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PROVINCETOWN GUIDE
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| DIRECTORY |
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Provincetown :: Tuesday, February 9th 2010
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Babe’s Offers a Complex Take
Mediterranean Food
By Rebecca M. Alvin of Provincetown Magazine
June 25th, 2009
Too often the range of dining options on Cape Cod seems limited to New England seafood, pub fare, pasta, and perhaps an Asian or Italian inspired dish here and there. In actuality, these limitations are self-imposed – what we think is available locally. But Peter Thrasher has a different vision for his restaurant, Babe’s Mediterranean Bistro, located at 69 Shore Road in North Truro.
| “I want people to just consider us a cozy, neighborhood bistro that just happens to serve bold and exciting flavors,” Thrasher emphasizes. |
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Before you cast Babe’s off as just another “Mediterranean” restaurant, let’s be clear. By Mediterranean, Thrasher does not mean Italian or Spanish or French cuisine. “The Mediterranean is a big place,” he says. “We focus on the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa.”
The dinner menu at Babe’s offers a unique selection of treats from this region, with nods to the culinary traditions of Greece, Turkey, Morocco, and Lebanon. And yet the atmosphere here is quite clearly Cape Cod. Thrasher says it’s important to him that Babe’s not be thought of as “an ethnic restaurant.” There are no attempts to replicate the feeling of dining out in Marrakech; no belly dancers or bouzouki music; no dark, Arabian decor. Instead, the small eatery reflects the local culture, with paintings of oyster and clam shells, an intimate summer cottage aesthetic, and window boxes with brightly colored flowers.
“I want people to just consider us a cozy, neighborhood bistro that just happens to serve bold and exciting flavors,” Thrasher emphasizes.
The eclectic menu offers a wide range of appetizers (called meze plates here), soups, salads, and entrées that feature aromatic spices without being spicy in the “hot” sense. One of the bistro’s specialties is a unique spread called Muhammara, served with pita bread slices as an appetizer. The blend of roasted red peppers, walnuts, cumin seed, pomegranate molasses, and Armenian spices is so delicious it’s addictive. The combination of exotic spice and sweetness is just the thing to eat with a glass of Turkish beer or one of the varied wines Thrasher has handpicked for his wine list.
Another offering on the meze list is the outrageously delicious Izmiri Kofte, which is a serving of two meatballs made with figs, pistachios, and sweet peppers, Aegean-style, complemented by a rich tomato sauce and garlic yogurt on top. The combination of pistachios with meat, figs with tomato sauce, and the sour cream-like yogurt is beyond comparison with anything I’ve tasted in recent memory. If you are a meat-eater, this is something you should definitely not pass up.
Thrasher, who spent several years living in the eastern Mediterranean region, thinks of his food as comfort food. “It actually is comfort food to millions of people,” he says. “Most Americans just don’t know about it yet.”
While the two menu items just mentioned are likely to be found on the menu whenever you go to Babe’s, Thrasher does change his menu every week based on what the best fresh fish available is, what his regulars are calling to request, and what Thrasher feels inspired to make. On the evening in June that I dined there, dinner entrées included the Turkish Beef Kebab, Lamb Souvlaki, Lemon Chicken Tagine, and Istanbul Pasta – farfalle pasta with a bolognese sauce made from lamb braised in Turkish red wine, and topped with garlic yogurt.
Vegetarian entrées included the Imam Bayildi, a slow-roasted eggplant stuffed with caramelized onions, tomatoes, fresh herbs, and Arabian baharat (a spice mixture) and served on basmati rice with wilted greens. In addition, another vegetarian dish, Moroccan Vegetable Tagine was on offer, as were two seafood dishes - a Tuna Kebab and Grilled Halibut fire-grilled and topped with orange saffron butter.
“For this region, starting in France and going east, the flavors deepen and get more complex,” Thrasher says. “There’s always a counterbalance in Arabic cooking. There’s fruit and nut, sweet and spicy,” he adds.
As unique as the dinner offerings are, the Babe’s experience cannot be complete without a taste of their version of baklava. Unlike the traditional Greek baklava, made with flakey phyllo dough and dense with overpowering sweetness, Thrasher’s version is actually a cake, featuring the ingredients of baklava in a slightly more subtle combination. It’s crunchy, nutty, and sweet, with a more subtle sponge cake base to balance it all.
Babe’s is the perfect place for a romantic dinner (served daily from 5:30 p.m. on), but this year, Thrasher is trying something different. He has added a Sunday Brunch menu. This new menu includes an assortment of international egg dishes, Mediterranean sandwiches like Doner Kebab (spiced lamb and beef with onions, tomato, and yogurt sauce in a lavash rollup) and Veggie Hummus. Get your eggs Turkish or Moroccan style with merguez sausage, or try one of the salads like the Lebanese Fattoush with chickpeas, toasted pita, cucumber, red onion, lemon, fresh herbs, and sumac.
Babe’s Mediterranean Bistro is located at 69 Shore Road (Rte. 6A) in North Truro. It is open nightly for dinner beginning at 5:30 p.m. and on Sundays for brunch, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. For more information visit www.babestruro.com. For reservations, call 508.487.9955.
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