The Best Middle Eastern Food in Cambridge
...is just around the bend in Watertown
A straight shot from Harvard Square on Bus Route 71, or a quick jaunt in the four- or two-wheeler from same, and you've left the occidental familiar in the dust. Within a 2 block radius on Mt Auburn street in the nexus of Little Armenia, you'll find a handful of grocers worthy of your special attention. But these are so much more than grocery stores: These are experiences straight from the exotic. Sure, Armenia might not be classified as Middle Eastern...buy then again, these shops, despite the overt respects to the homeland (Sevan, Massis, and Arax, an Armenian lake, city, and river, respectively), boast a bevy of products coincidentally common to cuisines from North Africa to the Caspian sea. Tea from Morocco, honey from Greece, olives from Turkey, cheese from Syria, dates from Israel: nationalities proclaimed by mass media as sworn enemies happily share shelf space in a veritable U.N. of victuals.
I swing the door open at Sevan and am immediately enveloped in the enticing aroma of spices. Open bins of fragrant turmeric, chile. fenugreek, zatar, dried lemon --- what is dried lemon?-- delight visually and olfactorily. There is almost too much to take in: rose jelly, fig preserves, olives in fragrant brines, dried nectarines, feta from Bulgaria, feta from Turkey, feta from France. I couldn't attempt to describe everything if I wanted to... but why would I want to? That would deprive you the joy of peeling off one delicious layer after another in a store where every nook and cranny waits with a tempting surprise. Pomegranate molasses. Date spread. Pistachio cotton candy. I ask the proprietor how he winnows down the overwhelming possibilities of product into the "mere" thousands of selections on offer. "Israel, Lebanon, Greece, Turkey, it's all the same," he says with a smile, bagging my salted cream cheese spread, a product of Denmark but labelled in Russian and Arabic, a spread which incidentally pairs beautifully with Greek butter biscuits.
Is world diplomacy that simple? Beyond the label and the semantics, are these shared culinary traditions a promising --- albeit metaphoric --- answer to "can't we all just get along?" Food for thought as I meander a mere three storefronts away to Arax, another stronghold of this insular Armenian Christian Orthodox community. Boisterous Arabic comedy blares from behind bins overflowing with produce of every color and origin; determined octogenarians clutching long lists in wavering script nudge wide-mouthed tourists aside with the gentle, but firm, "excuse me, Sweetheart." As flashy as Sevan is subtle, Arax' claim to fame --- besides the hookah pipes --- is the extensive line of homemade, succulent, ooey-gooey sweet Middle Eastern pastries. I wish I knew what exactly I ate --- but just as in that foreign market where you don't speak the language or perhaps can't even read it, here the signs are jumbled, or outright missing. This increases the tourist's fun, and provides handy impetus to sample one of everything: A semolina cake, perfumy sweet with rose water syrup, pleasantly damp in crunch. The baklava is so buttery, so moistly honeyed; flaky, crispy, perfectly sweet, but not a sweetness for sugar's sake. A rolled baklava is a denser, chewier version than its traditional cousin, with lingering spice in the aftertaste. The sugar threads of a pistachio confection intertwine with a thick paste of nuts and pools of fragrant honey.
Massis has a bakery, too: each Saturday morning in fact they feature hot, soft buns dusted with sesame seeds and layered with stringy cheese and sweet syrup. But I can't wait to dive into my collection of Massis jumbo golden raisins, each the size of a gilded pearl. I also nab a jar of orange blossom honey; sure you might find this elsewhere, but how often do you find it neighboring honeys from India and Greece and adjacent to not one, but two diverse brands of pistachio paste?
After you've patronized Sevan, Arax and Massis, Green Grocer feels positively gentrified (in a good way --- you can find some of your favorite products from the familiar Stop & Shop at half price), but poke around, there's a substantial Middle Eastern influence here, too. Witness the tahini bread, which is more like a pastry, spirals of sweet dough laced with cinnamony sesame filling.
Little Armenia is your destination when you seek fresh pita for a night of falafel or rose water to make any homemade baklava taste authentic. It is also your destination when shopping transcends chore into exploration. And as you take your wares westward into the setting sun of Cambridge. you'll find you've returned from far east after all.
Sevan Bakery
599 Mt. Auburn St.
Arax
585 Mt. Auburn St.
Massis Bakery
569 Mt. Auburn St.
Green Grocer
594 Mt. Auburn St.
