ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 22, 1996 TAG: 9611220008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: dining out
TYPE: RESTAURANT REVIEW
SOURCE: DOLORES KOSTELNI SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
Slowly but surely, the downtown Roanoke restaurant scene is becoming a cornucopia of exciting foods and flavors. The trend toward ethnic variety is most evident with the latest of the new arrivals, Mount Olive Grill & Bar on Jefferson Street. The beauty of the place is that it meets the need for high quality, honest, distinctive food at reasonable prices. The emphasis is on straightforward, freshly prepared Mediterranean-style dishes that are absolutely delicious. The menu reflects current culinary trends toward wholesome eating and cooking.
Most of the cooking is done in the dining room behind a mahogany half-wall screen. The huge, handsome mahogany bar that dominates one end of the restaurant as well as the stunning mahogany panels adorning the walls caught my eye. It's no wonder this wood is exceptionally beautiful: Malik Hasan and his brother, Jose, bought 74 mahogany doors from the old Hotel Roanoke. The brothers custom-cut, trimmed and hand-rubbed the wood until it glowed with a rich patina before installing it in their restaurant.
Similar menus for both lunch and dinner make it easy to taste everything or enjoy favorites over again. Abundant portions are typical for every meal. At dinner, an assortment of roasted vegetables adds color, texture and vitamins to the entrees. The Hasan brothers do all the cooking, which is on-the-spot-to-order cooking, or as the French say, "a la minute."
The only complaints voiced involved slow lunch service, on occasion taking almost 20 minutes for the food to arrive, as well as too lengthy a lapse for processing the check. Time constraints at noon demand more efficient service. I've noticed at dinner, particularly when the place is almost empty, the too-attentive server hovering close to the table, or staring while we are eating, perhaps for lack of anything better to do.
Most of the offerings are already familiar to us, and include a tantalizing array of appetizer dips and spreads. Begin your meal with the attractively presented hummus ($2.99). Tangy and smooth with a light film of olive oil on top, this buttery spread combines chick peas, tahini (sesame) sauce, fresh garlic, parsley and lemon juice. For lunch, this pairs beautifully with the chicken rice soup and warm pita bread triangles ($1.99).
Baba Ghanouj, ($3.99) the zippy baked eggplant puree, packs a lemony edge. Spread on warm pita triangles, it adds interest as a partner to the house salad ($1.99), a toss of crisp, bite-size pieces of mixed lettuce, sliced cucumbers and tomato wedges, all adorned with the house oregano-laced vinaigrette.
Whimsically named sandwiches bundle plenty of fillings in the pita bread and usually come with a hill of potato chips. Steak in a Sack ($3.95) houses slices of easy to bite and chew beef tenderloin grilled with onions and peppers. This goes especially well with a mound of surprisingly greaseless, crisp, real-potato french fries ($1.25).
Jefferson Street Shuffle ($4.25) stuffs a freshly grilled chicken breast with bacon slices and Monterey Jack cheese moistened with a little ranch dressing into the warmed pita round. The delicious veggie patty named Falafel Freighter ($3.25), made from chick peas, fava beans and onions with seasonings of cumin, coriander and parsley, is soul-satisfying even for a nonvegetarian like me. Topped with lettuce, tomatoes and onions, and spread with a judicious amount of tahini, this deep-fried burger sports a moist, fragrant inside covered with a nicely crisped outside.
Dinner entrees are top-notch and arrive decked out with a sprinkling of sliced almonds. Large, sweet shrimp get the classic Mideast skewer treatment and seasonings. (Lunch: $7.95, Dinner: $12.95) Served on a bed of fragrant Basmati rice with fresh onion and bell pepper chunks, this quickly broiled shrimp kebab emerges moist and tender, and appears on the plate freed from skewers. These shrimp please every palate.
Seafood kebab ($14.95) captivates with its marvelous elements of shrimp, scallops and moist, flaky whitefish and its escort of grill-singed vegetables. Taste and appearance triumph in this dish.
Marvelous describes Shish Tawook (Lunch: $6.95, Dinner: $10.95), a well-seasoned, marinated boneless chicken breast, broiled to perfection with onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes. This delightful composition sits atop Basmati rice and comes with a separate salad course, as do the other dinners.
As a signal to the specialness of the dinner hour, white cloths are placed over all the tables and the lights are dimmed. It is time for a glass of wine, one of the uncomplicated Copperidge Gallo wines ($2.75/ glass, $9.95/bottle) to sip before ordering, and to continue drinking with these clean-tasting Mideast foods. This immaculately clean place is run by professionals who offer just about every amenity to make your visit pleasant.
Now that my review assignment is completed, I am eagerly planning many a return pilgrimage to Mount Olive Grill & Bar. It's my kind of restaurant.
Mount Olive Grill & Bar
303 S. Jefferson Street
344-5509
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
Beverages: Full bar
Price range: Lunch, $1.99-$7.95; dinner, $8.95-$14.95.
Credit cards accepted: All major
Reservations required? No
Nonsmoking section? Yes
Handicapped accessible? Yes
Dining Out's evaluation of a restaurant's accessibility to the handicapped is provided by the non-profit Blue Ridge Independent Living Center in Roanoke.
LENGTH: Long : 101 linesby CNB