Zohara Mediterranean Kitchen Lamb Dinner

I was walking back to my car from Zoharas Mediterranean Kitchen after having their lamb dinner and I was feeling much less cocky about the distance and the walking then I was on the way there when I posted about all the whining about parking in Downtown Torrington. But now I was full of Sangria, lamb and all the fixings and the walk back to my car was a challenge for this fat old man. My bravado was being dragged down by a full belly that seemed to keep yelling “we need more room down here!!!” But I eventually made it back and my old cockiness returned thinking maybe if I parked further away my stomach would stop complaining so damn much, while knowing at the same time if I had, other parts of me might start complaining. Anyways, enough of the trials and tribulations of eating great food at great restaurants. I doubt I will get any sympathy anyways.

So let me tell you about Zohara’s Lebanese Dinner. First of all it is a bargain at $45.00. I hear some of you saying bargain at $45? is he nuts? Yes, maybe, but not because of this. This is a bargain because you get a high quality all you can eat meal and all you can drink amazing white sangria, Goldstar Israel Lager or Lemonade. Ok if you don’t drink it is less of a bargain, you are stuck with just the all you can eat high quality food in the dinner. I had three glasses of Sangria, which in most good restaurants would run you $24- $33 alone. You can also get chilled Israeli Arak with dessert, which since I was driving I passed on. Arak is defined in Wikipedia (I had to look it up too) as “Arak or araq is a Levantine unsweetened distilled spirit in the anise drinks family. The alcohol content may get as high as 95% if it is homemade according to Syrian, Palestinian, Israeli, and Lebanese traditions. It is a translucent white anise-flavored drink.” Now do you see why I passed on it. But the alcohol alone could have easily justified the $45 price.

But lets get to the food for you teetotalers or those that really want their moneys worth. I am going to start by talking about prime rib, which may seem strange since this is a lamb dinner, but bare with me. I love prime rib, I am convinced it is almost impossible to have a bad prime rib. It may not be great, it may not be good even, but it is almost never bad. Lamb on the other hand is problematic. It can be great or it can terrible. That all depends on how it is cooked and from what I hear where it is from. I have had lamb that I have loved and I have had lamb that I could not finish, unlike prime rib. So when I tell you that the lamb I had tonight was better than any prime rib I have ever had, please understand I mean it as the highest compliment. The meal is served buffet style and they have someone that has freshly carved pieces of it right from a whole roasted lamb onto a plate, which you pick from. I took a few pieces and had the luck or foresight to take a couple pieces of the crusty skin too. Now back at my table I took a bite of the lamb and it was very tasty, tender, not gamy, but rich in meat flavor. Then I took a bite of the crispy skin and I fell in love. It was absolutely spectacular. But it got better, when I combined a bit of the skin with the meat, it made me feel like I had dated the wrong meat all these years when I had been eating prime rib. I seriously cannot remember a better tasting piece of meat than the roasted lamb with its crispy skin, the layer of fat underneath and the lean meat next to it. If you like meat and don’t like lamb, there are only two possible explanations. Either you have never had it like this or you just can’t bring yourself to nibble on Mary’s school playmate. If its the latter, I can understand it. My wife wouldn’t touch cooked lamb, although she had petted many in petting zoos. But if it is the former, you owe it to yourself to go to Zohara’s lamb dinner. Ask them for a piece of crispy skin, some well cooked fat and tender meat, then combine the three and prepare to enter meat NIrvana.

Now I know I spent way too much time on the lamb, but when something is that good it deserves it. But everything else on the dinner was excellent. I won’t say equally as good, because nothing could be equally as good. Rather than go through every one of them I am going to include a video with I believe it was the manager going through the foods. The hummus was great as was the fresh vegetables and potatoes, and all the dips. I thought the Moraccan (kind of a lamb roll up) cigars were a little too salty. One of the things I tried before he went through the list and I am glad I did was the chicken livers. I say that because I tried them not knowing what they were and liked them. If I had known I never would have tried them because I don’t like liver. I know there is some faulty logic there, but oh well. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. I am not going into detail on the other items, but let me just say they were all fresh, tasty and wonderful. The one thing you will notice, besides the lamb, mussels and chicken livers, there was a lot of non meat items for the vegetable lovers. You could easily fill up on them and be very satisfied. Believe me I ate too damn much of them, which left a lot less room for that amazing lamb.

Desserts were ok with one being best described as shredded wheat drenched in honey surrounding nuts. It actually was much better than I am making it sound, but honey always is. There was also a deep chocolate something or other, which was too dark for me, and a sweet creamy mix that I think might have been a sweetened yogurt in fresh blueberries and sauce. That was my favorite dessert.

To be honest if they only had the white wine sangria, which may have been the best sangria I have ever had and the roasted lamb, I still would have thought it was one of the best meals I have had in a long time.

I believe they have this meal once a month on a Sunday, so look for it. I highly recommend it.