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It only takes three bites for Kaveh to fall in love with a restaurant.
Conversely, it only takes one for him to recognize when a spot will be a disappointment, one buoyed by Internet hype and delicately placed gold leaf, but to his great relief, Moongrass defies the odds. It’s a newer place, opened only in the past eight months or so, and it’s busy enough to prove it. It’d taken months for Al-Haitham to be able to land a spot on the reservation list (under a false name to guarantee authenticity), the timing tricky enough that it had put that tiny, unconscious frown on his mouth that Kaveh liked so much he didn’t have the heart to make fun of it.
To be fair, he’d known the moment they drove up to the establishment that it would be an experience that would blow him away, or maybe even end up on his list of top twenty-five restaurants to visit in the new year.
Moongrass is located in a strip of forest, mist settling over the road like snowfall, but Kaveh will get to that later in the blog post. The thing he’s most concerned about at this moment is that the food is so good he’s attempting to wrangle back his soul from ascending and also sort out which dishes from the ten-course meal he’s going to have to pare down for his feature.
It’s great food, a great atmosphere, and—not so great company, but Al-Haitham will have to do. He is Kaveh’s partner for their food review blog, after all. It’s only a throwaway tidbit that he’s also Kaveh’s boyfriend.
“I think I just found one of my favorite restaurants in the city,” Kaveh declares, chasing a mouthful of chilled guava soup accompanied by a backbite of fermented mulberries with his attentively looked after glass of water, the ice cubes the perfect spherical shape that clink nicely in the cup and don’t fall to shreds only to crunch under his teeth unpleasantly.
“Can your favorite restaurant be a cheap hole in the wall next time?” Al-Haitham mutters, but he doesn’t look displeased with the meal either. He devotes a careful amount of attention to his own dish of soup, savoring each spoonful with a thoughtful hum.
“This is onigiri erasure,” Kaveh huffs, kicking Al-Haitham’s calf under the table. He’s playing a very elegant, upscale game of footsie. It counts because he’s wearing his nice dress shoes instead of his usual sneakers. “You know I like that place, you know, the one that sells takeout through their window in the west side of the city? Now that’s cheap.”
“However cheap their umeboshi is, it’s canceled out by gas prices,” Al-Haitham counters. “It’s not in the city. It’s very much outside of the city.”
“Close enough.” Kaveh rolls his eyes, but he still can’t get rid of the quiet hum on his lips—it really is a nice night. “What do you think? Fourth or third?”
“New openings list or vegetarian options?” Al-Haitham guesses.
“New openings. This place is a little upscale for the vegetarian list.”
“Second,” Al-Haitham decides, and Kaveh holds his gaze for a moment before he breaks into an airy laugh, the lamplight overhead of them swinging gently. It casts a pendulum-like shadow over Al-Haitham’s face that casts him in a damp glow.
“We still have six courses left,” Kaveh says, amused. He watches the careful tick of Al-Haitham’s eyebrows as he takes in the scenery around them again, the quiet rustle of the trees, the clean-pressed linen tablecloth that smells faintly of rosewater.
Al-Haitham takes Kaveh’s hand over the table, their fingers just barely entwined. Kaveh suppresses a smile. How is Al-Haitham supposed to lift his spoon to his mouth like this? “The mist is very flattering for your features,” he says. “It’s second.”
checkplease.com/reviews/moongrass/top-25-new-openings-this-year
Experience Renowned Chef Nahida’s Latest Opening In Sumeru City: Moongrass, An Open-Air Forest Retreat
By Al-Haitham & Kaveh
Nahida, a chef known for her humble beginnings as a weekend pop-up selling upscale vegetarian dishes out of her home kitchen, opened Moongrass, a 100-seater restaurant tucked away in the far reaches of the Avidya Forest. The space is a thin wooden platform stretching alongside the water unrestrained by those pesky things we call walls and covered by a minimalist roof. The space is charmingly encased by mist, and lily pads are stationed all throughout the waterway, making for a beautiful candle-lit view as you dine your way through a fixed ten-course menu.
We were drawn in by the iconic pictures of the water posted all over the Internet of the evening view and booked a reservation under a false name at prime time when the sun was due to set. We were not disappointed—treated with a view like no other, we dug into our ten courses with eagerness. Though small, as most upscale fine dining experiences are wont to be, the menu leaves no taste bud unstimulated. It explores a wide palate, from poriyal mille-feuille with butternut squash and tomato sambal to a racy mint and chickpea concoction to a salted and toasted white chocolate honeycomb mousse painstakingly shaped into an orchid that had us by the teeth, but there are three stand out dishes in particular.
The first course to engrave Moongrass deep into your memory will be the main dish, a maitake mushroom that’s been salted and grilled ever so slightly over charcoal and served with basmati rice espuma, garnished with a tantalizing smear of truffle puree and manchego cream topped with parsley oil…
Kaveh started his food review blog when he was still a broke college student, gaining notoriety for ranking all the complimentary coffee machines on the vast Akademiya campus that eventually culminated into a legendary breakdown of all the coffeeshops in Sumeru City that still has the most traction on Check, Please! It only became a thing with Al-Haitham when he’d insisted in a comment that he could brew far better coffee than any shop Kaveh had yet to visit, and Kaveh, unable to resist a challenge, had put Al-Haitham’s pour-over right in the middle of his list.
And then he stuck around, and Kaveh got used to Al-Haitham’s constant presence to the point that he couldn’t find it in him to protest when Al-Haitham started holding his hand, and then that was that. It became a full time job when the combination of Kaveh’s earnest passion for food and Al-Haitham’s well-timed snark hit it off with the Internet.
So now they get to go on dates to establishments like Moongrass where the bill comes out to be a number that makes Kaveh feel weak at the knees, but the catch is that he can afford it now. It’s great. He’s getting paid to eat good food and give glowing reviews on all of his favorite shops and he gets to do it with his boyfriend, who unfortunately is around to stay.
But, well, they’re not all like Moongrass. Some of them are far removed from that standard. Far, far removed.
“You know, we really take a gamble with some of these places,” Kaveh says, staring down at his plate. He doesn’t want to eat any more of it.
“I feel like you should’ve known the moment it was advertised as a region of Fontaine that’s known more for its novelty than for its taste,” Al-Haitham says, narrowing his eyes at the dish in front of him. “And you chose to order the worst possible picks from the menu, if I may add.”
“The whole point of reviewing a restaurant is to have a variety of foods that showcase the establishment’s best features!” Kaveh says indignantly. “I had to give them a chance.”
“And you thought that their best foot forward would be a chip butty, which turned out to be fried potatoes sandwiched between plain white bread? It’s not even toasted, Kaveh. There isn’t a single gram of butter on this sandwich. I thought I was going to choke on that dry mouthful.”
“It could be worse,” Kaveh says, poking at his own plate sadly. It’s all so beige. “Mine just has potato chips inside.”
“You can’t forget your irresistible side of bland mashed peas that taste like glue,” Al-Haitham adds sarcastically. “If you’re lucky enough, it’ll hinge your jaw shut and you won’t be able to take another bite, even if you wanted to.”
“Shhh!” Kaveh lurches over the table and clasps one hand over Al-Haitham’s mouth, looking around the restaurant wildly for any sign of the staff. Luckily for them, they aren’t the most attentive employees, and the rest of the shop is pretty barren except for one man in the corner poring over a newspaper and picking idly at a sandwich that seems to only be filled with ketchup. “It’s only run by a husband and wife. They’re trying their best! You know as well as anyone that it can’t be easy to move to a foreign city and then share your culture with the people already established.”
“What culture,” Al-Haitham mutters, peeling the top of his sandwich open.
“Can you please be quiet,” says Kaveh.
Al-Haitham drops his bread with a quiet plop and looks at Kaveh through squinted eyes, as if he’s trying to dissect something behind his face. Kaveh automatically brings one hand to his face, wondering if he has crumbs on his lips. “Did you only drag us here because you wanted to write a glowing review and coincidentally help a small business flourish?”
Al-Haitham, as per fucking usual, has hit the target on the bullseye. He’s a little too insightful. But that’s what makes him excel at their business; Kaveh just hates it when he uses it against him, which should be illegal, considering that they’re dating and all.
“Why ever would you think that?” Kaveh blinks innocently at Al-Haitham, and then he winces when his precariously stacked potato chip sandwich falls apart on his paper plate. “I’ve just heard stellar things around this area. You know my ear is good.”
“I think we might be better off buying snacks from the convenience store next door,” Al-Haitham says with distaste, leaning back in his chair as he balls up his napkin and tosses it onto his plate. It would add more credibility to Kaveh’s story if the atmosphere was a little nicer here, but it’s an order and pay counter tucked in an alcove made of popcorn material, tiny round tables accompanied by the shitty metal chairs with those weird, thin designs that leave strange imprints on your thighs.
Kaveh takes a determined bite out of his sandwich just to prove the point. He winces when the rough edge of a potato chip drags against the roof of his mouth, the gum going raw. “Okay, fine,” he says when he’s managed to swallow down the bite. “Just don’t write anything too brutal in the review.”
Al-Haitham cocks an eyebrow as they leave, ducking out of the shop and turning the corner into the cool air conditioning of the convenience store. The sterile smell of the air is almost comforting compared to the damp heat of the small neighboring establishment. “I thought the entire point of Check, Please is to be honest with our reviewers. That’s the entire point of the blog.”
“But it’s a mom and pop shop owned by a husband and wife who are barely getting by as is!” Kaveh argues. “They’re a small business who could use some help!”
“Well, maybe if it didn’t taste terrible, it wouldn’t be a small business,” Al-Haitham says. “We built our business upon being honest. The restaurants that we’re reviewing build theirs upon doing their job: feeding people, and doing it well. As nice as the owners may be, you can’t argue that there’s anything exceptional about two slices of bread and some frozen fries.”
“You’re going to be courteous,” Kaveh hisses, pointing one finger in Al-Haitham’s face, “or we’re breaking up. You are not sinking a small business under my name.”
“Yes, dear,” Al-Haitham says sarcastically.
checkplease.com/reviews/chip-and-butty
This Small Shop Will Transport You To Fontaine: For Better Or For Worse
By Al-Haitham & Kaveh
Chip and Butty is a small locally-owned mom-and-pop store, and the expectations end there. Run by a couple well into their fifties, they serve up authentic regional specialties from Fontaine. The shop is small with a sparse four tables, but we were seated upon arrival and served room temperature water in paper cups. As far as tap water goes, it did its job, though we did find ourselves in the convenience store directly neighboring Chip and Butty for refreshments afterward.
We ordered the iconic chip butty that the establishment has been cleverly named after, which came served in a cardboard boat—two thick slices of white sandwich bread, the crusts well toasted and browned, housing an overflowing pile of potatoes fried to a crisp. At request, the dish will be served with salt and pepper and if you’re feeling adventurous, ketchup.
To be sure, this spot recreates the overwhelmingly beige Fontainian cuisine excellently, so fans of carb sandwiches will be pleased to find their fill here…
“I think I can die happy here,” Kaveh says solemnly. The bakery they’re standing in is an unassuming, plain looking shop, but the inside is filled to the brim with pastries, breads and buns and the like lining the shelves from floor to ceiling. They even provide straw-threaded baskets for customers to carry their goods, clear plastic tongs set out amongst the plastic-wrapped concoctions, but Kaveh is struck dumb by the overwhelming amount of choices.
Al-Haitham, on the other hand, is a man on a mission. He looks over his shoulder at Kaveh as if telling him to keep up, so Kaveh grits his teeth, holds up his tongs, and delves into the fray.
He emerges as a changed man. Before them, they’ve systematically dissected a wide array of pastries—bright purple sweet potato buns filled with puree, chocolate soboros with crispy peanut topping, buns filled with sweetened red bean paste and chewy mochi, overflowing castella creams and palm-sized corn rice cakes—and on the other side is Al-Haitham, as pleased as Kaveh has ever seen him.
“We’re coming back here,” Al-Haitham says seriously. There’s a fleck of black sesame just outside of his lip. Kaveh is so greatly endeared to it that he just looks and laughs, sweetness bubbling up at the bottom of his stomach, and not just from all the sugar he’s ingested. “I mean it. There’s half the stock that we haven’t tried.”
“We’ll be revisiting this place for months if you want to try everything,” Kaveh says, frowning, as he tucks his chin onto his hands. Al-Haitham raises a challenging eyebrow, electing instead to take another bite of an injeolmi cake dusted with roasted soybean powder and drizzled in brown sugar syrup. “You’re not even the one driving, and it’s so out of the way! Maybe if you give up on being a passenger princess for once.”
Al-Haitham shakes his head, pink tongue delving out to scrape over his lips. Kaveh swallows and chases the movement with his eyes. “I’ll feed you from the passenger seat,” he says magnimoniously, as if bestowing Kaveh with a great honor, and then he returns to his pastries.
This time, there’s a large clump of cream dotting Al-Haitham’s lip, and Kaveh reaches out to brush it away with his thumb—and then, unable to resist, reaches over the table and kisses it away himself, a fleck of teeth, sugar melting thinly over his tongue.
“You’re going to drag your hair into the food,” Al-Haitham complains once he parts, more concerned with the table than the display, and Kaveh grins, tucking his embarrassing bubble of affection deep down inside of him.
“You’ll get a million redos if we come back,” Kaveh says, waving a flippant hand. “So, what are we thinking for the highlights? I think we should cover the sweet corn danish and the red bean butter soboro, but I wouldn’t be displeased with any of them.”
“Those are good,” Al-Haitham says, suddenly business-like. “And the hojicha tiramisu as well, since that’s fairly novel.”
As Kaveh watches Al-Haitham continue to ramble on about the various details he wants to include in the review, he mentally sorts this place on his personal favorite list of bakeries—and bumps it up one or two spots on principle, just because the taste of Al-Haitham’s lips on his lingered sweeter than any other bread or cake he’d put on his tongue.
checkplease.com/reviews/injeolmimis-bakery-and-coffee
Small Bakery Serving Up Area’s Most Unique And Well-Executed Takes On Pastry: Injeolmimis, The Sweetest Spot On The Block
By Al-Haitham & Kaveh
The first thing that we noticed about this bakery was the sheer stock provided, golden wood shelves saturated by the afternoon sun and a few artfully placed vines of faux ivy. The owners were pleasant and respectful, but the highlight of the visit, by far, was strolling around the bakery and trying to shave down our list of want-to-try goods to need-to-try. That still was not enough. For a well-balanced review, we revisited the spot five times over the span of one week, each at differing times and randomly selected days.
Here is what we discovered:
The first item you must try is a bun, unassuming on the outside except for a singular blue marking on the top. The inside, however, is a treasure trove—blueberry puree, lightly sweetened whipped cream, chunky coconut custard, all of it melding together with the insanely soft bread to create the perfect bite.
We would be remiss not to recommend their financiers, our favorite of the selection being a robust matcha cake topped with a delicate strawberry glaze…
For all the years that Kaveh has spent running Check, Please, his favorite spot has always been the local, hole in the wall store down the street from the apartment he shares with Al-Haitham. It’s seen its fair share of quick lunch runs after grocery shopping and convenient takeout phone calls for the occasional pad thai craving, which has never failed Kaveh in a pinch, even though it’s basic.
“Where are we spending our anniversary?” Al-Haitham asks Kaveh over morning coffee, bitter steam rising up and gently twisting around his face. His face is shadowed in the light, even though they’d taken a late morning in, deciding to spend their early hours entwined in their bed instead of getting up. It’s afternoon now, but still. Coffee.
“I chose last year, so it’s up to you,” Al-Haitham continues. He thumbs carefully through the newspaper before him—they’re old fashioned, but he grew up solving crosswords with his grandmother over warm milk and cardamom, so that was yet another tradition that he’d brought into Kaveh’s life.
“Oh,” Kaveh says, mind lost in thought. He stares out the open window to the small garden outside their apartment, tiny struggling trees sowed in barren dirt. They’ve been trying to grow lemons for the last five years to no avail. Lemons are supposed to be easy to grow. Maybe they just hate Kaveh.
There are hundreds of restaurants that Kaveh could demand Al-Haitham to take him to—Moongrass, for example, which delighted Kaveh so much that he couldn’t stop talking about the ten courses for three days, or the exquisite and expensive vegetarian omakase experience a two hour drive away from their apartment. Afterward, they could go anywhere—handmade halva from their favorite local mart, contemporary gelato in flavors like salted cheddar cheese and blackberry Camembert, softly shaven frozen milk doused in strawberries and condensed milk and an endless amount of rice cakes.
But he wants—
“Can we go to the spot down the street?” Kaveh says. They’ve gone so often that both of them have forgotten its actual name by now, the memory of it sinking slow and soft into the years between them. “You know the spot. It’s August. The mango sticky rice will be especially good right around this time.”
“For our anniversary?” Al-Haitham says, pausing over a long dreg of coffee.
“Yeah,” Kaveh says, tilting his head back. He’s hungry all of a sudden. A familiar, gnawing ache that he’s only ever satisfied with local food and familiar waitstaff and Al-Haitham’s hand in his. “I want khao soi.”
checkplease.com/reviews/lotus-and-lemongrass
Charming Hidden Spot Entrances Locals With Three Decades Of Authenticity: Lotus and Lemongrass, A Check, Please! Unequivocal Favorite
By Al-Haitham & Kaveh
Lotus and Lemongrass is an unassuming restaurant tucked in a strip mall that gets the most traffic because of the laundromat three stores down, but all of its devoted patrons know about this local secret. Boasting a meager ten tables, you may have a difficult time getting seated at prime times—but there is no reservation list to speak of, so you can spend your time folding clothes at the laundry while you wait to be seated.
The restaurant itself is small and minimally decorated, but the warm wooden tables are familiar, and the well-worn but clean seat cushions provide a cozy atmosphere. Small wooden fans spin lazily over the tables, providing relief in the damp August heat. The soft breeze circulates the smell of fresh cooking from the kitchen, wafting the scent of steamed rice and savory spiced meat. Just enough to whet your appetite before you take a look at their menu.
The owners have been here for thirty years, toiling in the kitchen as they prepare the same age-old and time-proven recipes by hand. Bubbling coconut curries, pan fried rice noodles, piles of fresh bean sprouts and finely chopped peanuts at the ready—the menu is limited to your typical fare, given that the space is so small, but they execute their few dishes well.
Our favorites here are, of course, the pad thai—a staple for indecisive diners everywhere. At least Lotus and Lemongrass can claim to be authentic, ditching the artificial orange coloring and instead putting forth a fresh and bouncy dish that is pleasant on the tongue. Our other must-orders include the khao soi, which is one of the best we’ve tried among our wide forage of restaurants in the city. The coconut-based broth is especially flavorsome, and the contrast in textures between the perfectly chewy egg noodles to the crispy fried topping makes for a well rounded dish that is only exemplified by the homemade pickled mustard greens.
No visit would be complete without a mandatory order (or two!) of the mango sticky rice. There’s none of the mushy and bland rice you may fear from your local joint—the sticky rice is steamed to the exact temperature to retain a flawless chew and soak in all of the rich coconut milk. The mangoes are hand picked and specially imported, chilled in the fridge before serving to create a pleasant contrast between the slightly warm milk and the fresh fruit. A perfect end to any meal, if we may say so ourselves.
To be honest, if you have read far enough, then you will know from this article that there is not much that distinguishes Lotus and Lemongrass from the next local joint. The food is prepared with the same practiced and lovelorn hands. The tables are dented at the edges, and not all of the forks (for those who are not practiced with chopsticks) are of the same size. The strip mall setting does not make for the nicest atmosphere, especially when a truck in the parking lot backfires in the middle of your meal.
But we return time and time again because the food is familiar and we know what to expect—fresh, flavorful food served to us with the same wrinkled and beaming faces that we have gotten to know especially well during our time in the city, owners who come to loiter at our table and ask how our plants are growing and whether we were able to buy the same imported mangoes from their secret supplier, the same table for two in the corner underneath a lamp that flickers in age.
It was the first restaurant we ate at as a couple, and now, seven years later, on the evening of our anniversary, Lotus and Lemongrass will forever be known as the restaurant that we got engaged at. There is a charm there that cannot be recreated by any gentrified modern take on comfort food or upscale rendition of the same familiar flavors. No price can be ascribed to memories, especially not ones that are created over meals with loved ones, and that is why though they may not serve the best food—good, honest, delicious food, but not top of the line—it will always remain comfortably as our favorite restaurant of all time.
Call us biased if you would like. You would be correct with that claim. However, through our expansive exploration of food and restaurants and bakeries, we have come away with the conclusion that there is no taste like homecooked love.