Gourmet Survivor 2004: The Final Four

Nick. Harry. Michelle. Andrea. Separate and alone, foodie icons of the internet age. Together, fierce combatants in the final weeks of what will surely become an international phenomenon--Gourmet Survivor 2004.This week's challenge was to write a restaurant review. Simple enough. Let's see what our fierce fighting foodies came up with. Vote for your favorite to get immunity.Nick's Entry: "You Can Never Go Home...or Back To College"Harry's Entry[No link, just text.]Mordoch, the meal I have eaten 1000 timesYikes. This by far is my most difficult challenge todate. Not because of the content but rather mylocation. I am currently sitting in an Internet cafein a country with an unfamiliar keyboard. The surrealswiss German version of "white rose" by Nick Cave andKylie Minogue is playing on the loudspeakers and Ifeel like I am in biyyaro land. That was actuallysupposed to be bizarro but the "y" is where the "z" issupposed to be on the keyboard. Eegads. Crazy Swiss.Unfortunately I won't be reviewing a restaurant herebut rather my very favorite restaurant in my formerhometown of what is known by insiders as J-Town and bynormal people as Jerusalem.If you want to get to the culinary core of a cultureyou need to find out where the working class grabslunch. These restaurants serve incredibly fresh fooddue to high turnover, have cult followings and areusually wickedly cheap. For the past eight years narya Friday goes by that I don't have a delicious lunchat Mordoch, a family owned Kurdish style restaurant.I was lucky enough to dine at this establishment onlyhours before I received the AG Survivor challenge.You'll have to forgive me for the lack of photos.Now, a little about the restaurant. The Mordoch familyare Kurdish and serve the best kubbeh soup in theentire country. Kubbeh soup? Never heard of it?Neither did I before I had my first portion on a hotsummer day back in 1997. Perhaps you have heard of theLebanon's Kibbeh, a fried version...but we'll get tothat later.The meal always starts out with three or four smallsalads. They change daily. This week we had a carrotsalad with diced chilies, pickled lemon rind andcilantro. A mediocre cabbage salad that was flavoredwith sesame oil and an above average amount of blackpepper and a traditional Turkish salad. The carrotsalad was incredibly spicy. I enjoy spicy food but myeastern European Jewish palate can only take so much.That's why I always have hummus as smooth as a baby'sbottom on hand to cool the sometimes overwhelmingmouth burning. This of course is mopped up with hotfresh pita bread that is brought in every half hourfrom the bakery up the street.There are two kinds of kubbeh soup - red and green -Red kubbeh soup has a tomato and beet base. Green(commonly known as Chamutzta) is a really sour soupmade with swiss chard and a massive amount of lemonjuice. The star of both soups however is the Kubbehitself. Kubbeh are bulgar dumplings filled with lambmeat and spices. The meat is sealed in the dough andas soon as you cut one in half with your spoon,delicious oil from the lamb leaks out....yum. Now mylunch companions always get the sour soup. I howevercan go either way. Depends on my mood. Last week I hadthe red soup and the balance of beets and tomatoes wasa bit off. It was too beet-y. It was an off day. Ithappens. It was still delicious, just not the same.Sigh. There is always next week.Usually I fill up on the soup, salad and hummus andit's more than enough....and I always grab somethingto bring home. In this case I took some fried kube.Its the same kube that is in the soup, just shapeddifferently and deep fried. Best served with techina(I say techina you say tehini) and a squeeze of lemon.Best thing about Mordoch is the price. A huge bowl ofsoup is roughly three dollars. About seventy fivecents is added to the bill to account for theunlimited salads and pita, the communal hummus runsabout three bucks for a large plate and the meal isalways ended with a complimentary turkish coffee.Complimentary for regulars that is.....Now if you excuse me all this talk has made me hungry.A very late dinner beckons.Michelle's EntryAndrea's Entry