Gemmayze Street's mezza box contains pide, dukkah and five different dips - including this red pepper and walnut muhamarra. Photo/Kim Knight
Gemmayze Street's mezza box contains pide, dukkah and five different dips - including this red pepper and walnut muhamarra. Photo/Kim Knight
A Lebanese dinner so good that restaurant critic Kim Knight had it again for breakfast.
The night we went into lockdown, I was supposed to be eating at Gemmayze Street.
A birthday celebration pivoted to store cupboard pasta and a 6.30pm Government announcement. My in-laws left with half a homemadecarrot cake packed into an icecream container and we all felt sure we'd see each other again in a week or two - three, at the most.
I'm writing this on Day Whatever It Says It Is In The Newspaper. Too tired to count or care and definitely too tired to cook dinner. Re-enter Gemmayze Street. Its level 3 takeout mezza box is a never-ending parade of garlic-scented joy that did us for Friday night, Saturday morning and lunch again on Monday. At $50, it is serious babaganouj for your buck.
Bitter, sweet and salty chocolate and halva brownie is one of the dessert options on the Gemmayze Street takeout menu. Photo/Kim Knight
Someone at this St Kevin's Arcade restaurant did some serious lockdown planning. Containers are labelled with branded stickers; a chocolate and halva brownie is a snip at $6 but comes wrapped in luxe waxed paper, printed with a subtle, repeat-pattern "G". These are hard, strange times, and anything that makes life a little more beautiful gets my vote (Bar Celeste, further down the road, also nails this with its carnation-and-bespoke-tote-bag picnic).
In a restaurant, we eat with our eyes. One of the miracles of this mezza was being able to bring this experience home. The hummus comes with a slick of brilliant vermillion paprika oil. It looked like a sunset in the desert when the day is fading and the sand has turned to suede. Gemmayze Street is quite famous for this hummus, but I prefer my chickpeas chunkier - slippy-slidey versions just remind me of old-fashioned face cream.
A sunset-coloured hummus from Gemmayze Street's takeout mezza box. Photo/Kim Knight
The genius of a tub of babaganouj unfolds slowly. Smoky flavours hit in the second mouthful, when your brain has stopped over-analysing the uniquely mushy texture of cold, charred eggplant flesh (I want to say that it's mucous-like, but I also want you to be able to enjoy this dish as much as I did).
We loved the muhamarra because while we now have all the time in the world to roast, peel and puree capsicum, this is why we eat at restaurants - someone else does the work, and they've added walnuts and pomegranate. A lubneh was tart, creamy and perfect, but the absolute revelation was something called zeit w toum. I have no idea how this is made, but I imagine the instructions begin: "First milk your garlic."
It was the leftover latter that inspired the next day's breakfast. Sauteed kale and asparagus with poached eggs and a seriously huge spoonful of this garlic flavour-bomb. There was still lubneh in our fridge when we learned that, soon, Aucklanders might be able to meet with more than one other household. Nothing says picnics (or parties) like dips and bread. Get the mezza. Get two mezza.
Not your average takeout - Gemmazye Street's chicken shish on rice. Photo/Kim Knight
You could make an easy dinner of the six different mezza pottles (which come with a decent slab of pide) but I really recommend adding a main. You get the textural bonus of vegetables and even more insight into the difference between standard takeaways and restaurant takeaways.
The bread on a lamb kafta wrap (in case you're wondering about kafta versus kofta et al, I'm using the Lebanese spelling variations, taken directly from the Gemmayze Street menu) was dense and chewy. Inside, the yoghurt sauce contained mint, the tahini was blended with cashew and the chilli sauce was fermented. So much attention to detail in one $18 sandwich.
Gluten-free dessert from Gemmayze Street: Sfouf, a tumeric and almond cake with raspberry curd. Photo/Kim Knight
The chicken shish on rice was, simply, the best I've eaten ($20). I worked the hummus into the cabbage salad, the chicken was sludgy with a funky, moreish spice and pickles kept everything bright. One of my favourite things in the world is a creamy sauce on rice and there was that zeit w toum again. Google tells me it is, simply, garlic, oil and hard labour. If Gemmayze Street could put this in a bottle, I'd buy a dozen.
We ate pudding (a salty-bitter brownie; an earthy-raspberry slathered slice of turmeric and almond cake) and then we fell into a stupor. On Thursday, we finished the last of the dukkah.
Gemmayze Street, St Kevin's Arcade, Karangahape Rd, Auckland, www.gemmayzestreet.co.nz We spent: $110 for two (with leftovers for days)
ROOM FOR MORE? Some other things Kim Knight ate this week ...
Cazador: Did you even do level 3 if you didn't let Cazador put a wild game spin on your Friday night takeaways? I'm still dreaming of the goat and venison burger we wolfed that first weekend - but it was a one-off. Get a more regular meaty fix from the daytime deli menu. The mince and cheese pie has a bechamel sauce; the venison and mushroom ($9.50) is rich and earthy. People travel for these pies, but I'm also here to plug the $5 ham, pickle, mustard and mayo in a baby milk bun. They taste like Christmas in miniature. (Cazador, 854 Dominion Rd, Mt Eden).
Venison and mushroom pie from Cazador's daytime deli counter. Photo/Kim Knight
Mr Hao: The Szechuan pepper mix makes all the skewers taste a bit samey but the pickled black fungus ($9) from Mr Hao is like a party from back when we could have parties. There's so much going on in this dish - simultaneously cooling and invigorating, crinkly, crunchy textures and a perfect balance of garlic, vinegar and chilli flavours. At home, as in the restaurant, there was a bonus free dessert - fried milk bread with condensed milk for dipping, which is also like a party but one that children can go to. (Mr Hao, 252 Oteha Valley Rd, Albany and 365 Dominion Rd, Mt Eden).
Embrace your inner kid - fried bread and condensed milk from Mr Hao. Photo/Kim Knight
