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Sababa (Formerly Ardeo + Bardeo), Chef Ryan Moore's Modern Israeli on Connecticut Avenue in Cleveland Park


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17 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

Taking the kids to Zoo Lights, will likely eat here afterwards.  Most reviews on yelp relate to the $29 bottomless booze brunch, which seems to attract many frugal minded yet bitchy people.  Any recent dinner diners?

Most recent meal at Ardeo was quite good.  That was prior to the Bardeo-Bindaas conversion, though.

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At least they are keeping the space and developing a new concept.  At best, the Ardeo side would be half full on a Friday or Saturday night.  Ardeo is the last upscale-ier restaurant along the CP strip.  I'll be interested to see what they develop next.  

Bindaas still seems to draw good crowds, although it certainly is not packed they way it was when it opened.  During the week you can usually walk in and get a table or spot at the bar.  

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I read Cleveland Park adds a ‘cool’ Israeli option to its neighborhood menu by Tom Sietsema with great interest.  In fact, I pored over the piece.

Tom apparently made 2 trips and had the following - (1) salatim, (2) halumi, (3) charred eggplant, (4) chicken thigh (did he try other kebabs, as he says "the standout among the kebabs are chicken thighs"), (5) chicken livers, (6) lamb (kebab or shank?), (7) seabass in grape leaves, (8) roast chicken.

I'm surprised he didn't try or comment on the hummus.  I want to know if the hummus is as good as Zahav's.  Did he try other kebabs other than chicken thighs, if so, how do they compare to Maydan? That would've been really helpful to people trying to pick between two super hot restaurants.  I'll let you sababa people know what I think later this weekend.

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I went last night. Had the hummus with goat and harissa to start. Decent hummus but I’d go for Perfect Pita’s any day over this. It also came with exactly one pita. No that’s not enough but you can buy more for $2.50 a pop.

Small plates were the charred eggplant, chicken livers and halumi. The eggplant was - as advertised - charred. It wasn’t bad - and was enhanced by the half of the hummus we had no way to eat otherwise. The halumi came with several good accoutrements- I just felt like they should have been a bit more integrated somehow. Lot of assembly required. The chicken livers were the best of the three. Came on a bed of onions that really paired well. Would order that again. 

Last dish was the kofte kebab. Was a bit better than what you might get at A casual Greek joint - we finished it and enjoyed.  Desert was the pot de creme. Good finish to the meal. 

Overall a decent not too expensive dinner but definitely not at the same level as what we enjoyed at Bindass. Service was very good - the group always seems to do that well. Probably wouldn’t travel to Cleveland Park to eat there specifically, but I might drop in again after the zoo. I’ve never tried Zahav or Maydan so can’t offer any comparisons.

And on the non-PC side, my tribe was definitely out in full force there.  Twas like several synagogues got out simultaneously a couple blocks away right before we showed up for dinner.  Amusing to see the immediate change in clientele from the Bindass/Ardeo combo.

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Interestingly, we were encouraged to order in waves because once the order is placed, the food will arrive whenever it is ready.  They probably read Tom's  piece.

So we started with salatim, hummus of the day (with lamb), and halumi.  I loved a couple of the salads - beetroot relish with a strong hint of cumin, and the bright cucumber mixture.  I'm not a huge fan of red peppers in general, the carrot  was cooked until soft, and I don't like yogurt.

The hummus was smooth but tasted too strongly of tahini.  Zahav's is much better.  And I prefer the laffa at Zahav to the pita here (more dense).  But the lamb is delicious - reminds me of the mechoui I had in Marrakesh.  The meat is moist and flavorful.

I had a bite of the halumi.  I don't really eat cheese of any sort so I can't say whether it's good or not.

The second sally consisted of the grilled sardine, kofte kebab, chicken liver.

I thought the sardine was delicious, but there were only 3 small pieces.  The kebab tasted strongly of sumac (not as good as Maydan).  The chicken liver was nicely cooked; however, I can never take more than just a few bites of chicken liver as I'm not fond of all that liveryness.  On the other hand, I love chopped chicken liver.

My conclusion is the same as zgast's.  It's a pain for me to get to Cleveland Park so it won't be a destination joint for me.  But I can see taking the kids there after a morning at the zoo.

 

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It is like we had two different meals, which is strange because we were sitting at the same table.  Seasoning and acid were both significant issues at Sabata.  Almost every dish would have benefitted from a bit more salt.  It was conspicuously absent in the Labne and roasted peppers. 

A squeeze of lemon would have turned the halumi from a disappointing dish to something worth returning for.  Acid was probably the idea of charred lemons that were included, but instead of acid it brought an acrid flavor.  The kofte also would have benefitted with a squeeze of lemon or even better would have been a side of properly seasoned labne.  The sardines to have the opposite problem, there was so much acid on them that they burned my tongue.

The highlight of the meal was the succulent meat on the hummus (our waitress said it was lamb, but it very well could have been goat).  I didn’t mind the tahini forward flavor of the hummus, but there was no discernable chickpea flavor and again it would have been better with just a touch of salt.  The pita was flavorful, but the rye flour made it too dense without bringing any rye flavor.

The chicken livers were hit or miss.  The first one that I tried was overcooked to the point of being chalky, the second one was perfectly cooked.  The pomegranate molasses sauce was fine, but rather forgettable.

Unless I hear that things have improved I cannot see myself going back.

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2 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

Interestingly, we were encouraged to order in waves because once the order is placed, the food will arrive whenever it is ready.  They probably read Tom's  piece.

So we started with salatim, hummus of the day (with lamb), and halumi.  I loved a couple of the salads - beetroot relish with a strong hint of cumin, and the bright cucumber mixture.  I'm not a huge fan of red peppers in general, the carrot  was cooked until soft, and I don't like yogurt.

The hummus was smooth but tasted too strongly of tahini.  Zahav's is much better.  And I prefer the laffa at Zahav to the pita here (more dense).  But the lamb is delicious - reminds me of the mechoui I had in Marrakesh.  The meat is moist and flavorful.

I had a bite of the halumi.  I don't really eat cheese of any sort so I can't say whether it's good or not.

The second sally consisted of the grilled sardine, kofte kebab, chicken liver.

I thought the sardine was delicious, but there were only 3 small pieces.  The kebab tasted strongly of sumac (not as good as Maydan).  The chicken liver was nicely cooked; however, I can never take more than just a few bites of chicken liver as I'm not fond of all that liveryness.  On the other hand, I love chopped chicken liver.

My conclusion is the same as zgast's.  It's a pain for me to get to Cleveland Park so it won't be a destination joint for me.  But I can see taking the kids there after a morning at the zoo.

 

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Please confirm that the $16 is for an order that includes all five of those very modestly sized salatim, not $16 apiece.

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Finally got to Sababa last night with friends and thoroughly enjoyed it. Very nice cocktails to start - a bit on the sweet side (which I like) - I had the gin Phoenicians Frappe and tasted two of my friends. I noticed though that the cocktails are basically spiked versions of the house-made sodas and juices. Next time I may try the non-alcoholic versions. We also enjoyed their light white Georgian bottle that paired well with the food.  Servers were friendly and knowledgeable about the dishes.  The complimentary small dish of pickles was very nice with a variety of cucumber, carrot, and also radish I think.  We started with the salatim which came with nice whole wheat pitas and also the hummus tahina which also comes with 2 pitas. Hummus was nice and passed the taste test of the 4 diners, all of who have lived in Israel at some point in our lives. The salatim were explained to be side dishes to eat along with other dishes and not really meant to serve as a separate app. I think you could do it either way, but were nice grab a bite of later in the meal so I'd probably order them again at the start to whet our appetite but only eat half and save some to eat throughout the meal.  We then had the charred eggplant which was one of the standouts. Big rounds of charred outside, creamy inside that paired very well with the pomegranate seeds and herbed green sauce. I would definitely order this one again. Next was the hallomi which was good but not too excited (it may be that hallomi is just not my thing). We also got the Not for Faint of Heart - hot sauces and chili pepper dish which really is blow your mind hot. The green zhoug is very nice and the red harissa is pretty hot, but those chili peppers has us all tearing up and my dining companions are some chili heads.  We were pretty stuffed at this point but gluttons that we are we also ordered the lamb shank and veggie coucous tagine big plates. These are both sizeable dishes that could be shared by 2 people as a sizeable meals or like us enjoyed by more. The lamb shank was really excellent - crispy in places on the outside, super tender inside - lots of great meaty flavor balanced with the sweetened red cabbage. The tagine was only so so - the charred veggies in it were charred a bit too much that a lot of their flavor was lost and overall the dish lacked flavor.  Our friends had been once before and thought we ordered better this time as except for the above noted couple of less flavorful dishes, it was all really good. It is a very welcome addition to the neighborhood and now my tough choice will be whether to go to Bindaas or Sababa. 

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A mostly successful first dinner at Sababa.  I think Sababa hits the right level of restaurant for what CP seems willing to support these days.  Priced well for casual dining during the week but certainly a place you could go to celebrate a birthday or bring out-of-town guests.  Granted Sietsema's review came out this past week, but Sababa was pretty much full on a Wednesday night. 

That said I did have some nit picks...

Salatim: Unfortunately the salads were a mixed bag.  The beet and labne dishes were both good.  The rest were all a bit flat.  Hopefully when summer produce kicks in this will improve.   

Hummus: We went with the hummus tahina, really good, probably some of the best I've had in DC.  Still not as good as what you get in Israeli (I was unimpressed with Zahav's hummus, but that was several years ago)

Pita, boy their pita needs some serious work.  We got a basket of four small roundish fat pillows of pita, but when used to scoop up food they basically started to fall apart.  Seriously, Sababa, scrape the current recipe and start over.  I would suggest this one, which I've made at home, makes very nice pita, and super easy to make. 

Roasted Halumi, Dates, Honey & Charred Lemon:  An excellent dish, salty from the cheese, sweet from the honey and dates, bitter/sour from the charred lemon puree.  Plus they are using excellent halumi.  

Grilled Sardine, Feta, Walnuts, Charred Zucchini:  Another well done dish. The sardines filets had great crispy skin.  The charred zucchini had been pureed into a thick sauce and little chunks of feta and walnuts were strewn across the dish.  There were a couple of slices of zucchini in the mix which weren't needed.  

Market Fish of the Day:  The selection was Branzino.  Two whole filets, with a mix of lemon slices and herbs between them, roasted in grape leaves.  The fish was succulent.  The accompanying chopped tomatoes and cucumbers didn't really add much to the dish and the smears of harissa and shug were too hot for the delicate fish.  Even a little of either blew out your palette.  Although both the harissa and shug were tasty on their own.   

Menu Font:  My editor gf picked up the menu and immediately said, wow they used Papyrus.  At first I thought she meant papyrus paper, but no, she meant papyrus font.  Apparently in editor world it's a thing.

We enjoyed much of the food, with some tweaks and changes Sababa could easily move from being a good restaurant to a very good/great restaurant.             

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We stopped in the other day for a glass or two and a couple rounds of mezze.  Pretty much everything we had last time was still good this time, although everything need a touch more salt.  While a couple of new dishes fell flat.

The halloumi and dates is really excellent.  The grilled sardines also very good and we enjoyed the hummus tahina, but, boy, do they still need to come up with a better pita recipe.

The tuna crudo was very flat.  The tuna flavorless, definitely need some salt and acid.  I would suggest avoiding this dish. 

The salmon kebob was fine, several large chunks of nicely cooked salmon.  The Hawaij spiced rice is rather ordinary and it was accompanied by three small sungold tomatoes.  And there was no sauce or anything else added.  So basically you are getting salmon and rice.

Again, Sababa is good, its just several missteps from being very good/great.    

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I wish I had a photo.  First they are sad looking little rounds.  They also don't appear to have achieved much or any puff during cooking.

But I'd say their main problem is they have a tendency to fall apart when used to scoop up food.  They work ok with the hummus but are pretty much useless for anything more substantial.

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Interesting. The report I heard damned them with faint praise by saying that they were like the ones I bake - better than many because they’re the desired fluffy Israeli style, but not really great. When I make them the puff always seems to go away within a few minutes of baking, so maybe they were just sitting for a bit before they served them?

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Took the kids through the zoo so we can have brunch at Sababa.  The website states 

Quote

Brunch is served 11AM to 3PM on Saturday & Sunday.

Our entire dinner menu is also available.

These brunch items are available in place of our Large Plates.

We were handed a brunch menu with everything from the dinner menu but the Large Plates.  Finally my graduate level education kicked in....

Unfortunately I really wanted to try the lamb shank and the stuffed quail.

We settle for the salatim, hummus, grilled broccoli, kofta, and marindaded steak.

The pitas are still dense.  The hummus is smooooth as ever but I'm a fan of Zahav hummus for life (recipe).  The grill broccoli was perfect, a little char, a little acidity, nice texture, and it's served on a bed of what I'm guessing is eggplant puree (babaganoush).  Both meats were actually pretty dry and I had to cajole the kids to eat them.

I think I would've been pretty happy just ordering vegetarian here.

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We had a very nice group meal at Sababa over the weekend.  I ordered dishes until we were full.

Hummus of the day ($10x2) was pureed with artichoke and garlic. A very solid hummus.  I thought the pita has improved, more sturdy, good fluffiness.  You could actually use the pita to scoop up food now.

Small plates, all $10.

Charred Eggplant, herbed labne, pomegranate, pistachio was a god dish, the eggplant came as sort of 5 cylinders with sauce scattered around the plate.  I would order again.

The Kushari was also pretty good.  I'm not a kushari expert, but this was basically a tasty mess of chickpeas, lentils and rice topped with a spicy tomato sauce and fried onions (which were almost like an Indian pakora).

The Israeli Salad made for a nice palate change from the dishes with richer, creamier sauces.  Not sure if this is a must order, but a good change of pace from the other dishes.

Very good Fried Cauliflower with tahina, golden raisins, dill, and lemon.  I'd be happy to have this again.

Roasted Halumi was excellent, served with dates, honey and charred lemon.  Seriously, I'd rank this as one of the better dishes in DC right now.  Must order!

Kebabs, all $14

Both kebabs we ordered were good, the waiter said they both contained 6oz of protein, and were a fairly generous portion size.  We had the Salmon with pomegranate-labne marinade and the Lamb & Beef kofta.  Both were perfectly cooked.

Large Plates 

Vegetable Tagine ($20), a lovely presentation in its tagine vessel.  My criticism would be this dish needed more flavor pop, especially after the small plates, and some of the charred vegetables were under cooked and still crunchy.  If you are considering a Large Plate, you might want to give this one a miss, esp. at this price point.  I probably would have gone with another kabob.  Or gone with the lamb shank at $26.

They don't have the wine list online, but we had a bottle of rose from Greece, which worked well with the small plates, and a zweigelt from Austria, which was listed as a light red, but was too jammy (and served too warm).

Sababa was hopping on a Sunday night, on a holiday weekend.  Looked like a lot of families dining.  I think Sababa is growing into a very good neighborhood restaurant, and the best restaurant in Cleveland Park (we are revisiting Bindaas CP in a couple of weeks).  

 

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Had a very nice Father's day carryout feast from Sababa on Sunday. They were doing a mix-grilled special for the day which we enjoyed a lot - a big platter of hawaij-spiced rice with grilled harissa chicken kabob, chicken livers, sirloin steak, and lamb loin with charred shishito pepper, cherry tomatoes, quick pickled onions and harissa sauce and garlic labne. The chicken was especially good but all of the meats were good - although the other meats could have used a bit more seasoning. I tossed on both the harissa and labne. We also got the ever popular half-roast chicken but I guess they have changed the dish since the last time we got it awhile ago. Now the chicken has an herb blend rubbed under the crispy skin and it is roasted in a sweeter sauce and served with diced sweet potatos and walnuts. We liked the new version compared to the old more straightforward roast chicken with a pita underneath to soak up the schmaltz. We also had the fried cauliflower small plate with tahini sauce - this was good but not as good carryout as it got a little soggy. The hummus with tehina was really really good - lots of tehina for a smooth lucious spread. It comes with a good size portion so make sure to get extra pita. The overall menu is more limited than during normal times but it seems they have the hits still on the menu and they are open on their roof deck and street outdoor seating. Worth checking out for something different and good. 

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We haven't done Restaurant Week in years simply because it no longer seemed worth the effort or money.  But given our corona times we decided to do RW take out and order and share the $35 dinner menu from Sababa (they also offer a $55 menu with expanded options).

The $35 option includes:

Three Salatim (Red Pepper Muhammara & Walnut; Turmeric Tahina with Honey Harissa; Roasted Garlic Labne) and a order of Hummus and Pita.  All of which are packaged separately.  The salatim pretty much act as dips, and we should have ordered another pita.

The main course is served up like a wonderful TV dinner and includes a choice of kebob (we went with salmon), Israeli salad (which was ok), and always good Fried Cauliflower.  Dessert is the delicious Konafi Cake (Shredded filo, apricot labne filling, chantilly cream pistachio).

We decided to augment the order with the excellent roasted halumi and spring onion falafel from the regular menu.  We had more than enough for dinner for 2 plus a light lunch.  

Everything was really good, and we kinda wish they would offer this as part of their regular menu! 

 

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Had another great meal at Sababa last week. Really enjoyed the hummus of the day with chopped vegetable ratatouile on it along with their usual fresh zaatar pita. Then, we had the good salmon kebab and the better steak kebab along with the excellent fried cauliflower and a bit intense but very good grilled broccoli. We also tried the non-traditional corn falafel and really enjoyed it.  It was all washed down with a delightful Zephyr Breeze cocktail.

We didn't get it but I saw they have the Mixed grill large plate on the regular menu now. Years ago I got this as a special for father's day, I think, and it was a lot of really great grilled meats.

Service was a bit quirky though as it must of have the waiter's first day. She was so soft-spoken we could barely hear her and she seemed somewhat unfamiliar with the menu when we had a question. That being said, once we got our food orders in, it was very enjoyable.

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