Have a recommendation? We'd LOVE to hear it!
Salutations Readers!

Kalamazoo has good food.
Great food, in fact. We have made it our mission to check out all the local eateries one at a time - and more for our own poor memories than any other reason, we'll be chronicling our adventures in food here. And some places float our boats way more than others, which is why we have developed the very scientific
five golden forks rating scale. Ok. It is not scientific at all. It is actually quite unscientific. But, it is something. And now, you can search all of our reviews by the forks rating. YAY!


But, wait! There's more!
Kalamazoo Foodies no longer just eat at restaurants then review them. There are recipes posted, some easy, some less easy, all delicious. There are, or will be, book reviews, the new
Foodie Movie Review-y which will focus on movies about food or ones that have a lot of beautiful food in them. There are other food musings, and hopefully soon contests and so much more. But, Foodie Friends, it is all about food. Because we love it!
And, we want to hear from you!

We want to hear your comments on our recipes and reviews. We want to know where you love to eat. And, we are looking for GUEST bloggers to broaden our horizons a bit. And, if you haven't found us on Facebook, you should do that too. Like our page for other fun Foodies stuff like photos, polls, and more.


SO KALAMAZOO PATRONS - where do YOU love to eat? Because we'd love to check it out and share our thoughts here. Give us a comment below, and quickly! Our tummies are grumbling in anticipation.

A Note from the Foodies about our typical fair:
So, you may notice as you read our blog that we often order the same thing wherever we go. OK, maybe not quite, but we do often order similar things. Kristin has her caprese salads and mushroom dishes. Kate has her baked goat cheese and things with tofu. Well, readers, we wanted to let you know that this is absolutely intentional. A) We love those things, so why not order what you love? And, B) It is a lot easier to compare apples to apples than it is to compare apples to comquats. So, we like to order similar things to have a good sense of how to compare them. Just wanted to let you in on that little secret. Bon appetit!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Zooroona


Kate: Shawermah Chicken Wrap, Lentil Soup, and Muttabbel
It is about time for a new post. Right? That is what you are thinking. Well, we are having money troubles, and the start of school is always rough, blah, blah, blah. You've heard it all before. So, yes, finally a new post for a NEW restaurant. YAY!
Zooroona opened on October 1st and we have been itching to check it out since October 1st of last year (slight exaggeration). Owned by the brothers who own our favorite wine shop, Tiffany's, we were excited to have some more international options in our area. So, we bit the bullet and went to check out the new digs for lunch.First, a note. As Paul said, the food was 5 golden forks, but the service knocked it down just a bit. I am confident that Zooroona's next post might warrant a 5 forks rating. The problem was, we were on lunch, a usually speedier time for dining, right? You only have an hour, need to get seated, order, and served quickly. Well, getting seated wasn't a problem. Right in. Perfect. But, then there was some miscommunication among the wait staff, and we sat there for about 15 minutes before anyone even took our drink order. Kind of a big problem. But, once they realized that we weren't being helped, we were served very quickly, and even got a delicious complimentary plate of pita chips (yum!) with some delicious herbed dipping sauce that made our tummies happy!So, the food... YUM! I was tempted to order the hummus appetizer, as I love hummus, but Paul suggested trying something else. So, we went with the muttabbel, which is described in the menu as charbroiled eggplant pureed with tahini, fresh garlic, and lemon juice. The more sophisticated sister of baba ghannouj. Served with fresh pita, this was a great way to start the meal. Rich and creamy, and the charbroiled eggplant adds such nice flavor and depth to this dish.
To our surprise, when your order a wrap, you also get a cup of soup of your choice. Knowing there would be a good bit of meat on the wrap, I opted for the non-meat soup, the Lentil (the other choice was chicken lemon rice). This soup was a perfect consistency, spiced wonderfully, and a great way to warm my stomach for my wrap. Paul and Kristin both went with the chicken lemon rice, and were not disappointed, but I think I may have won on this one!My wrap was served with their signature garlic sauce (nice!) instead of the tahini yogurt sauce. I was so glad. The garlic sauce was a perfect compliment to the well seasoned and tender chicken in the wrap. This wrap was the perfect size, especially for lunch, and was just delicious. I am not even sure how else to describe (bad, I know).
The best part was the value. For just over $15, Paul and I both had a wrap and a cup of soup, and we covered the muttabbel. This is certainly an afforded and satisfying choice for lunch. We hope to get there soon for dinner and try some of their other dishes, but it might be a little while until we can do that. For now, we will try to make frequent lunch stops. Enjoy the delicious food. Hope we have a better experience, service-wise, the next time, and tell our friends to give it a try!
Paul did say that he thought he could have eaten two of his wrap. He ordered the Baghdad Kafta Kabob wrap. Just thought I would mention that for those that might have a bit more of an appetite.

four golden forks out of five.

Kristin: Shawermah Beef/Lamb Wrap, Lemon Chicken Soup, and Muttabbel
Oh golly, HI Foodie readers! For those who worried, I am in fact alive, I just super suck at cooking, so I've been sitting back and drooling over all the posts Kate made about her fantastic meals whilst chewing on a burnt grilled cheese. But then we went back out to eat. Aaaaaaand I'm back in the game!

So. To Kate's note about the golden forks. I actually don't give them any penalties for the wait to order, because they were so quick to fix it, and to give us some free chips! I wouldn't have ordered chips when looking at all the other lovely things listed on the menu, but yo hey, they came with a sort of garlic dip that was KILLER (both killer in that it tasted awesome, and that I felt pretty bad for anyone who had meetings with me after that.)
The Muttabbel was at some point in our lunch conversation compared with baba ganoush (that is way hard to spell), and I had to agree. Though from here on out I would order the Muttabbel over the B.G. - the taste went just a little deeper with the Muttabbel. I dug it.
Next up we had the soups, which our table went back and forth on for preferences. Both Paul and I had the chicken lemon, and Kate (as you see above) went with the lentil (you had good reasoning on that choice Kate, wish I would have been thinking that way.). I tried a bit of Kate's, and at that moment I thought "Man, the lentil is better," but then I went back to my chx lemon, and it was better than the lentil. I guess the lesson here is that all the soups at Zooroona are pretty good.
Now for the main course. Went with a wrap because lunch is a time for wraps and such, and I was really happy with my choice of the Shawerma Beef and Lamb. If you dig Shawerma, my friends, try this wrap. Came with a little side of tahini sauce (also had to spell!) that complimented the tastes just right. I actually couldn't finish my wrap (and as I typed this I remember that I totally forgot my leftovers in the breakroom at work - dang nabit.)
Alright, so between Kate and I, we have established that Zooroona's food = superb. Here's what we haven't talked about yet: the atmosphere. Zooroona has a phenomenal look. Going to a restaurant in what some may call a strip mall, I was not expecting to walk into beautiful rich colors, gorgeous lanterns with brightly colored glass hanging from the ceiling, salvaged doors cleverly used as partitions, and my absolute favorite - the wooden tree (doesn't it seem silly that I typed wooden in front of tree? Like you wouldn't just assume the tree was made of wood? But Paul and I were debating during the meal, since the treatment of the whole sculpture made it look like it could be metal. I looked it up. Promise, it's wooden. Anyway, tangent.). My eyes got ADD wandering from focal point to focal point, and I was happy to be wooed by all of it. Bravo Zooroona, we'll be back! (But not in a totally creepy termintor kind of way.)

five golden forks out of five.

3 comments:

Leandra said...

I've been wanting to check out Zooroona -- it's good to hear that the food is tasty!

Anonymous said...

Great post! Love your descriptions of the food. I work at Zooroona and I hope you come by again soon. The service has been tightened up and the lentil soup has gotten better. =)

Kate L said...

Thanks for the comments! We will be back soon (I hope... money is a little tighter these day!).