A visit by a friend's mother typically doesn't mean much, but for us it meant a free trip to Ali Baba Tandoor.
Usually, large groups at a new restaurant try to order a range of dishes. But this can cause "food resentment," which is when you refrain from ordering something because someone else is ordering it as well (so for the sake of variety, you get something you don't really want). When you see how good their meal is (your original choice), you wish you'd gone with your gut and gotten it anyway. At Ali Baba, we split into two groups that each ordered the same thing. Was this because these were the two best choices, or was it to avoid the onset of food resentment? We're thinking the latter.
The majority of the meals include portions of one of two Afghani rices. One, pallow, is simple boiled rice that is first mixed with cardamon, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin and oil, and is then baked. Challow, the second rice, is seasoned with oil and cumin seed, and is also baked. The general table consensus was that the pallow was better.
The vegetarian entrée that spoke to us the most was aptly, not to mention simply, named "Special," and it most certainly lived up to its name. Along side a heaping mound of pallow rice came baked pumpkin, pan-fried eggplant, sautéed spinach and okra cooked in tomatoes. While the eggplant and spinach were good, they had nothing on the pumpkin and okra, two veggies we didn't even realize had their roots in the Middle East.
The pumpkin was soft, naturally sweet and... well, orange. It came as a slice about the size of a deck of cards, and it was definitely the first thing finished on the plate. Good thing the table had already split a pumpkin appetizer, otherwise we don't know if we would have gotten our fill of gourd for that night.
The okra was something really special. It was probably the last thing we ever expected to find on a Persian menu, but we're certainly glad it was there.
Half of us had a dish called dwopiaza. After a preliminary glance across the selection of lamb offerings, some at the table were already planning to seize the chance to have well-prepared lamb. True, the description does use the somewhat off-putting phrase "leg of lamb chunks" (we can't even think of a situation in which "chunks" sound appealing). Alas, with the table's powers combined, we put two and two together; between the "chunks of lamb" and the massive gas-fire range just behind our table, it became clear that the lamb would simply be marinated and grilled, like almost all the other meat entrées.
A light marinade lends a warmly spiced aroma to the dwopiaza lamb, which is then lightly sautéed with yellow split-peas and tossed with onions lightly marinated in vinegar. Served atop some Afghan bread, with a generous heap of pallow rice, and a ramekin of rich garlic and mushrooms, which were if anything a bit much after the first few tastes, even in their miniature portion.
Look for Ali Baba Tandoor on the corner of Mass Ave. and Walden Street just before Porter Square, diagonally across the street from The Elephant Walk.
What most distinguishes this place from Ali Baba is that both owner and manager are siblings of Hamid Karzai. That's President Hamid Karzai, of Afghanistan. We wonder if President Karzai gets food resentment, too.
Winston Berkman is a sophomore majoring in international relations; Charlotte Bourdillon is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. They can be reached at Winston.Berkman@tufts.edu and Charlotte.Bourdillon@tufts.edu, respectively.
