A Hookah to Remember
The Casablanca Bar & Grill will transport your palate
By: Stacy Davies
Among the myriad spots in the IE in which to smoke or at least marvel at a hookah--Hookah Lounge, Sphinx Hookah, Hookah Haven, LaVerne's Grapevine Restaurant, Pomona's Coco Palm--at only a few of them can you also indulge in the requisite Mediterranean meal. You also have to figure out which part of the Mediterranean landscape will be featured--a region that includes Syria, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Italy, Spain, Morocco, and more.
Casablanca sits along the boardwalk of Claremont's new Village expansion--near several other eateries and across from the IE's first Laemmle theater. Its floor to ceiling glass front windows wrap the corner of the main quad, the patio decked out in upper scale tables with white-shirted bodies whirring to and fro delivering plates of Casablanca's particular regional fare: heavy on the Middle East with an accent of Greece.
On the patio, which is where most people choose to sit (except lately when triple digit temperatures anticipate our forthcoming Venusian landscape) there is a back bar that houses the hookahs. Fine grade tobacco in various flavors such as molasses, strawberry, mixed fruit and more can be had for the smoking, and while it's a novelty that has yet to take off in the Village, perhaps with the return of the collegiate, some tweaked-out adventurers will indulge on "party Fridays."
Hookah's aside, Casablanca offers an eclectic menu: eggplant, feta and yogurt appetizers (on the cold side); kibbeh (wheat, cheese, beef and pine nuts--and the national dish of Palestine and Iraq), falafel, Lebanese sausage, and Syrian makdous (on the hot side); and an array of seafood and meat main courses--everything from frog's legs to salmon to the Middle East staple, lamb.
Now, never having been a lamb fan (my parents always served it with a revolting mint green jelly), the first time I ate at Casablanca it seemed appropriate as I neared age 40 to cast off old aversions and give the little lamb one more whirl--this time with a bit of hummus, perhaps. Tender and juicy, and void of that "liver blood taste" I'd recalled from decades before, the sliced and garlic-marinated lamb shawerma was exceptional, serving as a new reference point for my bovine palate.
On my following visit, a few weeks later, I again strayed from the familiar and tempted the indigenous Cyprian appetizer of halloumi--a salty cheese blend of goat and sheep milk fried golden brown and served hot. The flavor was explosive--requiring very small bites--with the cheese taking on an outwardly rubbery texture, yet slicing easily without a hint of dryness. One must be, by nature, a "stinky" cheese lover as we like to say in order to appreciate the strength of this dish--and we did.
That same evening I considered the frog's legs for an entrée, since I knew the richness of my meal was already going to wreak havoc on my innards later that night, but as I'd once had a very bad episode with frog's legs in Puerto Vallarta (I still tell myself they were indeed frog's legs and not some other variety), I opted for the quail and tried not to feel cruel--or think of that cute little Warner Bros. cartoon character. My companion, however, would not allow me to forget, and instead also brought up the lamb incident on our previous dinner date. With a delicate sensibility, she ordered up the baba ganouje (whipped eggplant) and the shrimp kabob. How very safe! Yet also how very superb.
These dishes, in addition to the pita bread and yogurt lemon juice spread delivered upon our seating, allowed us to enter into "overstuff and worry about it later" mode guilt free. Wally, the friendliest restaurant manager in town, made sure we were full-up on side dishes, recommendations and cabernets from the wine and beer bar. The night air was crisp and cool as the chiming Arabic tunes cascaded out of the patio speakers, and while we didn't feel like we were having a hookah with Bogart in Morocco, we did feel as if we'd taken a red-eye to some unnamed corner outside of our conventional reality. And these days, you have to get it where you can.
Casablanca Bar & Grill, 500 W. First St., Claremont, (909) 626-5200. Dinner for two: $60-$80.
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