 50 years of home cooking experience. Read the book's brief Introduction, and you'll find she is was born in Mazarat Et Toufah, the eldest of 12 children. Yes, she learned to cook by necessity, but later cooking became her livelihood. In 1967, she and her husband emigrated to London, where she started out as a kitchen hand and eventually became head chef for a catering company, all the while learning English. "I'm a professional English cook," she says. "I went to college and worked for over 30 years as a cook, but at home... I cook Lebanese."

That she and her husband return to their home country several months a year is evident in the breadth of recipes, from mezze (snacks or appetizers) and salads to mains and desserts. Among them: freekah with fig, feta and caramelized onion salad, seabass with tahini and chili sauce topped with nuts, lamb shanks with spicy vegetable-stuffed grape leaves. For dessert, baklava, banana fritters or perhaps a plum-orange flower water tart? If you have always wanted to master Lebanese home cooking, this is the book for you.

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G. Snyder

mezze at Al Amir

Sandwiched between a small sushi bar and a Chinese restaurant in Valley Village is Al Amir, a Lebanese café that opened early this year. This part of the San Fernando Valley has always had a pretty good community of Middle Eastern restaurants, with bustling big-city places like Cedar House and Alcazar dominating much of the scene. There were also the fragrant skewers of shish tawook served with lighter-than-air garlic sauce at Hayat's Kitchen, and the earthy, cumin-laced kafta kabobs popular at nearby Skaf's.

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Photo courtesy of Shanto's Bakery

Freshly made manakish bread with a variety of toppings bubble up in the oven at Shanto's

Before Shaunt Adessian opened Shanto's Bakery in La Crescenta, he traveled thousands of miles from Los Angeles, arriving in Lebanon to discover the Levantine culinary methods and delights his parents grew up with. Except he was looking for the likes of baked manakish bread bubbling with za'atar and olive oil in Beirut, and the famous esfiha meat pies made with ground beef and spices of Baalbek, not the cupcakes and cookies that have evolved as classic American bakery fare.

Working in bakeries, he learned traditional Middle Eastern recipes, developed over the heat of ovens, that have come to define a culture that celebrates, mourns and passes time with food. When he landed back in Los Angeles, it took him a year to finalize the menu and open up shop.

Now in its sixth month, Shanto's Bakery stands as a culinary and cultural portal into Beirut, a city that's often hailed as the "Paris of the Middle East," where food and passion run side by side, and often intertwine.

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Christie Bishop

Jonagold apple, portions removed

For most of the decade, there may have been no more pleasant place in Los Angeles to eat Middle Eastern food than in Alcazar's shaded patio, a balmy place scented with hookah smoke, garlic, and the hot sajj bread baking on its grill. The restaurant was famous for its crisply fried fish with tahini sauce, its frogs' legs with lemon and its juicy chicken kebabs, among other things, and a contented out-of-town friend, who spends much of her year in the Middle East, noted with a sigh that the Lebanese-Armenian restaurant reminded her of her favorite Lebanese seaside town.

A couple of years ago, Alcazar opened Alcazar Express in Westwood, and not long after that, the original Alcazar closed. The newer place had equally fine food, but was a bit cramped, not quite as comfortable, and although I ended up going there fairly often, I missed the old one, the Zahle in the Valley. But miracles occasionally happen, and the Encino restaurant is up and running again, a little shabby at the moment but happy, and still a center for superbly crunchy boreg, an unusual salad made from the fresh za'atar herb, grilled quail, and the whole panoply of mezze, grilled meats, salads, fish and makdoos that you may have loved before. Will the famous arak service begin again? I can't wait to go back and see.

Alcazar: 17239 Ventura Blvd., Encino; (818) 789-0991.

D. Gonzalez

Kibi at Mariscos Yucatan

One type of appetizer, many different spellings. Kibbie, kibi, even quibe. Through migration and trade, kibbeh, a Middle Eastern meze standard, has integrated itself into the cuisines of Brazil, and Mexico's state of Yucatan. And since Los Angeles is home for many with roots in those regions, kibbeh in its various interpretations can be found at many of the restaurants and grocery stores serving those communities.

In her comprehensive cookbook The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, Claudia Roden notes that descriptions of kibbeh have been found in the ancient writings of the Assyrian Empire as a dish served to the king. Kibbeh remains a national dish for Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. However, kibbeh is not one dish, but rather has a variety of styles, united by the use of bulgur and cracked wheat, as a binder. Kibbehs can be made with various meats, fish and even fruit. In North Holywood, Lebanese restaurant Hayat's Kitchen makes two different types of kibbeh: the familiar top-shaped fried kibbeh and the raw kibbeh nayyeh.

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Sunnin, the popular, longstanding Lebanese restaurant, and Alcazar, Encino's oft adored Lebanese-Armenian joint, both have newish digs of sorts on Westwood Boulevard. Sunnin was a small café that simply moved across the street to a larger space, while Alcazar opened a second, smaller location called Alcazar Express. While both have diverse and exciting menus, today's food fight takes a look at a simple to-go lunch that everyone can enjoy: the chicken shawerma sandwich. Shaved, seasoned chicken, thrust inside of a pita is the perfect lunch while reclined at home on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or even hunched over your computer during a hectic Thursday at the office. But whose is better? Let's find out.

N. Galuten

Lunch on the go from Alcazar Express

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Need a visual aid for your print edition? Jonathan Gold visits Mantee Café in Studio City ("Mantee isn't where you come for a falafel plate or roasted chicken; it's where you go to watch a stunningly beautiful waitress set a plate of sausage aflame"). Click through for Anne Fishbein's spectacular photos and read more in Gold's Counter Intelligence, "Far From the Lebanese Crowd: Mantee, via Beirut, on Ventura Boulevard."

Anne Fishbein

labneh at Mantee Café

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