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Saturday, July 13, 2019

Fresh Taste of Lebanon: Tabouli's (Now Paprika) Review by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Fresh Taste of Lebanon:  Tabouli’s (Now Paprika) Review by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I grew up eating Greek and Lebanese food as a child in Detroit (Michigan) and took my daughter Florence out to lunch at what was then Tabouli’s (now Paprika) in Monterey, California after she finished school for early dinners to continue the family tradition.

When I began reviewing restaurants for The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000 – California), I queried the newspaper to review Tabouli, now Paprika, and was given the assignment I think, because I said I made many Middle Eastern food items at home.

I have changed Tabouli’s name to its present one of Paprika in the article that follows:

Fresh Taste of Lebanon

I can feel the vitamins course through my veins every time I eat vegetable-rich Lebanese cuisine at Paprika.  Chef and owner Christophe Hamadé offers a tempting array of vegetarian and vegan dishes alongside his traditional meat dishes.

The dish I order every time I go to Paprika is baba ghanouge, a roasted eggplant purée made with sesame seed paste (tahini), crushed garlic, and lemon juice.  Olive oil sprinkled with paprika and black olives decorate decorates the final product, which you spread on warm pieces of pita (Lebanese pocket bread).  I like to think of baba ghanouge as hummus without the calories.  You can order baba ghanouge as a side dish or as part of a combination plate.

My favorite feel-good plate comes with baba-ghanouge, hummus, and tabouli.  Hummus, a chickpea purée made with lemon juice, sesame seed paste, and crushed garlic, has become an onion dip substitute it seems.  At Paprika, hummus gets spread on pita like baba ghanouge and tastes like an exotic peanut butter.

For me, tabouli salad is like good-tasting Lebanese penicillin.  Finely chopped parsley and mint form the base of tabouli along with bulghur wheat that has been impregnated with lemon-oil dressing.  Pieces of tomato and spring onion add their flavor to this mix as well. 

These items that depend on freshness for their taste have always been good in the 20+ years that I have been going to Paprika with my family.

Adventurous diners might want to try the combination plate that comes with dolmas, tabouli, hummus, and spinach salad.  Dolmas are stuffed grapevine leaves that get rolled into cylinders and steamed.  Paprika’s version comes with tomato, onion, and rice.  Lemon juice and olive oil season the dolmas.  The vine leaves have a tart taste and are more tender than baked cabbage leaves.

A fatouche salad might be a new dish for some people.  This is an Arab garden specialty that makes use of the freshest lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, green onion, parsley, and mint.  The novelty of the dish comes from the sumac, used to season it, along with toasted pieces of pita bread.  The mint and parsley form an especially refreshing combination.

Refreshing also describes the tzaziki spread with pita bread.  Paper-thin cucumber slices hold this savory mix of yogurt, mint, crushed garlic, and sour cream together.  Tzatziki, a deceptively light spread, is a famous appetizer all over the Mediterranean.

The owner’s garlic chicken merits several tries.  This combination plate comes with hummus, tabouli, and rice.  You can also find shawerma, a relative of a Greek gyro, on the menu along with kafta kebab made with group steak.

All of the meat dishes can be placed inside a pita wrap.

Without doubt, Paprika’s food is excellent, but half the charm of the place is eating in the cozy interior decorated with oriental carpets that look like arches with lanterns in them.

A large supper tray hangs on the main wall with photographs of temples and Lebanese cedars under snow.  Large jars of preserved foodstuffs line the tops of the cupboards in the kitchen.  Arabic music plays while you eat and many times, Arabic and French language students from the Defense Language Institute come with their instructors to converse with the Beirut-born owner as they order.

Paprika’s owner worked in Paris nine years before coming to the United States.   While working in Paris, he met a couple from Carmel, who invited him to visit the Monterey Peninsula.  He agreed to come and immediately fell in love with the area, because it was quiet unlike Paris.

(Congratulations to Paprika for being named a Michelin Restaurant in 2019!)


By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books