Good Taste is the Worst Vice

Zahav, Philadelphia

Did you know that Israel produces very good Syrah?  I certainly didn’t, until our recent dinner at Zahav, in Philly.  And honestly, I didn’t know much about Israeli food, either.


But now I know that I like both… a lot.  I can still taste the spectacular leftover lamb shoulder and Persian rice that I ate with my hands in the hotel the next day – but first things first.



Zahav’s menu is broken into three sections – salatim (salads) and hummus, mezze (small plates), and grilled kabobs.  There are also two tasting menus.  We chose the Mesibah (“party time”), which features the famous roasted lamb shoulder.


There’s hummus to start, fragrant with paprika and cumin, with freshly baked laffa bread.  

And then come a parade of salatim – salt-roasted beets with dill and tahini, Moroccan carrots, Israeli salad, slow roasted eggplant, tabbouleh made with kale, and wax beans with spicy tomato sauce. 

D and I ate each of them and marveled at how flavorful and wonderfully wholesome they were, and asked each other why there aren’t more restaurants that serve dishes like these.


By this point, we had our wine, a 2009 Israeli Syrah from Binyamina in Upper Galilee (“Chosen Ruby”).

For our mezze, selected by the kitchen, we had fried cauliflower with an herbed yogurt sauce; roasted zucchini with “zucchini baba ghanoush”, crushed hazelnuts, and anchovies; and fried haloumi cheese with a sweet fruit sauce.  Though the crisp-edged haloumi was my least favorite at the time, the sweet and salty flavor is what I remember the most looking back.

The star of the show, of course, is the lamb.  It’s truly impressive, a half shoulder that’s lacquered with pomegranate and adorned with fresh chickpeas and parsley.  Beside it, graciously ceding center stage, is a wedge of Persian wedding rice.

The lamb is smoked at Zahav’s sister restaurant, Percy Street Barbecue, and then braised in pomegranate – it’s the best barbecue imaginable, fall-apart tender and imbued with smoke.  As for the rice, it’s fluffy and fragrant within a crisp shell.  This shell, the tadig, is worlds away from the singed bits of rice from the bottom of my rice cooker (which I always avoid).  The tooth-sticking crunch is irresistible.


We were easily bested by the lamb, and had it wrapped up to go.  If necessary, I would have bought everything in the hotel minibar to make room for these leftovers.

Finally, for dessert – a perfectly fine, unremarkable pistachio cake and a shredded-looking confection called konafi, topped with labaneh ice cream.  I’ll confess, I didn’t think too highly of the konafi based on looks alone, it reminded me of a Greek dessert that I’ve never cared for.

But it turned out to be excellent, honeyed ricotta inside the shredded phyllo, and the tang of yogurt ice cream to offset the sweetness.  D and I polished this one off quickly. Somehow there’s always room for dessert.

After dinner, we decided to walk towards Independence Hall.  I could almost imagine it was 1776 as we strolled on cobbled streets past the classic colonial buildings, free from throngs of tourists, under a full moon.  We stumbled upon the building housing the Liberty Bell and peered at it through the window, then turned to see George Washington’s statue watching us from across the street.  


I couldn’t ask for a more perfect Philly evening.


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