Savory and Sweet in Dearborn

Dinner out at a good ethnic restaurant is a little like taking a virtual vacation. So battling a case of cabin fever the other day, we decided to vicariously enjoy a little taste of India at The Peacock Restaurant in Dearborn Michigan, followed by a sweet Arabic lagniappe at Masri Sweets.

Tim and I first encountered the Peacock’s cuisine when we bought a couple of samosas from the restaurant’s booth at Detroit’s Concert of Colors diversity music festival. That was our first real taste of East Indian cuisine, and the generously-sized appetizer left us hungry for a taste of more.

The Peacock Restaurant is within a half mile of the Arab American National Museum, making it the perfect place for dinner after our recent visit to the AANM.

We arrived at the Peacock just as they opened for dinner, so we had the restaurant to ourselves as we read through the detailed menu and occasionally glanced at the Bollywood-style melodrama playing on the television over the bar.

Our attentive server helped us navigate the extensive menu, suggesting that we try the mixed Vegetable Pakora (spiced veggies, deep fried in a chickpea flour batter) as an appetizer and a side of Onion Kulcha (bread stuffed with chopped onion and spices before being baked in a clay oven).

I opted for Murgh Malai Kabab, an Eastern Indian chicken dish marinated with ginger, garlic and cream cheese and cooked in a clay oven. Tim’s Tandoori mixed grill featured several styles of lamb and chicken cooked in a clay oven.

Our meals proved to be savory, yet not the seeringly spicy fare we’d expected. Portions were plentiful and provided a perfect introduction to a cuisine about which we’d always been curious. I’m sure we’ll book a return trip!

Heading toward home, we were quite full and really not thinking about dessert, until I spotted Masri Sweets a little over a mile from the restaurant.

We’d gotten into a conversation with a woman working at the gift store in the AANM earlier that day. She mentioned the plethora of quality Arabic bakeries in the area, with a special mention of the nearby Masri Sweets.

We were surprised to see a bakery still open at 6 p.m. on a Saturday evening and stopped to get a dessert to take home.

We squeezed into the last available space in the parking lot. We found the bakery packed with customers, most of them ordering massive platters of sweets. Most of the customers were speaking Arabic, which we took as a good sign the bakery appeared to be a favorite with the locals.

Bakery workers kept bringing out trays of freshly baked pastries as the friendly clerk waiting on us gave us samples of a couple Masri specialties and helped us select a few to take home with us.

Our selections included Shaibeat, an Arabic sweet consisting of layers of filo dough, cream and a drizzle of sweet syrup, and a couple other filo-cream-syrup based treats. Four dollars bought us five pastries that we shared for dessert over the next two evenings at home.

© Dominique King 2008