Photos | Drew Lazor

Can’t decide between embarking on a windswept culinary tour of the Mediterranean or sitting and watching old heads toss bocce in Bardascino Park? Well I’ll be — now you can do both. Mazag Café (1001 S. 10th St.), which opened Oct. 11 in the 10th and Carpenter space that formerly housed the Bella Vista branch of Mount Airy’s InFusion, is cozycute brainchild of Dahlia Osman, with help from her mother, Nemi Assaad.

Osman and Assaad, who are Egyptian (Mazag means “good mood” in their native tongue), cook up Medi choices from multiple countries. Drop in for stuffed grape leaves with yogurt sauce; goat cheese-, almond- and veggie-laden couscous; Italian bean salads and panini; and salad-type dishes from Lebanon, Syria, their homeland (a fried rice dish with tuna and green peppers is one Egyptian specialty) and more. Baklava, spinach pie and various other bread-y offerings are baked fresh daily; plenty of vegetarian and vegan options are on hand, as well. The menu will continue to grow as customers become better acquainted with some of the more authentic offerings, Assaad says.

They’re also doing a full range of coffee and espresso drinks in addition to harder-to-find beverages like Turkish coffee, hibiscus tea, and sahlab, a hot drink that’s extremely popular in the Middle East. Derived from orchid root, the thick treat is served with milk and nuts, which you’re meant to spoon out and eat prior to your first sip.

Mazag, which is still waiting on their phone line hookup, is open Mon.-Fri. from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sat.-Sun. from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Openings, Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.