Mombar - Southern Egyptian Restaurant in Astoria, NYC

Seventh Wonder New York City Entry #28

Treasure the restauranteur who follows his own muse. While Zagat gives the River Café the nod for best decor, I vote for Moustafa Rahman's Mombar, a Southern Egyptian restaurant in the Arabic corner of Astoria.

As a fancier of Outsider Art, a friend and admirer of the late Howard Finster, the Georgia self-taught artist. My evening at Mombar reminded me of listening, open-mouthed, to the Reverend Finster preach in his redoubt at Paradise Garden. Moustafa Rahman, the chef and owner, has created an establishment like no other (its only competition might be Knoxville's King Tut's Grill, which has much of Mombar's glorious clutter and compelling charm, but without its cracked aesthetic vision). I regret not having a digital camera, discovering that some places can not be put into words. Even when viewed from the street Chef Rahman has created a landmark with his own sculptural vision, his fantastic bricolage. Inside he has painted and sculpted the tables with elaborate folk designs. The walls are brimming with objets d'art, photos, and once utilitarian objects as beer steins, alarm clocks, licenses, and lanterns. The kaleidoscopic mosaics on the floor and in the restroom are worth the price of admission alone. As in Finster's Paradise, one sits in the midst of a mental explosion filled with awe at human imagination. Mombar is a landmark destination for all New Yorkers.

The decor is matched by the chef and his host who strive mightily and successfully to make each diner feel at home. When Chef Rahman came by to apologize for the delay in our entrees, we had barely noticed, and felt a strong desire to assure him that, after all, it was quite all right. The restaurant, although not widely described (it is not rated in Zagat 2005), is not unknown, and the diners were a motley international crew, not the place to choose if one selects on the basis of the ethnic homogeneity of the diners. The authenticity is personal, not national.

Any restaurant with entrees in the $20 range is not a neighborhood dive. How many ethnic restaurants offer a tasting menu? This chef has vision. The food was very satisfactory, although without a comparative analysis I wouldn't suggest that Mombar serves better food than all of their competition. Chef Rahman has his own preparations, slightly off-center from most middle eastern cuisine (unless it was "Northern" Egyptian food I have been eating these years).

My son and I began with an amuse bouche (yes, although not called by that term) of Fried Egyptian bread with a sesame oil accompaniment. Modest though it was, I give the nod to this hot bread as the most indelible dish of the evening. One is used to dipping bread in olive oil, but sesame oil has a sweetness and exoticism that is unique.

We followed this by sharing the Mombar appetizer: a gently-spiced encased sausage of beef, lamb, and rice, served on a bed of chick peas and spiced green beans. I admired the trouble that the Chef went to of filling the sausage casing. The Levantine spices were carefully prepared.

I selected the lamb tagine with raisins, dats, and dried apricots. The stew included peas, carrots, (more) green beans, and (more) chick peas. I confess that I wish that the stew and more fire, more sweet fruit, and perhaps a more tender cut of lamb. I enjoyed the tagine, but it was the light golden pyramid of couscous that made the dish haunting. The grains of couscous were roughly microscopic, as light as air and as hard to spy. If couscous can be little BBs, Mombar's grains are atomized.

My son ordered the Egyptian steak, which he enjoyed, although the meat was not steakhouse quality. The spices did lead to imaginings of Luxor evenings. The fried onions and tomatoes, while not unique, added to the plate.

We chose not to order dessert (the restaurant offers special desserts), but I did enjoy my Hibiscus juice, tart, slightly bitter, and nicely floral.

If this food was offered in a spotless diner, stocked with white formica tables, it would be a pleasant enough evening. However, in a space that was so filled with the creativity of love and the love of creativity, Mombar could easily be labeled as one of the Seven Wonders of the New York culinary world.

Mombar
25-22 Steinway Street (near Astoria Boulevard)
Queens (Astoria)
718-726-2356

http://www.vealcheeks.blogspot.com

Victor and I had a meal at Mombar last Thursday, and can report that the decor remains astonishingly beautiful. Unfortunately our camera battery ran out so we lack a permanent record, but it was one of those places that makes you want to go home and cover your kitchen walls with art.

Victor's father was Egyptian, and he grew up with Egyptian dishes, so he was really looking forward to this meal. The previous poster mentioned the fine flatbread. We also shared a combo appetizer that included tastes of hummus, baba, foul, and fresh cheese. All quite good.

We tried the namesake mombar sausages, which I found a bit bland, but Victor found utterly delicious and reminiscent of his childhood. We shared the clay pot special, which was a beef shank in a stew of assorted vegetables; very tasty, but the meat wasn't the best part as far as I was concerned. Victor loved it, though, especially the marrow. The clay pot dish was accompanied by the lightest, fluffiest couscous we've ever encountered: it looked and felt on the tongue like fine-grated parmesan. We also shared the chicken with mulikheya (accompanied by a beautiful pyramid of rice). The mulikheya was just right; Victor found the chicken a bit dry.

For dessert, we ordered the "chef's special," which turned out to include grilled pineapple, honey-drizzled pineapple ice cream (!!), and honey-drenched shredded wheat pastry.

The kitchen (with its artist-chef at work) is in full view, and we found ourselves imagining how he could possibly feed a full restaurant (we were there around 7:30 on a Thursday evening, when business was just trickling in. It started to really fill up as we were finishing our meal); it made us think of a restaurant called Ciak, in Cinque Terre, where the solitary chef prepared magnificent meals for a perpetual full-house, while also answering the phone, hollering to his few waiters, and putting plates out for nearby customers (of which we were two). The chef of this restaurant appeared much calmer, and even came out to greet his customers during a break in the action.

We rolled out of Mombar into a cab, but got arrived via subway/foot. It's about a half-mile walk from the Astoria Blvd station (N or W), and well worth a detour from Manhattan. We plan to return on a future visit to New York, to explore other items on the menu.