As I often do when I travel to cities outside of Ohio (or even to help cure my indecisiveness on picking a location in town), I like to play around with Urbanspoon to help me find a tasty location. I find that when I’m out-of-town I enjoy finding a couple spots close to where I’m staying, site-seeing and city must-goes through Urbanspoon and internet research and then deciding as my hunger hits as to where to go vs. creating any kind of an itinerary, which my anal/love for planning natural inclination would normally cause me to do.
While we were staying in the Woodley Park neighborhood a few weeks ago in DC, I found a restaurant across the street from my hotel through Urbanspoon called Lebanese Taverna. It was ranked at 88%, reasonably priced, and served Middle Eastern cuisine (my favorite)…so I knew I’d end up there one day. Finally, on the last day we made this our choice for an early dinner. We also did my new favorite thing of not ordering two entrees, but doing an appetizer & entrée combo (or even just ordering multiple appetizers) and sharing everything. I love to sample and this helps me avoid over eating by way of trying everything.
Today we were both in the mood for a good cocktail, which we often are, but when out-of-town I find it a MUST. So I ordered the pomegranate martini and Jason ordered the raspberry mojito. Now, Jason felt the mint in his mojito to be too overwhelming, but mine was perfectly DELICIOUS! To fulfill my need to regularly consume yummy hommos, I ordered the ‘Trio of Hommos’. It was a lot and it was mouth-watering good! It included: a traditional hommos that was topped w/ a mixture of ground beef & lamb, a garlic hommos w/ chicken shawarma on top of it, a spicy hommos w/ diced tomatoes & feta sprinkled on top; and was served with both white and wheat pita & fresh veggies. Jason ordered the chicken shawarma entrée, which came with the most amazing rice, tahini sauce and garlic puree.
The hommos trio was so damn good that even Jason couldn’t stop himself from eating it…although, since he’s a man I believe he’s prone to like anything that has meat on top of it or is spicy! It was so creamy and each hommos was paired flawlessly with the appropriate toppings. The chicken shawarma was only okay (still think that somehow the Pita House on Broad Street in Columbus has the best chicken shawarma & garlic puree that I have ever tried), but the rice was fabulous. It was cooked to perfection and had to be simmered in some stock for that kind of flavor.
I can not say enough great things about our waiter- he was impeccable! He checked in on us just enough to make sure we always had what we needed but not so much that we felt bombarded. He even brought us fresh, complimentary coffee after we paid, as we sat and talked. Loved him!
I was a little disappointed to later find out that this place is a chain, but even knowing that wouldn’t stop me from going back again. All in all, I give Lebanese Taverna two thumbs up!
Until next time,
Nikki
Ohio Girl 