la.foodblogging

I pick you up late at night after work
I said, ‘Lady… step inside my Hyundai
I’m gonna take you up to Glendale
…gonna take you for a real good meal.’
“Debra,” Midnite Vultures

I’ve been skimming reviews of Glendale’s Carousel for years. I have to say that the promise of live entertainment and Jillin dancers never really appealed to me. When we’re in the mood for Middle Eastern, we always head to nearby Marouch. It’s an old stand-by. But tonite it was my turn to make dinner.

I avoided organizing the meal until around 6:30p when the frantic digging through epicurious began. I found a few interesting dishes but then remembered hexod.us‘ Carousel review on Jonah’s new ning: LA Eats with Maps. It was the first time I saw Carousel in an appealing light. I had always thought Carousel would be a big, cheesey themed-restaurant experience, i.e., over-priced and filled with loud families and boisterous tables of birthday parties. But in Hex’s review, he recommends getting a bunch of small plates, which struck me as a perfectly casual, easy and affordable alternative to actually cooking something.

We parked our friend’s Prius right out front (470+ miles on one $24 tank of gas, people!). Inside our fellow diners were pretty much as expected; scattered tables of young families intermixed with large parties. But Carousel’s floorplan is spacious and the tables are thoughtfully layed out, so, there’s little unintentional elbow bumping.

We ordered an assortment of mezzas (appetizers) just as Hex advised: One cold plate (Mutabbal, a.k.a. Baba Gannuj); and four hot plates (Jhawaneh Msweh, Baid Ghanam, Kebbeh and Fatleh Oberjhin). The baba gannuj is very fresh and rich with a latent smokiness. The deep fried beefballs come hand-grenade sized and stuffed with pinenuts. They perk up nicely under a fat squirt of lemon. A loosely assembled terrine of eggplant, draped in a tart yogurt, resting on a bed of broken and buttery pita chips is a very pretty painted pony. The tiny and hot charred chicken legs coated in cool garlic cream easily won the gold ring.

The damage for our spin around the menagerie was somewhere around $48 w/ tip. The waitstaff is cracking, very attentive. Carousel stands on ceremony a bit more than Marouch but ordering Carousel’s small plates can spare you a towering meal and bill. Not a tear was shed when we found out there isn’t any live entertainment on Sunday.

Carousel
304 N. Brand Blvd.
Glendale, CA 91206
818-246-7775