Quick and Delicious Dinner at Taboonette

I can’t believe I almost forgot about my visit to Taboonette until I found the pictures when scrolling through my photos from end of last year.  AD and I had both been meaning to try Taboonette, the Union Square take-out sibling of Taboon uptown, a brunch favorite of mine.  The menu is simple yet healthy, comprised of a smattering of starters and mains served as sandwiches with pita or laffa or over rice.  The interior, like the serving platters, is pretty bare bones but the good part is they didn’t skimp on the flavor here.

AD and I had similar cravings that night so we shared two platters – the seafood stew special and the salmon.  The seafood stew was a generous portion of calamari, mussels and shrimp stewed until tender in a spicy tomato stew.  The whole thing was topped with a crumble of salty feta over a bed of pilaf rice.  Even though the salmon was much more simplex of a dish, it did not let the seafood stew outshine it.  The filet had a perfect sear while remained perfectly tender and flaky.  The thick creamy tzatziki sauce was a great cooling component to the salmon.  What surprised me the most was how much I loved the rice pilaf, every little kernel was flavorful and could have stood on its own.

We supplemented our meal with a haloumi salad and roasted corn with spicy mayo and sesame.  Sadly, neither stood up to the entrees.

For dessert, Taboonette displayed a beautiful cardomom rosewater homemade cake.  AD and I debated back and forth but decided in the end to grab two of their homemade cookies instead to share.  Both the honey pistachio and the black olives were buttery rich and crumbly, more like short breads than cookies.  I loved the simple honey sweetness of the honey pistachio and adored the salty sweetness of the black olives, unable to decide which one was my favorite.  Good thing I just recently discovered that my apartment barely made the Taboonette delivery zone.  Now I will have another healthy and delicious delivery option in time for the bitter cold winter!

Taboonette | 30 East 13th Street, New York, NY 10003 | http://taboonette.com