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Gabriel's Kitchen

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Liam Hetherington
Liam Hetherington
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3 out of 5
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54) Gabriel's Kitchen - Angelic Upstart

54) Gabriel's Kitchen - Angelic Upstart

Palestine – 03/10/09

It had not been my intention to hop straight from my Israeli meal to a Palestinian one, but you have to take your chances where you can. The only Palestinian place I knew about - West Bank in Rusholme - closed down earlier this year. But then it was pointed out to me (by the same people who recommended JS for my Israeli meal) that as part of the Manchester Food & Drink Festival there was a Palestinian Evening scheduled in at a local cafe. Paul, Rebecca and I booked our tickets...

Gabriel's Kitchen was a bit different from other places we had dined at for middle eastern grub. For starters, it is not a middle eastern restaurant. Hoummous and salads may be on their normal menu, but so are American maple waffles and full English breakfasts. The accent of head honcho Peter is more Knowsley than Nablus. If you want Arabic food nip next door - appropriately enough my Palestinian meal occurred one door down from where I had my Jordanian. But they are on the side of the angels. They obviously care about organic, unprocessed food, and a map of Lancashire on the wall shows the local suppliers they source their ingredients from. It is a homey, warm little place, which presumably does good trade with staff from the hospitals across the road.

On this night, however, there was to be a set menu for £15.00. Theorising that we would probably usually be paying that much for a restaurant meal we got our names down. There was a bit of a delay while they waited for others to arrive - but even then there could not have been more than 30 customers, filling the place. Starters were brought out first. Each group got trays of warm pitta-like flat-bread. Then they produced plates of hoummous and baba ghannoush for dipping. A bowl of Palestinian olives appeared (something that I was happy to leave for Paul and Rebecca), and an Arabic salad - finely diced tomato, cucumber, pepper and onions. Essentially it was only the addition of some coriander leaves that marked it apart from the Israeli salad I had eaten four days earlier. The hoummous had a good nutty flavour, and was coarser than I was used to - which I think I preferred, as I got the texture of the chickpeas in it as a contrast. Also on the table were pots of seasoning - sage green za'atar and purple sumac with a lemony taste.

As we were munching our way through this a bowl of another dip was brought out. This was a warm mixture of tomato and capsicum pepper, and I for one loved in. We were told that this was shakshouka, a dish I'd not come across previously. Researching it on the internet implies that shakshouka should contain eggs; if this one did, I didn't spot them. As I finished it, another bowl was brought. Throughout the mezze we were constantly asked if we needed any refills of anything. I think we were wary of going too mad simply because we were not sure quite how much food was going to be brought out for for the main course and dessert.

Our wariness was justified when the mains appeared. A big bowl of cooked wild rice, and then grilled chicken quarters, flavoured with sumac. Apart from the lack of taboun bread I think this was the dish musakhan I'm not sure how they expected us to get through it all! Thankfully we were helped by a chap on the next table who pinched some.

There was a break then as we were given a talk by a lady from the International Solidarity Network. She talked about the problems faced by Palestinians under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, and played a short film about the village of Bil’in, whose olive orchards were expropriated by the Israeli government to build its ‘security wall’ through Palestinian territory. It made sobering viewing, though the lady’s tone was a touch hectoring. And of course while I sympathise with plight of the Palestinians I was really only here for the food. She had brought along Palestinian goods to sell – packets of spices, handicrafts made by womens’ co-operatives, and Fair Trade olive oil – in all the world only one producer has been granted Fair Trade accreditation, and that is Palestinian.

Following this dessert was served up. This was eish es-saraya, a sweetened cream, bread and pistachio pudding, flavoured with rose water. It was a gloopy, custardy concoction, but the delicate flavourings of pistachio and rosewater came through really well. Can there be two tastes any more evocative of the Levant than the everpresent nuts and the luxurious, almost decadent, rosewater? Considering the volume of mezze I had put away and the amount of chicken and rice served up I was surprised that I was able to make serious inroads into a very decent helping.

The food on offer here tasted authentic enough, though they were prepared from recipes rather than by someone actually from the area. But the love of cooking and of occasion was evident in this small little restaurant. And it was good enough to transport me over the sea and make me forget we were on a main road in Manchester as the autumn chill started to bite.

From journal Around The World In 80 Meals! (part 6)

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