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Authentic experiences await at cafe
The Mediterranean Cafe anchors the corner of West Washington and Charles Streets in downtown Charles Town, W.Va. The street sign tripod invited us in with promises of beef kabobs. Exotic Middle Eastern music greeted us as we entered. Staff members hailed us from their seats near the kitchen.
We were the first to arrive that Friday night. Immediately we were given a plate of feta cheese, warm pita bread and stuffed olives marinated in a dressing of balsamic vinegar, olive oil and oregano. We felt welcomed.
Menu options covered foods from the Old Country: Italy, France, Spain, Lebanon, Morocco, Persia. Our eyes leapt to the description of food from Persia. Long ago, we had pored through a Persian cookbook by Maideh Mazda in which the author explored the glories of that region's cooking.
The Professor and I have loved Persian food ever since. To find a Persian meal in Charles Town was unexpected. So, with great delight we ordered from the Persian offerings on the menu.
Our appetizer was dolmeh (stuffed grape leaves) made fresh on the premises. Five hand-made dolmeh - cooked grape leaves wrapped around rice, ground beef and tomatoes - were served on a large white plate with tomato and lime slices. A small bowl held a dressing of yogurt, dill and cucumber. The dolmeh were served warm, not heavily spiced and were delicious.
The Professor took out his iPod. It worked; the cafe had Wi-Fi, a real plus in the business community and for those who are wired.
On Fridays, the Mediterranean Cafe featured a local musician. We were happy to see David LaFleur enter and begin to set up for his evening's performance of folk guitar music.
I looked up and saw a pressed tin ceiling and looked down to see large squares of black and white linoleum. The walls were painted peach and light orange, a pleasing background. Rugs covered the floor and the plate glass window was covered with sheer purple curtains and paisley drapes with tassels. A beaded curtain hung in a doorway.
Our hostess brought us fresh brewed coffee with lots of cream. We waited with anticipation for our main courses of kabob-e-barq (grilled steak kabobs with basmati rice) and khoresht-e bademjan (eggplant stew with chunks of beef) and lentils in a lemon-and-tomato stew served with basmati rice.
When our meal came, there were many kabobs of grilled beef. But when I looked at my stew, I was disappointed. It tasted very good, but was mostly rice. For $10.99, I wanted more. So I called our hostess over and said, "I am not happy with this. I need meat."
It is at a point like this that one can truly judge a restaurant. Our hostess passed this test. She said, "That's the way it is made here. I am sorry you don't like it, but we would be glad to make you a skewer of beef kabob. At no charge. It won't take long at all."
Our second kabob came and it was better than the first. It was fresh from the grill, sizzling hot and marinated to perfection. I appreciated the immediate apology and generosity. This is how restaurants should deal with patrons' problems. We were very happy customers.
We went on to the pleasure of dessert. "I will make you a dessert platter," our hostess had said. We trusted her.
She presented us with a plate with baklava, three cookies and two pieces of Turkish delight, a fig-and-pistachio confection. Simultaneously, we saw friends walk in carrying a bottle of wine.
"They don't have their liquor license yet," our friend explained, "but they can serve it."
A large party came in just then and sat down. Other groups followed with bottles of wine. LaFleur started playing "The Water is Wide," and, all of a sudden, the energy of the place exploded. Everyone was laughing and talking and sipping wine and eating appetizers.
We turned to our desserts. Each piece was very small, but oh, so very delicious. And real. The cookies were only a memory of a cookie - dry, not too sweet, melt-in-your-mouth crumbles. The baklava was crunchy and honeyed and utterly satisfying.
The Turkish delight reminded us of poor Edmund in C.S. Lewis' fantasy "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." Edmund had a weakness for Turkish delight. How could we just eat one bite? There had to be more. But there was no more and we were running late. So we asked for our bill. And a little bit of information.
"Where is your chef from?" We expected to hear somewhere in the Middle East. But our hostess said, "Honduras. He worked in a Persian kitchen for 15 years."
"And the owner, where is he from?" the Professor asked.
"I am from Israel," she said.
We were amazed that our kind hostess was the owner. And we wondered at the cosmopolitan event of eating Persian food in the Mediterranean Cafe, whose chef is Honduran and whose owner is Israeli, in a small town in West Virginia.
Omni Vore is the pseudo-nym for a Herald-Mail freelance writer who reviews restaurants anonymously to avoid special treatment.
The Mediterranean Cafe
4 stars (out of 5)
Food: 5 stars
Service: 5 stars
Ambiance: 3 stars
Value: 4 stars
Address: 132 W. Washington St., Charles Town, W.Va.
Hours: Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday
Style: Mediterranean cuisine
Shenandoah and Beyond Forum March 30,2009
Dear Mediterranean Cafe ... When, on a Friday night, the family has surrendered to weekly fatigue and one is futilely waiting for the other to cook, you come through with a hot meal. A hot meal not just fresh from your stoves and grills, but also fresh in preparation and ingredients. No longer must we resort to grease-soaked buckets of poultry or paper-wrapped patties of lamp-heat meat. We are not at the mercy of over-sauced sweet & sour or stuck with stale cookies housing poorly printed fortunes.
We have YOU now. You actually CARE about us.
You cater to our special requests for medium-rare fish. (Wait, you actually HAVE good fish.) You garnish our plates with long-grained rice that doesn't congeal into the unnatural form of a snowball. You give us warmed bread, grilled vegetables & a smile with every order. And oh the hummus. OH THE HUMMUS. Whipped into a delightful garlicky puree - not too thick, not too creamy - I am certain the chick peas fight for the honor.
And when we arrive with our families, you get it. You really, really get it. You bring the little ones' food first, as if instinctually understanding the preponderance of volcanic eruption should they ever have to *GASP* wait for their food. You provide pillows or phone books to accommodate your lack of high chairs or booster seats. You engage them. You joke with us. You are like a good neighbor.
Close, comforting and terrificly dependable.
User Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
wow, this was the best food that I have had in a long time. The resturant was clean and the service was wonderful. I highly recommend it. I had a chicken dish with angle hair pasta, capers, a lemon butter sauce and artichoke. I don't even like artichokes but these were great.************************************************************************************
(note from staff: The Dish was Pollo a la Castellana)
Bear with me for a minute while I set this up. My wife and I were staying in Harper’s Ferry, and went looking for dinner on a Monday night. Being a tourist town, pretty much everything was closed, so we drove ten miles to Charlestown to see what we could find. Downtown we found a Chinese restaurant, a diner, and this little place where we didn’t even see the name - we just noticed the placard outside advertising pasta primavera. We opted for the Italian over the other choices.
Walking up to the restaurant we discovered it was called The Mediterranean Cafe, and offered both Italian and Mediterranean fare. The setting was humble, the ambiance was typical Main Street USA. The food was astonishingly good! The meal began with complimentary flatbread served with spiced olive oil and feta cheese. We ordered appetizers of hummus and some dolmas (grape leaves wrapped around spiced beef, served fresh and warm, not old and cold) - and I swear it was the best we’ve had, anywhere (and I’ve had Mediterranean food all over the United States, in Spain, and in Morocco, for Pete’s sake!).
Instead of ordering from the menu, I told the very friendly waitress to surprise me, and she brought me lamb kabobs. Again, the best I’ve ever had! Mild and tender lamb, with just the right hint of mint and other flavors (no overdone marinating), cooked to perfection - juicy and barely pink on the inside, but with the occasional charred spot on the outside that made it taste like it had just been brought to the table from a wooden fire on the outskirts of Casablanca.
I assumed the chef was from “the old country”, but found out he just has a magical touch with whatever he dishes up. We ended the night with baklava for dessert and left a tip bigger than the meal price (which, was under $40 for everything). Their website is www.allworldmenu.com. I HIGHLY recommend a visit to The Mediterranean Cafe. Trip Advisor Bishop Kenneth
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User Rating: 5 out of 5 stars I've been eating here regularly on the weekends since they opened. I go for the kabobs. The chicken is great, but my favorite is the lamb kabob. EIther with rice or with the flatbread...its frikkin fantastic!!!
ok, and get this - they have this yogurt drink - i know, i know - u'd think it would be syruppy and sweet/thick, like those danimals for kids, right - but this is an adult version - definitly NOT sweet, slightly biting/tart and salty with a bit of carbonation - it really helps the food go down.
Anyway, I saw a couple of guys there order it and asked them about it, they said it something u get used to, not a flavor that comes easy...but man, I frikkin love it.
TRY THE PLACE - its easily the most unusal and tasty food around this town. And the service is good too - with a smile.
*******************************************************************************User Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
I'm rating this one as good since I've only been once. My wife liked her gyro and I liked the beef kabob. I didn't like the hummus, but that might be a matter of taste. I'd definitely go back.
Went back a few weekends ago. I brought my folks. I joke about "poking the bear" when my dad is hungry. We stayed there for one and a half hours and at no point did he get upset with the service. This place makes you feel very welcome. The waitress brought out plastic spoons for my 7 month old to play with. The food was just as good this time I went, so I will upgrade the rating to Excellent. It's little places like this that make me appreciate this area.
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Chad 7 months ago
One of our favorite chef's, who helped cater our wedding reception, opened his own place in down town Charles Town!
What a wonderful find for my birthday!
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