IRAQ

AISH TANOOR

aishtanoor.com

Our tasty travels recently took us to Aish Tanoor, which describes itself as a kosher middle Eastern food establishment with the origin of it’s offerings from Iraq and Israel.  What makes it kosher is it’s adherence to Jewish dietary laws which includes not mixing milk and meat in the same meal and omitting forbidden foods such as shellfish and pork.  What makes it Iraqi is the fluffy, delicious laffa bread that is served.

 Laffa, also known as Taboon bread or Iraqi pita in Israel, is large, flat pieces of dough cooked in a taboon or an oven similar to a South Asian tandoor in which naan is cooked.  In both cases the dough is placed along the inside walls of a clay oven, resulting in large malleable  pieces of bread that are crispy outside and soft and chewy inside.   To see how the laffa is made you can check out an article by BlogTo.  The laffa, which is made fresh to order and comes in both white and whole wheat, can be ripped in pieces and dipped in a variety of types of humous and other salads or used to wrap a combination of meats and salads in whatever way tickles your fancy.  We ordered our laffa with za’aatar, Middle Eastern spice mixture, unique for its zesty, earthy flavours.  To accompany our laffa, which is really the star of the show at Aish Tanoor and what sets it apart from the myriad of shwarma places Toronto, we had shwarma (of course), kebabs that were a mixture of minced beef and lamb, shakshoukah with mergez (a spicy Moroccan sausage) and a salad platter.  The salad platter deserves special mention.  It consisted of humous (of course), a delicious, fresh and homemade tasting baba ghanoush, tabbouleh, delicately fried egg plant and a deeply flavoured, slightly spicy, cooked tomato salad which Aish Tanoor describes as matbuha. The salads were all freshly made with the flavours of the ingredients  showing off all of their best features.