Cafe Lebanon
1390 Main St., Springfield
(413) 737-7373
Open Mon.-Thu. 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m.,
Fri.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.
Lunch $9-$16; dinner entrees $17-$27.
Lebanese food makes me flip, so I was thrilled to hear encouraging reviews of Cafe Lebanon. After a late evening at the farmers' market at the X, some friends and I made our way downtown. Springfield's main drag was practically deserted at seven in the evening, and we found the expansive restaurant almost as empty as the streets, with just a few inhabited tables and a hush broken only by soft piano renditions of pop songs.
Dressed in jeans and shorts, we were sorely out of place among the button-down lingerers and well-ironed waitstaff. But once settled at a table with views of the long, dark bar and the intimate tables for two lining the wall, we forgot about our appearance and nestled in to focus on the food.
The restaurant, with one location in downtown Springfield and another in East Longmeadow, offers an interesting selection of Lebanese fare. Despite our obtrusive servers, who hovered as we made our decisions, the atmosphere was lovely and sophisticated, and the food even more pleasantly surprising.
Baba ghannouj was velvety smooth and filled with the fresh, rich flavors of roasted eggplant, sesame tahini, lemon and garlic. The three of us soon emptied the generous serving of the spread, and we scraped the bottom of the bowl with our pita bread until there wasn't a trace left. Falafel, a street-food favorite, was filled with fava and garbanzo beans, garlic and onions, and tinted green by a healthy dose of parsley. The beautifully crisp mounds were perfectly fried into five hefty balls (a bargain at only $7). Spinach pie, a variation on the familiar Greek spanikopita, was bursting with moist feta and ribboned with the forest green of wilted spinach leaves, all surrounded by beautifully crisp homemade philo dough. A bowl of lentil soup was a rich, sienna-colored puree; I marveled at how the uniform texture allowed me to focus on the depth of flavor offered by the dish.
Our entrees proved surprisingly tasty despite their banal presentation. Two types of kabob, chicken and lamb, came laid on stark white plates aside golden rice pilaf. Appearances can deceive, though, and we found the meats perfectly cooked. The chicken, a meat that disappoints too often, was moist and spiced to perfection. The lamb, an even more tempting choice, bore the same spices and was cooked to a delicate pink, just browned on the outside. We dipped chunks of both into a heavily garlicked and fantastically sinful aioli: delicious. The rice pilaf, spun with warm spices, proved a wonderfully simple yet satisfying complement to the kabobs.
Desserts at Cafe Lebanon are a bit more unusual, and we found ourselves simultaneously impressed and bewildered. The restaurant had run out of baklava, the obvious choice, and after debating whether it was even worth staying, we decided to take a risk. Ismalia came as a dense block of ricotta, barely sweetened, topped with shredded philo dough and rose syrup. The dish was bland and heavy, and we pushed it aside quickly. The mahalibia, on the other hand, was a play on delicate flavors that reminded me that not all Lebanese food must, by definition, be rich and overbearing. A beautifully light rose custard was served with fruit and rose syrup, and garnished with a sprig of fresh mint and a thin wafer of philo covered in cinnamon sugar, a more delicate version of a churro.
With the flavors of cumin and rosewater still lingering on our tongues, we made our way out onto abandoned Main Street. Why Cafe Lebanon doesn't draw a bigger nightly crowd bewilders me. As far as I can tell, no Lebanese or even Greek restaurant in the Valley compares."
