Olives Mediterranean Café

December 31, 2016

Lancaster, California – I was in the area and saw that this place was one of the very few restaurants that would be open tonight. So I decided to bring my wife here for a spur-of-the-moment New Year’s Eve dinner.

Olives Mediterranean Café has two locations: Palmdale and Lancaster. The Lancaster site is located on what’s known as “The Blvd”, or Lancaster Blvd. for those not from the area. The speed limit through The Blvd is very low – 15 mph, I think – and it is enforced. Olives sits in a storefront and is easy to miss if you’re driving past, even at that slow speed. You’ll find it if you look on south side of street.

We arrived around 7pm. When we walked in, the hostess greeted us promptly and said, “Sit wherever you’d like.” Inside it was not nearly as crowded as I expected. There was one group of a dozen or so people, and a couple of other diners. The dining area has about 16 tables with chairs. The tables are covered by white tablecloths, which are topped by a sheet of glass. About a half-dozen paintings hang on the wall. One looked like a rendition of a scene from Cinque Terre as viewed from a covered terrace or patio.

Since it is the Christmas season, the place was lightly decorated for holidays, including a tree trimmed in green, white, and gold.

Music is usually featured nightly. Tonight, a lady was playing music on a keyboard. She played several, various tunes in styles ranging from Christmas to Classical to the classics. All the songs she played were instrumental; she did not sing. However, a vocalist did come up later to join her and sing a few songs.

Olives has a low-key atmosphere with very friendly servers. The selections on the menu are fairly wide-ranging. Healthy cooking is the rule here. Most of their dishes, including salads, are prepared using olive oil.

Last time I was here I had the Lamb Gyro. I figured I’d try a different dish this time. This evening’s fare consisted of Beef Lula Kabob ($13.99). I ordered a Merlot ($5.99/glass) to go with the kabob dish but forgot to note the name.

The menu advises diners to allow 20 minutes to prepare your order because it is cooked fresh.

The Beef Lula Kabob plate comes with rice pilaf, salad, hummus, grilled tomato and grilled pepper. That pepper is a jalapeño, just so you’ll know. Joining the meal is Lebanese pita bread, sliced in half, and served in a basket. All you can eat.

The salad was very crunchy. A reassuring characteristic of its freshness. It is topped with a light oil-based dressing that I could not identify. Nice and fluffy rice pilaf was a tad bit salty but otherwise good.

That hummus was delicious! It had some real flavor to it. Maybe it was the proportion of lemon juice and tahini that did it. It is served with olive oil on top and sprinkled with paprika. I can think of several things this hummus would go great with.

I skipped the tomato but ate the pepper. It looked completely charred. You might think that charring the jalapeño pepper might mellow down the heat. And you’d be wrong. The pepper I had retained its full strength. Trust me.

Kabobs bore the evidence of being slid onto a flat blade skewer, then grilled. You can really taste the herbs and spices in the meat. The kabob is cooked to about medium. Two kabobs grace your plate. I cut a portion of one, placed it in the pita bread, then dipped in hummus. I enjoyed the diverse flavors that came from that combination. A squeeze of lemon would take this up a notch. I’ll try that next time.

After sipping the merlot, I realized it did not make an impression on me. When tasting it after a bite of the kabob, it was evident that it was not the best pairing for what I ordered. Not sure what else to say about it other than I will have to try a different wine next time.

For desert I ordered Baklava ($3.99). On my last visit this was highly recommended by my friends. I see now why they suggested it. Freshly made in house, flaky dough, just the right amount of honey… Very, very good!

Their hummus was so good, I had to get a small order to go ($5.99).

If you have a craving for Greek or Mediterranean food at a very reasonable price, look no further. In my opinion, visiting as a couple or as a group makes for a more enjoyable experience. I say that only because you’ll have the opportunity for conversation to pass the time while your meal is being prepared. Dining solo? No problem, but I’d suggest bringing something to read while waiting for your meal.

Olives Mediterranean Café – 4.25 forks. Recommended. Catering and online ordering available.

 

Papa’s Place – The Mecca of Barbecue

November 26, 2012

Lancaster, California – I was planning to go to a barbecue restaurant in the San Fernando Valley today but my plans had to change due to an unforeseen delay. So instead, with a lingering hankering for barbecue, I decided to give Papa’s Place a try.

Papa’s Place opened earlier this month. I had seen the sign on the building a couple of months back and was glad they were finally open.

If you are approaching from the parking lot, the front door is not where you’d expect to find it. It isn’t right off the parking lot. That is the emergency exit. The front door is off the street and set back a ways from the sidewalk. And you’ll probably think you missed it before you see the path leading to the entrance.

Once you do enter, you’ll be greeted by your hostess, who will escort you to your table. There is a small waiting area right inside the door.

It was between lunch and dinner when I arrived. The place was almost empty except for a group of four that left a few minutes later, and another couple. I was greeted and seated immediately. Soon after, a family of four came in, then another group.

A small but attractive bar frames a corner of the kitchen area. Frosted glass and decorative lighting makes it look somewhat like a private bar in the home of a high roller. About a dozen bar stools line the bar, with a flat-screen television above. It’s easy to see how this can become a regular hangout after work or for the game.

The color scheme of the interior seems to represent the different facets of the eatery, with mustard yellow for the main dining area, and red for the sports bar side. On the sports bar side you’ll see about 5 more flat-screen televisions on the wall, plus a flat, wall-mounted jukebox, something I had never seen before. The main dining area is spacious with about two dozen tables with chairs. Large windows let in plenty of light. I like the track lighting they used. Blues played softly over the speaker. Lots of napkins in the dispenser on the table, plus a few more wall-mounted dispensers around the room. A good thing because you’re going to need them.

The tables in the main dining area are covered with black tablecloths, which, in turn, are covered with rose-colored heavy-duty construction-type paper. The paper is replaced for each new diner.

The décor, in my opinion, doesn’t give the impression that this is a barbecue place. It is very nice inside, but not what you’d expect from a barbecue joint. It’s more like upscale casual dining. And therein probably lies the source of my reasoning; referring to any place that primarily serves barbecue as a ‘barbecue joint’. Note to self: Let that be another lesson about applying labels to things.

Ok, time to eat. My choice for today’s meal was the Pit Combination Platter #2 ($19.99). With the #2, your plate will have a ¼ chicken, sliced beef brisket, and two St. Louis-style pork ribs. You get two sides with the combo. Pit baked beans and collard greens got the call today. A dinner roll comes with. Today’s beverage was iced tea ($2.49).

A word about the combos: Papa’s serves also rib tips, beef back ribs, pulled pork, and catfish. Nice selection, but you can’t make your own combo for dinner. During lunchtime you can choose your own, but you can only pick from 4 meats; chicken, brisket, St. Louis ribs, and pulled pork. It would be nice if Papa’s allowed patrons to select from all of their meat offerings to create their own combo.

It did not take long for my food to come to my table. I was impressed by the size of the plate and the portions on it. I was also impressed by the rope design on the handles of the flatware.

On the plate in its own separate small porcelain container were the beans. They tasted sweet and similar to what you find in the supermarket. Not sure if that’s what they used, but that’s what it tasted like.

The greens had a different flavor for me. It was almost as if Papa’s was going for a healthier option by not using the fat from the ham hock to cook them in, yet they still added ham hock. Peppers in the greens turned up the heat a bit. No pot liquor, though. It was a taste I’ve never experienced before and I’m not sure that it worked for me. I need to qualify that by saying, as I have in many of these posts, it takes a lot for me to be impressed by greens.

As I mention often in this blog, the test of good barbecue is how it tastes without sauce. However, all the meat was bathed in Papa’s special BBQ sauce (which explains why you’ll need all those napkins). That made it impossible to get a bite without sauce already on it. I must admit the sauce was good. It was sweet, a honey or molasses based concoction. By the way, Papa’s sells their sauce if you want to pick up a bottle or two.

In order of preference, here’s how the combo breaks down: White meat chicken was a little underdone. I could see some pink in the meat near the bone. There was not very much smoky flavor. The ribs were meaty and tender, but like the chicken they did not have enough smoky flavor of its own. Moving to the brisket, we start to score a few points. Along the edge of the thinly sliced meat there’s that nice pink coloring. Biting into it revealed that it was tender and I could taste a bit of smokiness. Due to the amount of sauce on the meat, I could not tell if there was any marinade or rub used before the meat made the journey to the smoker.

(Curiously, when I walked out following the meal, I saw the large, wood-fired, trailerable smoker out back, smoking away. Looking like a narrow-gage locomotive, it sent a comforting aroma wafting out over the parking lot.)

As I was finishing my meal, the owner stopped by to see how I was doing and thanked me for coming by. She stopped by all of the other tables as well.

Papa’s does serve dessert, but I did not have any this time.

As for being the “Mecca of barbecue”, Papa’s Place over-hypes itself with that title. You can’t blame them for promoting themselves, though. While they are good and I will probably come back again, it isn’t pilgrimage-worthy. Being a newly-opened restaurant they are still ironing out a few things. I just wish the meat had spent more time getting acquainted with the smoker instead of having to rely on the sauce for the taste.

Papa’s Place – The Mecca of Barbecue – 3.5 forks. Recommended. They also cater.

Update: January 15, 2014: Papa’s Place has closed down. Their Facebook page confirms it.