Loading ...Me Jana review: Lebanese cooking with all the comforts of home
“Where do you go for good Lebanese?” I ask my discerning Lebanese friend. “My mom’s,” she replies. When I roll my eyes, she gives me an answer the masses can enjoy: “Me Jana.” I smile in recognition and head to Arlington to reacquaint myself with the attractive dining room watched over by the dashing Rabih Abi-Aad.
Within minutes on a Saturday afternoon my table is crowded with seared cheese sweetened with sliced pears and dates, nubby falafel arranged on tahini sauce and smoky eggplant puree, which I scoop up with pita that’s hot from the oven and presented with crushed herbs, thick yogurt and shiny olives. The mezze, including doughy spinach pies, are dropped off by a server who acts as if we’re the only customers in the place, when in fact the front of the house is filling up with what looks like a family reunion. “I used to work at Mama Ayesha’s,” the waiter shares, referencing the Middle Eastern dowager in Adams Morgan. Without our asking, he brings more of the blimp-shaped bread to eat with our feast, which includes fried kibbe, whose cracked-wheat shell breaks open to reveal a meaty center sweet with cinnamon, and garlicky kebabs of ground lamb and beef shored up with fluffy rice, parsley-onion salad and a drift of whipped garlic. (A little dab will do you.)
Source: www.washingtonpost.com