Boston: kibbi (Norwood center)

Hi! I want to share with you my favourite place in the Boston area to get my Lebanese food. Once again, the place is not located in the center of the city, but in a suburb called Norwood. This is the same town where my maternal grandmother lived, so it is a very special place full of happy memories from my childhood.

Norwood center

This is a small town square, but it has everything you need at your reach in order to live a well-rounded life. The main square has a little green park (more like a grass patch) with a gazebo in the middle where people can lounge, take walks, bring their dogs, and listen to live music which is played on certain summer nights or on special occasions.

In the winter time, the trees in the square are lit up with Christmas lights, which adds a very cozy feel to the town. Every hour you will hear the church bells ringing from one of the two large stone churchs in the square (seen in the picture below).

Surrounding this square you will find a plethora of culture. The recently renovated Fiddlehead theater of Norwood center puts on great shows, many of which I have seen with my grandmother.

Beauty and the Beast and My Fair Lady are just two examples of very well done theater productions that were shown here and that I've seen. In addition to the theatrical productions that are put on here, the Fiddlehead theater also features live shows and bands. Down the street is the US Taekwondo, which is where I go for my Taekwondo classes.

This place, owned and run by a lovely Korean couple, is always full of positive energy and I love coming here. My goal is to achieve my black belt ranking from here.

Now, here's what you're all waiting for. Directly facing the town's gazebo square is the Cedar's Market, and just abutting it is To Beirut.

The Cedar Market is the go-to Lebanese grocery store where you can get all your authentic Middle Eastern and Mediterranean food.

The reason that it is called "Cedar" Market is because Lebanon is famous for it's Cedar trees, which have been around for thousands of years. This is why the flag of Lebanon shows the green cedar tree with a white background and the red top and bottom borders.

And please, do not confuse this cedar tree on the flag with a Christmas tree, as many of my friends have done. The Bible itself contains passages referring to the "Cedars of Lebanon", so obviously, the Lebanese do not mess around with this and they are very proud of their Cedar trees, taking every chance possible to show it off.

The Cedar Market

This is a small-scale store, but it seems to have everything you'll need.

All the ready-made food that they sell there is homemade on site, and it has always been the best quality. Between my grandmother's cooking and the food at the Cedar Market, my standards for Lebanese food has been set so high. My expectations are so high -especially for kibbi, fatayer, warak arish, and tabbouli- that if it doesn't come from here or from my grandmother's kitchen, I usually won't love it.

If you don't know what the foods I listed above are, I'll give you a quick summary.

• Kibbi is a type of football-shaped Lebanese meatball, but the meat layer on the outside is mixed with bulgar (cracked wheat) and it is stuffed with bulgar, meat, onions, pine nuts, and spices.
• Fatayer is a triangular piece of bread stuffed with spinach and onions.
• Warak arish are grape leaves stuffed with rice and sometimes meat. I have the recipe here if you are interested to learn more!
• Tabouli is the Lebanese salad made with parsley, tomatoes, onions, and bulgar. I also have the recipe here which you can take a peek at!

These above items listed are only a small percentage of the food and condiments that the Cedar Market has, but they're some of my favourite items. The desserts and baklava are also amazing, and they're homemade as well.

Many of the other selections of desserts are imported, and I prefer them to most American sweets and candies. Since I was a little girl, I would always ask my mother to buy me the sesame seed candy bar, which was hard to bite but always satisfyingly crunchy and sweet. My other top sweet that I can only find here is called Tarboush.

Source

Now the story behind the Tarboush sweet is controversial and racist, but it represents an interesting historical background. Most Lebanese people will actually remember that this sweet used to be called "Ras el Abed" which literally means "Head of the slave" because this sweet is shaped like a black cone. The outer chocolate part is a hollow shell which contains inside whipped egg whites and it is supported by a sweet wafer base.

Obviously the original name was created during a racist time in history, like around the early 1900s, but as today racism is not acceptable, the company Ghandour had to change it to a neutral name, Tarboush. The word tarboush refers to the red cylinder hat which is traditionally worn by Middle-Eastern men. This new name works well for the sweet, as it is a cone shape and represents the hat well.

I know it must sound shocking that the former name of the sweet was called Ras el Abed, and many Lebanese found this name quite amusing, but unfortunately this attitude was a normal thing around the world in the 1900s. Even today, the world (including America, the "Land of the Free") struggles with racism, but I am glad that at least small changes are being made, including changing the name of this Lebanese sweet from Ras el Abed to Tarboush.

I am not going to lie and say that the Cedar Market is inexpensive, because the items here are not cheap. Basically this place has fresh restaurant quality food, so the price is reasonable considering how good it is, even if it is only a grocery store. In fact, the store does offer to cater large amounts of food for you which you can pick up there. The other goods here that are on the shelves are imported, so it's normal that the prices would be a little bit higher.

My top favourite item that I used to order here to-go is the shawarma sandwich. It's better than a kebab because it's not only skewered meat with lettuce, tomato and sauce. The shawarma sandwiches are legitimate, containing the shredded beef or chicken, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickled beets (my favourite), pickles, and topped with toum sauce, which is basically a garlic sauce. If you don't like garlic, you can ask for a substitute or to remove it altogether, but I am a fan of it so I always ordered it this way. These were the best sandwiches.

Relatively recently, the market has expanded and took the space of the neighboring store which was previously a Chinese restaurant.

To Beirut

This second Lebanese location is called To Beirut. As you can guess by the name, you may have the sensation that you are going to Beirut (the capital of Lebanon, for people who need some geography help) once they order and begin eating at this casual sit-down restaurant.

The shawarma sandwich which I just described from the next-door Cedar Market has moved to this location, which makes more sense since you can now actually sit down to eat it and enjoy it. To Beirut offers many other typical Lebanese dishes, which should all be tried as a mezze (kind of like a small selection of many different foods so that you can try a little bit of everything).

I have come to eat at To Beirut about two times, the first time was when I went there on a date with a friend, and the second time was with my mother. I am looking forward to returning again, especially after describing all this food, I am now hungry and craving the best Lebanese food!

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