Need a Makanek? Try Cedars Meat House

Tag : Halal Chicken

A guy named Gerard sends me tips from an address in Richmond Hill,Queens, from time to time. The other day, I opened one of hissnail-mail missives to find a pair of neatly folded menus for aplace with the intriguing name of Cedars Meat House. At the top wasa picture of a spreading fir tree, the emblem of Lebanon. Thenumber of grilled items was impressive, listing kebabs I'd neverheard of before, including Aleppo and "tawook," which sounded likethe names of stately Upper West Side apartment buildings.
Picking up people along the way, my crew and I propelled across theQueensboro Bridge, singing Simon & Garfunkel's "Feelin'Groovy"—which references the same bridge, of course.Descending onto Queens Boulevard, we took the difficult illegalleft onto Northern Boulevard, and soon found ourselves in a regionof Middle Eastern hookah parlors, Egyptian seafood restaurants, andBosniak (Bosnian Muslim) butchers. Cedars turned out to be a verybrightly lit grocery, grill, and halal-meat market, with the kebabsmarshaled in a glass case right inside the front door, as plumes ofwhite smoke shot up from a gas-fired grill in the background,attended by a wise-cracking guy who charmed the pants off usimmediately.
A narrow marble counter with 10 stools provided theseating—which is more than adequate, since most customersdart in for a sandwich or a pastry. The latter include an excellenthomemade zaatar bread ($1), an Ottoman mini–meat pizza calledlahmacun, and the toothsome cheese flatbread khubz bij-jibin, plusthe usual tricorner spinach pie given a slightly sour kick byvinegar. Made in a giant oven with something that resembles pizzadough, these pastries are reason enough to persuade you to visitCedars Meat House. But the grill and its lure, after all, is theraison d'être.
Without committing to a full flesh spread, you can get your feetwet with one of the bargain sandwiches ($3.50): an outsize pitawith blessedly thin layers rolled around a meat filling of yourchoice, joined by parsley, sumac-dusted onions, wedges of purplepickled turnips (the eerie color provided by beet juice), andspears of dill pickle. If you stopped there, you'd be cheatingyourself, because you must beg for lots of "garlic sauce." Thisoily yet fleecy condiment is a species of Provençal aioli, amayo so garlicky that it burns the lips, demonstrating anunexpected French influence on Lebanese cooking.
An array of vegetarian sandwiches is also available, deployingfried cauliflower (surprisingly great), fried eggplant, andfalafel—which the menu transliterates "flafel," which ismaybe just Queens English. Check out the extensive glass cases whenyou come in, because specials fly in with frequency. One evening,we enjoyed a dish of spinach stewed with pine nuts and ground lambinundated with rich broth. Another time, it was a plate ofkibbeh—the torpedo-shaped national dish of Lebanon. Break thecracked-wheat crust and ground meat spills out. I asked the grillmaster if he made all the dishes displayed: "If I made them, they'dbe much better," was his facetious reply.
Mr. Cutlets, are you listening? Now, for the meat roster: Sold bythe pound, most are priced around $10.99 and served on a bed ofparsley and onions. There are long ground-beef kufta kebabs shiningmoistly on their swords, which give them the air of medievalarmaments that have just been removed from tender flesh. Regularkufta comes ramified with parsley and onions, which complement thesmoky flavor. Named after an ancient trading city in Syria, theAleppo kufta kebab is much redder. The bright color is the resultof chile powder, and Lebanese attribute the love of spiciness toSyrians in much the same way that Italians attribute anything hotto Sicilians.
Sometimes, there are beef shish kebabs (tough but tasty); othertimes, there are lamb kebabs (as tender as a lover's nether cheek).The chicken "tawook" kebabs are made with breast meat marinated inyogurt, and hence a bit bland. Instead, choose the rustic,house-fabricated chicken schwarma if you see one rotating behindthe counter. Small and flavorful lamb chops are sometimesavailable, and, though liver is listed, I've never found itactually available. Finally, you can't go wrong with the sausages.Soujouk is a short, spicy red sausage tasting of cumin, and there'salso a longer, darker sausage dubbed Makanek, traditionally madewith lamb and red wine. If you don't like it, maybe you can get itto fix your car.