Craving something new? These two Boise restaurants serve inviting Middle Eastern fare.

In terms of small cities, Boise has racked up an impressive number of good-quality ethnic restaurants that give people in the Treasure Valley a true smorgasbord of options when they’re looking for a bite.

Moving back to Boise last August after seven years away, I was truly impressed with how much the food scene has blossomed. I was also equally excited to see the diversity of cuisine being embraced and celebrated.

If I am really into a specific song at a particular moment in time, I will listen to it to death, over and over, until I can’t stand to hear it anymore. I have also been known to do that with food, and shortly after coming back to Idaho, my brain was stuck on getting a good Middle Eastern meal.

I was lucky enough to live in Israel for a short time working on a goat farm making cheese in 2019. While there I lived almost exclusively on tomato cucumber salad, hummus, falafel, pita and shawarma. After months of eating just that, I swore to never touch it again when I came back to the U.S. And the Panda Express I had when I landed stateside was one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences I’ve ever had eating.

About two weeks later, though, I was soaking my nostalgia in hummus and dipping it with pita bread.

I went to two different restaurants in Boise with friends to try out their rather similar menus to compare and contrast — The Goodness Land and Tarbush. Both of them are located in small strip malls just down the road from each other on Overland Road, and offer a similar casual dining experience at a price point of $8-$14 per entree. Both had very similar service that was reminiscent of the service I came to expect in Israel. It was pretty slow and impersonal, and very hands off. They provide very little TLC to those who dine there, but they do offer a place to gather without harassment for being there too long.

Instead of going through the things I found a bit lackluster, though, I am going to share what I found to be satisfying from both places.

Tarbush

I recommend three things at the eatery at 5749 W Overland Road, right near its intersection with Curtis Road: the Muhammara, the Chicken Biryani and the Dolmas.

Muhammara is a delicious Syrian dip that is, in my mind, the perfect combo of things. It’s sweet from red bell peppers, molasses and ground walnuts. It’s savory from good olive oil and tahini (or ground sesame seeds), spicy from the Aleppo Peppers and red chili flake, and has a nice salty crunch from the breadcrumbs. It pairs beautifully with a warm basket of pita bread.

Dolmas, for those unfamiliar, are stuffed grape leaves. They are filled with rice, parsley, mint, a number of spices, pine nuts and currants. They are then drizzled in olive oil and lemon juice, and provide a refreshing, tart, indulgent bite that is really like nothing else I can compare it to. Served chilled, they’re a wonderful palate cleanser between two dishes with intense flavor or spice. Dolmas can often be stuffed with lamb as well as the other ingredients I mentioned, but often at Middle Eastern places, they are strictly vegetarian.

The Chicken Biryani is a wonderfully comforting and inviting rice dish that uses just about every spice on Earth, and in the end, it levels out perfectly. Its chicken is marinated in yogurt, ginger, garlic, turmeric, chilis and garam masala before being cooked in butter that is seasoned with cinnamon, cloves, star anise, bay leaves and a number of other spices — served over long grain rice that’s flavored and cooked with onion. It’s a dish that appears like a simple chicken and rice dinner, but is wonderfully complex and unique, perfectly balancing flavor and warmth. With every bite you’re wondering about another seasoning you’re picking up on your taste buds.

Goodness Land

Down at 6555 W. Overland Road at what is officially The Goodness Land Middle Eastern & Mediterranean Food Restaurant, I went with their street food, or more casual options, rather than the formal entrees. I tried the Hummus with Lamb, Baba Ganouj and Chicken Shawarma Sandwich.

The hummus was incredible. It was, as my friend Jen described it, “like silk.” It’s a perfectly smooth and savory combination of chickpeas and tahini, topped with parsley and a very fruity extra virgin olive oil, and then small, tender, salty cuts of lamb. It was a moment to savor when I took a bite of it smeared on a warm piece of pita bread.

The Baba Ganouj is similar to hummus in texture, but their profiles are very different. Baba Ganouj is a dip made from roasted garlic, eggplant, olive oil, lemon juice and paprika. Its flavor is more intense, fresh and slightly smoky. Baba Ganouj is often served slightly chilled, and the eggplant flavor shines through as rich and earthy. Compared to hummus, it’s less universally loved, but it’s a culinary ride, and Goodness Land does it well.

The shawarma and falafel sandwiches make a great lunch or casual dinner, running at about $6 for a generous portion. The sandwiches have hummus, lettuce, french fries, tomato, tahini and pickles, and are served on fresh-baked pita. The shawarma is a well-seasoned, slightly greasy cut of dark-meat chicken — sliced thin — that coats your mouth with a warm, wonderful, savory flavor. The pickles cut that with a nice tang.

The falafel is a vegetarian option of chickpeas and spices fried into salty, crispy balls of flavor that are balanced out by the texture and delicate flavor of the hummus and tahini, and refreshing zest of the tomatoes, lettuce and pickles. The amount of food here could easily be broken into two meals.

I recommend both Tarbush and Goodness Land for an affordable and pleasant step out of one’s culinary comfort zone. Go try a cuisine you might just find as addictive as I do!

This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 6:00 AM.