Hummus, a Love Song

I’m enough of a Midtown snob that I still roll my eyes when friends move out of the inner city and into some big, shiny subdivision on the plains north of the river. North of the river? To paraphrase Gertrude Stein: Is there any there there?

The answer is yes, but it’s coming about slowly. The Northland has a modest restaurant scene, thanks to the pioneers who are making inroads into the outback. Take for example Iliki Café. It may be hard to believe, but six years have passed since Christian Fuller and Cristal Wineinger-Roberts packed up their pots and pans and moved out of the first Iliki Café, which was in a storefront on 39th Street.

Leaving the city’s hippest stretch of independent restaurants for a brown suburban strip mall seemed extremely illogical. But a squabble between Christian and Cristal and the restaurant’s third partner — a disagreement with Byzantine overtones — forced the two, then just twentysomething kids, out of their lease. They took the restaurant’s name (it’s the Turkish word for “warm”) and headed for the hills — the Picture Hills Shopping Centre, that is: one of the least picturesque spots in the metro.

But when you’re young, energetic and focused, miracles can happen. The second Iliki Café, which, like the first, served Turkish, Syrian, Greek and Armenian dishes, caught on right away, especially with Northland residents like my friends Amy and Bill, who were bored with the fast-food joints and chain restaurants that dominated the strips near their home.

“The Iliki was an oasis,” Bill said. “We ate there all the time. And when we didn’t, we traveled into the city.”

Amy, a languid, blond former model, loved Iliki’s food but felt the place needed a serious fashion makeover. “It was kind of a dump,” she said as she offered me a white plate heaped with shiny brown kalamata olives and cubes of salty feta cheese.

We were sitting in the restaurant’s third incarnation, in a larger spot two doors down. The third Iliki is four months old but twice the size of its predecessor — and, according to Amy, five times more attractive. Not having seen the second Iliki, I had to rely on her description of the transition from small and frumpy to large and luxurious. Interior walls are now done up in shades of lapis lazuli and khaki. A dealer has loaned Christian and Cristal splendid Oriental and Turkish rugs to hang along one long stretch of wall (and yes, they’re for sale). Heavy wooden chairs, wine racks filled with excellent vintages and soft Arabic music give the place a style I’d call Midwestern Pasha. The only things missing are dancing girls and eunuchs.

On an earlier visit, with my friend Steve in tow, we stepped out of the broiling August heat into the dark, cool confines of the restaurant’s bar, which is separated from the dining room by a low wall and glass panels. It’s the one area where smoking is permitted, and Steve was eager to light up, but he was curious about the ubiquitous perfume of burning incense. “It smells like a Moroccan harem,” he said, then quickly added, “not that I would know about such things.”

We did know what we wanted to eat, though, so that meal started with a cold meze sampler. If you combine a couple of dishes, the meze at Iliki can make a tiny meal. The sampler plate, however, is perfect for two, with puddles of creamy hummus; baba ghanoush; the delicately sweetened walnut-and-red pepper muhammara dip; finger-sized grape leaves stuffed with rice and sumac; and a mound of minty tabouli. That tabouli was far too salty, but we inhaled it along with everything else, swirling up the dips with wedges of soft, paprika-dusted pita bread.

“White-boy pita,” Cristal said later, laughing. “That’s what our Middle-Eastern customers call it because it’s soft and doughy instead of firm and drier, like flatbread.”

So Iliki also serves a dense, golden-fried and crispy pita; on my second visit, with Amy, Bill and the fussy Bob (who usually turns up his nose at Middle-Eastern fare), we ordered it along with our fattoush — a vinegary salad of romaine, peppers and herbs. We bypassed the sampler platter and ordered individual dishes, so as to be more adventurous in mezeland. Along with traditional hummus, we devoured the olives and feta and shared portions of Haloumi, a chewy square of Mediterranean sheep cheese served hot and crusty from a quick pan searing then doused in fresh lemon juice. And a plate of hummus lahm was laden with sautéed beef, marinated onions and bits of almond.

We had ordered Amy’s favorite hot meze dishes, as well — potatoes sautéed with garlic, lemon and cilantro, and loubieh (green beans sautéed with onion, tomato and garlic) — but our server forgot to bring them until we were well along with dinner and too stuffed to entertain even the possibility.

Iliki’s dinner menu lists only five entrees, though several additional specials show up on a separate sheet of paper. Amy and Bob wanted the grilled, skewered chicken until Bob saw the de-scription for the shish kebab marinated in parsley, onion and cilantro. “Can I get one skewer of beef, one of chicken?” he asked.

No problem, said our frizzy-haired server, who then lured me into ordering that night’s fish special, a filet of red snapper sautéed in fresh herbs and topped with a relish of fresh strawberries and yogurt. The combination sounded absurd at first — I’m no fan of mixing fruit and fish — but I was game to try it and am thrilled that I did. The tart strawberries and cool yogurt brilliantly jazzed up what might have been a flaky but boring slab of seafood.

And on the subject of boring: Few things are duller than tofu, but Iliki’s kitchen gives soybean curd style and substance, pan searing the pale, wobbly stuff until it’s firm and just on the edge of crispiness, splashing it with hot Thai chili paste and serving it gorgeously fanned out on a bed of basmati rice. I also loved the plate of kofte, spicy, herb-laden meatballs of ground beef sautéed with fresh tomatoes and potatoes and topped with a dollop of creamy garlic sauce.

Desserts, however, were less entrancing. After grabbing my attention with promises of fresh pineapple or blackberry sorbet, our server returned to halfheartedly explain that neither was available. When I had dined with Steve, he’d ordered the baklava, which, the server proudly said, “wasn’t gooey or chewy like other places.” After two bites of the dry, undistinguished pastry, we agreed that we preferred the gooey, chewy kind. And the wedge of flourless chocolate cake was as dense as fudge but slightly gritty and gave us too much of a sugary jolt.

But even if the desserts weren’t exactly a Turkish delight, the rest of the dining experience certainly was. The service was patient and friendly, the portions generous, the wine list clearly assembled by a connoisseur. It’s pretty sophisticated for the Northland, which may explain why it’s always so busy.