The Ward 5 pizza at Rustik

Outside, it's a balmy late October evening in Bloomingdale, but inside Rustik Tavern, it feels like a meat locker. It's as if the neighborhood's first watering hole is trying to prepare for winter by cranking up the AC. I'm feeling the need for a parka – or at least something warm and savory.

Perhaps my dining companion and I should have sat near the pizza oven, which blazes like a hearth in the corner behind the bar. Instead, we settled on a two-top near the door as well as a hot pizza, called the "Ward 5," which is this unusual Middle Eastern-influenced round with preserved lemon, za'atar, button mushrooms,  mozzarella cheese, and tomato sauce.

The pie has a pronounced sourness, which is not quite suppressed by the fatty cheese or earthy 'shrooms, but my bigger issue has to do with the crust: Thin, bubbly, and charred, it has little flavor, no chew, and the texture of dried-out pita bread. Still, I'm impressed with Rustik's ambition with this pie, which dares to stretch the standard pizza flavors into strange, sour territories, sort of like an Italian take on the Mediterranean flatbreads at Lebanese Taverna. With some further tinkering, the pizza could grow into itself.

The other items we sampled weren't quite as adventurous, but they did stray from the typical triumvirate of burgers/sandwiches/wings found at most neighborhood operations. The chicory salad, a not-unpleasant plate of bitter greens and chewy barley, would have been better served by the inclusion of the advertised figs, which were AWOL and, more importantly, would have provided more balance.

The real surprise was Rustik's "fresh pita with lamb," a sort of DIY dish containing a small bowl of braised meat, a soft and warm round of pita bread, and garnishes of sliced cucumbers and pickled onions. By itself, the stewed lamb was under-seasoned and rather bland, but when assembled into the pita with the garnishes, the bite was complete — all savory and warm and perked up with the pickling juices of those onions.

It went perfectly with my glass of Flying Dog's Raging Bitch, a Belgian-influenced IPA, one of several quality quaffs found on the draft list at Rustik. The one-two punch of lamb and Raging Bitch was so good, in fact, that I almost forgot how cold I was.

My name is Grace Abi-Najm Shea and I am one of the owners of Lebanese Taverna. Just wanted to thank you for your witty review. After reading it, I was prompted to check the portion size at our Bethesda restaurant. What I found was that our Bethesda location was not serving our standard 12oz portion for the mixed grill. Your observations were correct. If it were not for your comments, we might not have caught this. On another note, Bethesda is a beautiful location and is meant to be a sit-down full service restaurant. For someone “Young & Hungry”, you are right our cafes may be a better fit.

Thanks again for bringing this to our attention, please let me know if there is anything else we can do.

Sincerely,
Grace

I called Lebanese Tavern to confirm that Grace Shea did indeed leave this comment on the blog.

The head of Lebanese Taverna's marketing department confirmed that she did. The company apparently asked the Bethesda kitchen to weigh the meat for its mixed grill and discovered that it was was less than the amount served at the other restaurants in the local chain. Easy solution: more meat.

Now that's change we can believe in.

Photo by Flickr user phototram

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A couple of dining companions and I ordered a selection of mezze along with a Lebanese-style pizza and a mixed grill. We opted for the latter item, a $19 indulgence in a sea of single-digit mezze, as an insurance policy—to insure that we'd have enough to eat in case the mezze proved inadequate. Little did we realize that the reverse would be the case.

The mixed grill, advertised as a "combination of lamb, chicken, and kafta skewers," turned out to be three pieces of chicken, three of lamb, and one small section of kafta. All combined, the meat couldn't have filled one skewer, let alone the multiple ones promised on the menu. The platter was rounded out with rice and an almost equal amount of grilled green peppers, onions, and tomatoes, which were left mostly untouched because....well, because we ordered a damn meat platter.

We polished off the meats in no time. Of course. But the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got. Nineteen dollars for seven small pieces of grilled meats and some veggies? I asked the waitress if Lebanese Taverna's mixed grill always includes, essentially, one skewer worth of meat. She was kind. She was patient. She noticed there was no meat left on our platter.

"Yes, I know we ate the evidence," I said, before detailing the amount of meat we had just flash-consumed. She confirmed that my accounting was correct. That was the portion size.

We all knew what we were really paying for with that minimalist meat platter with the high price tag. We were paying for this new, upscale playpen, located in a $77 million development project in the heart of status-sniffing Bethesda. It's a soaring, high-ceiling space. Elegant glass chandeliers, which look like champagne bubbles floating to the top of a flute, hover over several booths. The stone (granite?) bar has a beam of light running along its length; it turns colors every few seconds, red, green, blue. Massive, monolithic shelves divide sections of the dining room. If you know Lebanese Taverna only from its casual cafes, this place is a shock. It's Middle Eastern cuisine elevated to fine-dining status.

The problem, of course, is that we're used to the same food at significantly cheaper prices–and without all the fanfare. We'll adapt, eventually. We may even grow to accept and love this interpretation of ethnic eating. But at the moment, when we were hungry, we all agreed yesterday that we'd take more meat, and less atmosphere.