Best combos?
I sort of defaulted to hummus, labneh (a sour cream-like strained yogurt), and roasted peppers in one bite because I really, really liked the kebab (which didn’t come on a stick) and savored every bite on its own.
I thought I saw a stick there, which did seem kind of weird. No stick makes way more sense.
i’m not sure how but this entire conversation is offensive to me.
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@NotBruceZ try miznon at venetian for something that should be a pretty good representation of Tel Aviv modern street food these days
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I’ll consider it, but I eat where my comps are and that’s not where they are.
Well, since you’re here, what is the correct way to do it?
I haven’t been to LV in forever, but I thought Venetian had a good poker room. Is that not the case?
It’s fine. I was playing tournaments there this weekend. But I have $250 in resort credits at MGM to use up.
Border Grill at Mandalay Bay. AYCE small plates weekend brunch. Highly recommend.
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If you are gonna go out like that you really should pick a better property. Pretty sure there’s a free shuttle to Ceasars Palace.
Do you want the full culinary nerd out?
Absolutely!
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okay lets nerd out
So the cop out answer is do whatever you like.
But if you want to dig in a little deeper - this place seems like an attempt to create an Israeli street food menu. While all these ingredients are not uniquely Israeli, the combination, presentation and menu def are.
So the first thing is that most street food (i use street food place kinda broadly here) place will have an option of Pita or Platter. Which in american terms meaning Burrito or Burrito Bowl. Once you went Burrito Bowl, re-creating a full burrito meal is something you’d do only if you are trying to save money as a broke college student or something. A pita dish would include all the spreads and vegetable already inside it with the meat.
But here’s the thing - this is more of a google translated version of an Israeli Kebab plate. It doesn’t really add up. The first thing that will be an issue is Labneh. Overwhelmingly street food places would be Kosher or Kosher-Adjacent. Meaning no meat and dairy. You won’t see a Kebab with Labneh plate. Now even in Arabic places, a much more common condiment would be Yoghurt.
That brings us to the roasted peppers. A pretty good match with Labneh, but again not something you’d see on a kebab plate ever. Both those things do not go with Hummus to begin with, which makes mixing all of these together even stranger.
Now the Hummus is also a bit out of place. There are two kind of ways to eat Hummus. One would be as a spread in a pita dish or a platter. That would usually be a fairly neutral hummus, without toppings (which are whole chickpeas, cooked fava beans or pine nuts) and extra spices (cumin, paprika). It is a type of hummus presentation that is designed to be a spread to eat with meat.
Then of course you have a hummus dish. That would always come with a topping, spices and olive oil. That type of presentation is commonly eaten with a pita in a “wiping” (that’s the direct translation) motion. Not exactly dipping and not exactly scooping. More of a round motion where you use the pita bread a bit like a cleaning towel.
In this platter they served the Hummus as a side/main dish and not a condiment.
While the pickled hot peppers are fine, the olives are also the wrong kind (a dish like this would be served with small bitter green olives (aka “syrian olives”). These type of greek olives don’t really belong. They would be eaten separately.
This type of Kebab plate would often be served with a carb side dish. rice with lentils (Mujadarah) or something similar are common. That also helps with the eating order as you would just do some sort of rice-meat bite.
Serving a kebab without Tahini and some spicy spread is also a pretty big no-no. Tahini is pretty much a must unless you specifically asked not to.
So the full nerd out is that the dish as a whole is somewhat wrong on a lot of tiny details that won’t matter to an american but no Israeli would look at it and say ‘yeah this makes sense’.
As played, I would eat the labaneh and hummus separately with the pita bread and the kebab on its own, simply because nothing else makes a whole lot of sense.
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Yeah, that’s exactly what I was looking for.
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This is how they describe the restaurant: “Shalom Y’all is a Mediterranean restaurant owned by the Sesame Collective exploring flavors of the levant”.
The website gives me an annoying hipster vibe.
Examples of some of the spicy spreads? Often, when I get a platter like that it is missing, and I think having one would really hit the spot.
The menu is 100% israeli and not at all anything else from the levant. I would bet any amount the owner/chef is Israeli.