On Neran's first visit back to Bay Area a year after relocating to Knoxville, Tennesee she announced to Nisima, "There are no (and I mean no) Middle Eastern restaurants in Knoxville; let's go to as many as we can while I'm here!" and that was the birth of "Neran & Nisima Noshing......"

Sun Valley Deli
We started our Middle Eastern Bay Area restaurant tour at Sun Valley Deli, a small, clean, moderately priced place in Pacifica.  The food rates four stars with home made falafal, soups, plus coffee drinks, and Dreyer's ice cream.  It is moderately noisy being right off the street. [Nisima’s note: Since we wrote this article, unfortunately, this charming deli has closed]

and offer to open our drinks as we had just had our nails done.  (That was definitely a plus!)

The food rates three stars.  We had the $35 price fixed dinner show which has no actual menu; courses are all served family style.  There were several dishes of appetizers; the best being the fried filo dough with cheese but we thought the hummus was a bit bitter.  The main entrée was a large platter of lamb, chicken and sausage kebob and roasted vegetables, delicious.  The dessert, a pink-colored  Middle Eastern cheese cake with coconut and pistachios on top, is definitely an acquired taste.  Nisima swears her dessert was trying to escape from the dish! Tarboosh rates one star on the noise level due to an entire large wall of glass windows to the outside which reverberate the sound inside.  When the music is on, it become almost impossible to speak or hear above it.  We suggest at the very least covering these windows with drapes or tapestries to alleviate the “reverb” effect.  It is not a large restaurant, and singer and band can be heard without amps at full blast.  We rate Tarboosh two and one-half stars for entertainment. 

It was a fun place with everyone getting up to dance for hours, despite crowded and noisy conditions.  Tarboosh rates three stars for service.  As in a European restaurant, one was not rushed through a course.  One was given time to eat each generous course leisurely before being given another.  Our wait staff, although very busy, was smiling, courteous, and attentive.  We were asked if our table could be moved about a foot to accommodate another table and were thanked profusely for our cooperation; whole process took less than a minute.

Rakkasah Food Court
Our next stop was the Rakkasah Festival Food Court.  It certainly rates low for décor, but it is not a "restaurant" in the true sense of the word, and Nisima and Neran liked being able to “ogle” the sparkly stuff at the vendors right next to the food court while eating! 

It rates one star for noise, but it’s in the middle of a large MED festival.  Because of that fact, we give it two stars for entertainment, as the festival music could be heard.  We rate it one star for service, which was annoyingly slow, we wonder why there had to be one slow line for beverages and another even s-l-o-w-e-r line for food.

Aziza
Another day, another dinner, and this time we chose Aziza in San Francisco.  The décor was not particularly inviting, way too dim to even see the food much less read the menus, even though there were lots of candles in pretty holders.  Neran did not like the fact that she could not see the "color" of her food, feeling this is part of the presentation.  However, it rates three stars for excellent food – all the appetizers and main dishes were delicious and presented elegantly; we recommend highly the house specialty, couscous with prawns.  The menu offers a selection of “tasting menus” or ala carte and was a tad more expensive but well worth it. 

We rated the noise as one star, as the high ceilings and no tapestries on walls allowed conversations to “float” over from adjoining tables so much that the Middle Eastern music from the bar area was only audible as a droning hum.

particularly to Neran, who was in town from Knoxville, Tennessee.  But, we give it three stars for excellent service from the wait staff.  Aziza has wonderful little red "stained glass" hearts left on the table when you pay your bill to alert the wait staff that there is food boxed up for you.  Nisima went crazy over the little hearts, and it was a struggle to get her to leave them after she found out they were not for sale…

We rate it three stars for noise level; the music was nicely muted during dinner.  The music was a bit too loud for the dancer’s performance.  As to entertainment, the dancer Stasha  performed to taped music.  She is a vivacious and experienced dancer with a warm and gracious stage presence and gets the audience up and happily dancing throughout both her shows.  Her cabaret style costuming is tastefully glamorous with just a hint of folkloric to make it distinctly her own.  Service earned three stars.  Our waiters were friendly and never missed pouring tea into small glasses from two feet above!  Neran was very impressed with this skill, which Nisima refused to allow her to practice back at the house the next morning!

We even ran into a couple of Middle Eastern people we knew from our Tarboosh experience the week before!   We had the price fixed menu for the dinner show for $35.  There is also a $30 price fix dinner show choice available; both are served family style with no menu.  For those who just want to dine without the show, there is a dining area separate from the nightclub room which offers standard menu ordering. The food was good and rates two stars.  Since this time, Nisima returned to Luxor to find a new program in the nightclub offering 3 price fixed choices on a printed menu. Each table chooses the $25, $35 or $45 level and the food is served family style. We appreciated not only the good food but having choices.

The club is moderately noisy with the band playing.  We were there on a night that was not very busy, and some patrons

asked if the music could be turned down a little, and the band was courteous and accommodating, and we give it two stars on the noise level.  We rate it three stars for entertainment.  Saturdays are the only night the restaurant offers Middle Eastern music and dancers.  For some reason, the dancer was not there, but the band and singer were terrific!

They took requests and obviously enjoyed performing.  All the patrons got up to dance, and we were asked to join in.  We were the only non-Middle Eastern people there and no one seemed to care.  (Note:Nisima kept Neran dancing until closing at 2:00 a.m.!)  Our service was excellent.  At the bar before dinner, the bartender struck up a conversation.  (We were two non-Middle Eastern women, wearing coin scarves).  The singer talked with us, not realizing that Nisima had danced professionally for ten years in various and sundry clubs and restaurants in the Bay Area “back in the day”. Service in the nightclub room was warmly courteous even with our requests to adjust the temperature as it was too chilly in the large nightclub room.

In general, we found the food to be very good, the Middle Eastern restaurateurs to be courteous, warm, and helpfully informative. 

We do wish that more of the restaurants would include a dance night, and are somewhat at a loss to explain the lack of belly dancers in some of these restaurants.  Overall, we enjoyed ourselves immensely and cannot wait to do another round of Middle Eastern restaurant dinners – we didn’t even cover East or North Bay!