La Marsa |
|
| 706 S. Broadway | |
| Baltimore, MD 21231 | |
| 410-558-3630 | |
|
Hours:
Monday-Saturday: 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Sunday: Closed | |
| What's nearby: | |
Bar offers samples of Tunisia's tastes, sounds
By Karen Nitkin
Special to the Sun
Originally published on July 20, 2006
La Marsa, a chic little bar in Fells Point, has added a small tapas-style menu to its offerings. Owner
Raouf Yousfi, who hails from Tunisia, has hired chef Najiba Debbiehi to turn out Mediterranean-inspired nibbles
like tagine, kebobs and falafel.
Portions are small, and the options are
limited. If you arrive hungry, odds are you
will leave if not hungry then certainly less
than full. Service is lackadaisical.
But the enterprise has a certain easy charm, and some of the dishes are quite
tasty. Let's face it: Any bar that serves food more interesting than Buffalo wings and
french fries is ahead of the game.
Yousfi opened La Marsa as a bar early this year and started serving food in June. He waited so long because he wanted to find a chef who could cook Tunisian food, he said. He finally found one in Debbiehi, who used to cook for the Tunisian ambassador to the United States, he said.
Like many restaurants and shops in Fells Point, La Marsa is longer than it is wide.
Customers pass by a bar area before proceeding to the dining section, minimally
furnished with tiny tables, a wall of banquettes and cubes that function as seats.
Since the cubes and banquettes are the same low height as the tables, slouching
seems to be encouraged.
One of the most successful dishes at La Marsa was an appetizer of three grape leaves ($4). The fat cylinders were slightly oily on the outside and stuffed with a tender cold rice that was intensely flavored with garlic, lemon, onion and cilantro.
The baba ganoush ($4), a smooth eggplant puree served with a well of olive oil in the middle, was not as well executed.
The rich, earthy melody of the vegetable was overpowered by a hard note of raw garlic, and slices of sweet yeasty bread
were the wrong accompaniment. Pita triangles would have complemented the flavors of the dip, not fought it.
We also wanted to try the falafel ($4.50), but it wasn't available that night. Neither were any dishes made with shrimp, which knocked out a good percentage of the menu and came as a surprise at about 7 on a Saturday night. If everything on the
menu is not available then, when is it available?
Though we couldn't have the shrimp kebob, the chicken version ($6.95) turned out to be a fine second choice. Large pieces of
marinated and very juicy white meat arrived steaming hot, surrounding a large mound of saffron-infused rice.
Tunisia, an African nation that borders the Mediterranean Sea, is probably best known in culinary circles for tagine, usually a stew of meats, fruits and vegetables made in a conical clay pot.
But the tagine offered at La Marsa ($5.95) is very different: small diamond-shaped fritattas with microscopic morsels of lamb dotted throughout. These are traditional, too, but probably not what most customers expect.
I would have liked some guidance from our waitress, but she didn't seem to know much about the food she was serving.
Throughout our meal, she was also working the bar, and she wasn't always available when we needed her. She had to ask
the kitchen to find out the fish of the day (it was salmon), and she couldn't name the dessert being offered that night.
It turned out to be a sort of a baklava -- a warm pastry filled with pistachios and swimming in sweet honey -- and it was delicious.
Yousfi said his restaurant is named for a port city in Tunisia, and the words mean harbor or port. He owned a similar restaurant when he lived in Tunisia, he said.
He said he's attracting a late-night crowd that comes for the unusual food and also to smoke hookahs filled with flavored tobacco.
La Marsa isn't really a restaurant, and it doesn't claim to be one. It's a bar serving unusual snacks. With the doors open on a warm summer night and Tunisian music playing softly, it has the ability to transport its customers.
Ratings:
Food: ** 1/2
Service: ** 1/2
Atmosphere: ** 1/2
Rating system: Outstanding: ****; Good ***; Fair or uneven **; Poor *
By Karen Nitkin
Special to the Sun
Originally published on July 20, 2006
La Marsa, a chic little bar in Fells Point, has added a small tapas-style menu to its offerings. Owner
Raouf Yousfi, who hails from Tunisia, has hired chef Najiba Debbiehi to turn out Mediterranean-inspired nibbles
like tagine, kebobs and falafel.
Portions are small, and the options are
limited. If you arrive hungry, odds are you
will leave if not hungry then certainly less
than full. Service is lackadaisical.
But the enterprise has a certain easy charm, and some of the dishes are quite
tasty. Let's face it: Any bar that serves food more interesting than Buffalo wings and
french fries is ahead of the game.
Yousfi opened La Marsa as a bar early this year and started serving food in June. He waited so long because he wanted to find a chef who could cook Tunisian food, he said. He finally found one in Debbiehi, who used to cook for the Tunisian ambassador to the United States, he said.
Like many restaurants and shops in Fells Point, La Marsa is longer than it is wide.
Customers pass by a bar area before proceeding to the dining section, minimally
furnished with tiny tables, a wall of banquettes and cubes that function as seats.
Since the cubes and banquettes are the same low height as the tables, slouching
seems to be encouraged.
One of the most successful dishes at La Marsa was an appetizer of three grape leaves ($4). The fat cylinders were slightly oily on the outside and stuffed with a tender cold rice that was intensely flavored with garlic, lemon, onion and cilantro.
The baba ganoush ($4), a smooth eggplant puree served with a well of olive oil in the middle, was not as well executed.
The rich, earthy melody of the vegetable was overpowered by a hard note of raw garlic, and slices of sweet yeasty bread
were the wrong accompaniment. Pita triangles would have complemented the flavors of the dip, not fought it.
We also wanted to try the falafel ($4.50), but it wasn't available that night. Neither were any dishes made with shrimp, which knocked out a good percentage of the menu and came as a surprise at about 7 on a Saturday night. If everything on the
menu is not available then, when is it available?
Though we couldn't have the shrimp kebob, the chicken version ($6.95) turned out to be a fine second choice. Large pieces of
marinated and very juicy white meat arrived steaming hot, surrounding a large mound of saffron-infused rice.
Tunisia, an African nation that borders the Mediterranean Sea, is probably best known in culinary circles for tagine, usually a stew of meats, fruits and vegetables made in a conical clay pot.
But the tagine offered at La Marsa ($5.95) is very different: small diamond-shaped fritattas with microscopic morsels of lamb dotted throughout. These are traditional, too, but probably not what most customers expect.
I would have liked some guidance from our waitress, but she didn't seem to know much about the food she was serving.
Throughout our meal, she was also working the bar, and she wasn't always available when we needed her. She had to ask
the kitchen to find out the fish of the day (it was salmon), and she couldn't name the dessert being offered that night.
It turned out to be a sort of a baklava -- a warm pastry filled with pistachios and swimming in sweet honey -- and it was delicious.
Yousfi said his restaurant is named for a port city in Tunisia, and the words mean harbor or port. He owned a similar restaurant when he lived in Tunisia, he said.
He said he's attracting a late-night crowd that comes for the unusual food and also to smoke hookahs filled with flavored tobacco.
La Marsa isn't really a restaurant, and it doesn't claim to be one. It's a bar serving unusual snacks. With the doors open on a warm summer night and Tunisian music playing softly, it has the ability to transport its customers.
Ratings:
Food: ** 1/2
Service: ** 1/2
Atmosphere: ** 1/2
Rating system: Outstanding: ****; Good ***; Fair or uneven **; Poor *
