I was thrilled to hear that DarSalam, which started as a food cart and then opened a brick and mortar restaurant in Northeast Portland on Alberta was going to open a second location right in downtown at 320 SW Alder, called DarSalam Lazurdi. I have high hopes that this will open up exploration of their Middle Eastern cuisine with a few special Iraqi dishes from their hometown of Baghdad to a larger audience.

Their lunch buffet that they offer Mon-Fri 11:30-3:30 is a huge bargain, with the to go buffet discounted $2 from the regular dine in price of about $12. They also serve happy hour (4-6 PM Mon-Fri, 2-5 PM on Sat) and dinner (6-9 PM Mon-Sat) and full bar available alongside their vegan, gluten free, and halal options or conscientious of the lactose intolerant.

When I tried their lunch buffet, there was a big bounty of options to choose from and my plate was super heavy even though I took only one spoonful of everything they had on the line that day. In fact, I had to leave out the soup in my first pass, and one dish (pickled mango salad) ended up in that soup bowl instead because I was just out of room despite my careful trying to just taste everything.

That included during my visit

• Pickled Mango Salad: Pickled mango mixed with tomato and chickpeas
• Ful Mudammas: Fava beans lightly mashed, lemon, olive oil and garlic
• Tahziki Salad: yogurt blended with fresh garlic, lemon juice and cucumber
  
• Beet Salad: Beets cooked until tender, cooled and mixed with yogurt and lemon
• Hummus: Chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice and garlic, garnished with paprika and olive oil.
• House Salad of  salad greens with onion, cucumber, carrots, olives, and seasonal herbs, drizzled with house dressing
  
• Curried Roasted Chicken
• Pan fried Tilapia with Mixed Vegetables
• Spinach and White Bean Stew
• Lamb Marga “Khema”: a slow cooked chickpea and shredded lamb strew
• Eggplant Marga: a slow cooked strew with eggplant, diced potato, onion, tomato, red bell pepper and pomegranate
• Chickpea Marga: a slow cooked strew with chickpea, tomato, sauteed onion and hint of cardamom
• Basmati Rice
• Freshly baked hot flatbread

The downtown space is gorgeous with lots of bold royal blue and gold colors. The new larger location has room and plans for live music and belly dancing on weekend evenings.

The service is kind and respectful with a bit of homeyness and humility. You can order from the menu during lunch so you aren’t restricted to the buffet, but it will be slower than the obvious serve yourself of the buffet line. You go to the register at the end to pay your bill.

Even after a second trip to the buffet, my wonderful group of women lunching with me stepped up to ordering all the desserts to share between us. And it was the perfect ending.

As much as you enjoy the food at the buffet, don’t miss leaving a smidge of room for the desserts. Their menu could include some desserts you may not have ever heard of before beyond your usual classic:

• Baklava, a honey and roasted pistachios rolled up in layers of crisp phyllo dough. The use of pistachios here instead of walnut is what makes it Middle Eastern instead of Mediterranean
  
• DarSalam Lazurdi Date Roll, tender dates wrapped around walnuts and rolled in coconut flakes then drizzled with date honey
  
• Sweet Yogurt Gaemar, a dessert of a thick sweet yogurt topped with lots of date honey
  
• Dark & Light with Dibbis Date Honey and Tahini Sesame Paste on a plate served with warm flatbread for dipping
  

I was too stuffed from that first lunch to try the Iraqi shredded meat plate, so forced myself (ha ha ha… it was the bare-bones rationalization I needed to justify a return trip) to come back to try those dishes for you. This is Iraqi style tender shredded meat – your choice of chicken or lamb. I went with chicken.

It can be served as an appetizer with your choice of hummus, baba ghanoush or tahziki and flatbread. Or, have it on salad on a bed of greens, or as a main dish atop a bed of basmati rice with a dollop of chickpea marga and with a side of soup or salad. During happy hour, you can have it as an Iraqi Shawarma.

I like it as the rice plate because it means you get the chickpea marga too and a pretty substantial cup of the Adis, a lentil soup. And, it pretty much means you now have 2 meals from that one order – I had it for dinner two different nights with the leftovers as my second meal.

On my other visit as we awaited our food, we were given a complimentary pita with za’atar dip of the za’atar spices in olive oil.

We shared an appetizer of the Mixed Dolma with onion, zucchini, and grape leaves stuffed with rice, diced vegetables and spices infused with sun dried tomato and pomegranate. My favorite are the dolma stuffed in onion rather than the grape leaves.

The Falafel here instead of being round balls are more doughnut shaped and much bigger! Here they came part of a Vegan Mezza Plate (on the regular Mezza menu, but that was also part of the happy hour menu) that included the Hummus, Baba ghanoush (smoky roasted eggplant ground with tahini, garlic, lemon juice and garnished with zaatar and olive oil), pickled mango salad, and three falafel (made from ground chickpeas and spices cooked to order from scratch

If you order the Arab Coffee, know that it’s a pretty thick and dark coffee, with a hint of cardamom sweetness. They are served in authentic Iraqi sipping glasses and you can actually get refills of it! Do NOT drink to the grounds.

There is also a pretty interesting cocktail menu here that uses a lot of the spices and rose water in the beverages to give you the flavors of the Middle East. On the left you see a special which I think was being rotated out of the menu for December, a Rabbit’s Foot with VSOP Brandy, Luxardo, Cardamaro, Creme de Cassis, Green Chartreuse and Orange Bitters. On the right, I was tasting a preview of a new drink that might appear on the menu, the Philippe that takes advantage of the housemade mango juice they offer with rose water.

You can dine at this DarSalam Lazurdi location downtown, or on their website you can even get delivery of their menu items from Delivery Dudes. If you visit this coming Sunday December 13th from 1 – 5 PM, DarSalam is hosting a Holiday Stop & Shop with small local businesses with appetizers on them as you do a little holiday shopping, and 15% of their proceeds will go to the work of Mercy Corps with Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

Do any of these food items tempt you, which one?