Middle Eastern food in Northridge has many fans at this restaurant
Like the salty fermented yeast spread called Vegemite, zaatar is a love-it-or-hate-it food.
Vegemite is the very essence of Australian cuisine. Walk into a kitchen in Sydney, and you’ll see not just the small jars of Vegemite that tourists often take home as a souvenir, telling the kids “They eat this stuff like we do peanut butter. And yes, you can spit it out if you want; it’s kinda gross!”
Over there, people buy Vegemite by the bucketful. They consume it by the bucketful. It’s a hard taste to acquire. Vegemite is something you’ve got to have grown up with.
If you’ve grown up sprinkling zaatar on everything, you expect the salty, herby, crunchy essence of the stuff. If you come to it later in life, there’s no middle ground — at least not at Zaatar N’ More. It’s hard to believe there’s another restaurant in the world that makes more dishes using zaatar as this cheery café. And they do it within the bounds of culinary rationalism. There’s no zaatar-flavored ice cream, for instance. And no sushi topped with zaatar. But dang — there’s zaatar pizza that just kills!
I guess a few words of explanation are called for. Zaatar is an ancient herb and spice mix, with a non-doctrinaire list of ingredients built around toasted sesame seeds, dried sumac, salt, oregano, basil and thyme.
Since it’s often made in-house, it leaves a lot of room for the chef to riff, adding dried peppers, garlic, onion — whatever is preferred. And, in the case of the zaatar at Zaatar N’ More, the dominant quality is … lots of herbs. The mix is dark enough to obscure whatever is underneath. At first bite, it may seem to overwhelm. But then, it becomes irresistible.
This is a joyous food served in a happy setting, by a staff that’s having fun feeding people. You place your order at the front counter, after spending a lot of time studying the overhead menu. (A lot of the customers are regulars. They know what they want. Though I didn’t hear anyone say it, I suspect a lot just tell the counter, “I’ll have the usual.”)
The menu begins with mannaish, a classic breakfast dish. The basic is a flatbread topped with zaatar and olive oil — simple and delicious.
More Merrill: Italian food in Mission Hills is a classic delight at this restaurant
But at Zaatar N’ More, there’s a lot … more. Seventeen variations, in fact. It comes topped, variously, with mozzarella, with a white brined cheese called akawi, with a trio of cheeses, stuffed with cheese, with cheese and the spicy sausage called soujouk, with spinach, with an egg and soujouk, with the sliced dried beef called basturma, with labneh and lahmajoun — and even more. This is a Middle Eastern pizza on steroids.
The mannaish is followed by eight wraps, and six mini breads — silver dollar pancake sized flatbreads, with lots of toppings, as there is with everything. The five pizzas are perfect creations in terms of the sheer crunchiness of the crust — so crisp that when I reheated a few slices the next day, the crackle was undiminished. (I always take dishes home; you learn so much more in the light of day in your kitchen when you look objectively, without the distractions of the restaurant.)
Zaatar N’ More is an homage to the joys of things on bread. You can think of it as a Middle Eastern pizzeria. Between the 17 mannaish, the eight wraps, the six mini-breads, the five pizzas, and the three specialties of the house called khachapuri — a Georgian cheese bread stuffed variously with cheese and eggs; soujouk, cheese and eggs; and basturma, cheese and eggs — that’s a lot of pizza adjacent dishes.
Which makes it even more curious to find a section of the menu with potato skins, chicken tenders and chicken wings — strangers from a strange land of finger food.
If there is one other dish I can’t do without, it’s the yogurt cucumber salad. The Persian cucumbers are roughly cut, the yogurt is sour and so not Dannon. The flavoring is dry mint. Oh … and the rice pudding is pretty great, too.
Zaatar N’ More is a doorway into a culinary world filled with spice and crunch. Which may be the “More” of the name. Chicken tenders just don’t make the cut.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com.
Zaatar N’ MoreSource: Middle Eastern food in Northridge has many fans at this restaurant
Post circulating in Ethiopia makes misleading claims about Middle East frictions
Tensions in the Middle East region have increased after Iran launched unprecedented attacks on Israel, prompting similar strikes from Israel days later. Fearing worse to come, world leaders have urged restraint. A post published on Facebook claims the United Nations called Iran’s missile barrage “self-defence”, adding the US purportedly threatened to cease its support of Israel in the event of a military response. However, these claims are misleading: the UN told AFP Fact Check it has not endorsed the military tactics of either Iran or Israel and that Secretary-General António Guterres was citing a letter from Iran when he used the phrase “self defence”. The US State Department also rejected the claim.
The Facebook post was described as a “breaking news” item on April 15, 2024 in Afaan Oromoo – one of the major languages in Ethiopia.
Shared more than 200 times, the post includes a list of six statements related to Iran’s missile and drone attack on Israel two days earlier, and the aftermath.
Screenshot of the misleading post, taken on April 18, 2024
“America has warned that any retaliatory action by Israel is unacceptable,” reads one of the claims. “If Israel retaliates, America will stop supporting it.”
Another claim is that the UN views Iran’s actions as justifiable.
“The United Nations also said Iran’s attack is a matter of self-defence”, reads the post.
The post contains photos of US President Joe Biden, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the US national security communications advisor John Kirby.
Increasing tensionsIran launched more than 300 cruise missiles, drones and ballistic missiles at Israel on April 13, 2024 in retaliation for a deadly air strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria on April 1, 2024 (archived here). Nearly all the projectiles were intercepted.
Israel responded with a missile attack against Iran on April 19, 2024, raising fears of an all-out war in the Middle East (archived here).
The US, Israel’s most important ally, along with the UK, announced extensive sanctions against Iran’s military drone programme (archived here). Iran also warned it would respond with tougher measures “at the slightest act against Iran’s interests”.
Map locating Iran, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Israel (JONATHAN WALTER, ANIBAL MAIZ CACERES, OLIVIA BUGAULT / AFP)
On April 22, 2024, the EU announced that the bloc agreed in principle to expand its existing sanctions against Iran’s drone programme. Iran described the decision as “regrettable” (archived here).
However, AFP Fact Check found that the Ethiopian post mixes a combination of facts and misleading claims related to events in the Middle East.
UN and USContacted by AFP Fact Check, the UN denied portraying Iran’s attack as an act of self-defence.
“The secretary-general has condemned and called out all acts of retaliation,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman to Guterres.
“The references in his security council speech on Sunday, he was quoting the letters sent to him by both Israel and Iran, stating their position. He was not endorsing either position.”
A review of Guterres’s statement made on April 14, 2024 confirmed that the reference to “self defence” was made while he was quoting a letter from Iranian ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani who was justifying his country’s aggression toward Israel (archived here).
“[The Iranian ambassador] stated that the action was taken – and I quote – ‘in the exercise of Iran’s inherent right to self-defence as outlined in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, and in response to the Israeli recurring military aggressions, particularly its armed attack on 1 April 2024 against Iranian diplomatic premises,” read Guterres.
While states have the “inherent rights of self-defence” in response to an armed attack under the UN Charter VII article 51 (archived here), they are obliged to immediately report to the UN about the measures taken.
Similarly, the US State Department rejected the claim that it warned Israel it would withdraw its support in the event of retaliation.
“The United States made no such comment,” a State Department official told AFP Fact Check, echoing what the US embassy in Addis Ababa said.
Biden promised Israel “ironclad support” in a speech on April 10, 2024, a few days before Iran’s missile attack (archived here). The US helped in taking down almost all the projectiles launched by Iran (archived here).
Moreover, AFP reported that the US approved $13 billion in new military assistance to Israel a day after it retaliated against Iran (archived here).
AFP Fact Check has debunked similar misleading claims that used unrelated videos and photos to falsely link them to Iran’s attack on Israel, including here, here and here.
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Source: Post circulating in Ethiopia makes misleading claims about Middle East frictions