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MINDFUL MEDITERRANEAN-ARMENIAN MIX AT SETA'S CAFE
The Boston Globe
Nov 13 2013
By Sheryl Julian| Globe Staff
November 12, 2013
I am almost hesitant to tell you about Seta (pronounced Sehtah)
Dakessian's new place, Seta's Cafe in Belmont, because she has
only 20 seats. She's cooking Mediterranean and Armenian food with a
heightened sense of sophistication and the best possible ingredients:
antibiotic-free chickens, meats raised in Lunenberg, farmers'
market produce.
Dakessian, 39, was raised in the restaurant business, she's
professionally trained, she's spent the last few years at farmers'
markets selling Seta's Mediterranean Foods and getting to know the
growers around her, and she really understands good ingredients simply
prepared. All those pieces add up to a splendid menu.
Take something as simple as a poached egg ($4 individual, or three
for $11 at brunch), which is available Saturday mornings. The egg,
sprinkled with black pepper, sits on warm olive oil in a little square
white dish. If you were smart enough to order grilled halloumi,
a deliciously salty cheese, you can dip it into the golden yolk
and accompany it with Armenian cukes, tomatoes, scallion, and mint
rolled up in a triangle of warm, homemade lavash. Loose tea comes
in a cast-iron pot. Sit at a window in this light and sunny spot and
you might be tempted to spend the entire day here.
Dakessian's parents are Armenian, her mother from Lebanon, her father
from Palestine. They owned Aris' Armenian Bakery & Cafe in Worcester.
After Johnson & Wales University culinary training, and working her
way from prep cook to the line at Rialto under Jody Adams, Dakessian
started her packaged food business, with specialties such as hummus,
baba ghanouj, metch, and grape leaves (Seta's Mediterranean Foods will
be at the Somerville winter market and on the Greenway and farmers'
markets next summer). Her versions at the cafe - you order these
from a prepared foods counter and if you're staying, they go onto
more pretty white dishes ($4 or three for $11) - are memorable,
the hummus exceptionally creamy, the baba infused with smoke.
Chicken soup ($4 and $8) has chunks of chicken, root vegetables,
and noodles in an intense broth (none of Seta's food needs any
more seasoning). Fattoush ($8 and $10), the Middle Eastern salad of
chopped vegetables with pita toasts, is delightful with a lemon-sumac
vinaigrette.
Before Seta's, the place had been renovated to house CE Restaurant
(formerly Chicken Express). Dakessian didn't have chickens in
mind, but inherited a giant rotisserie, so she salts and peppers
her vegetarian-fed birds and they roast to a golden succulence on
the spits. An individual chicken dinner ($12) comes with hummus,
a garlic sauce that is bright white (but contains only oil, garlic,
lemon juice, and salt), wonderful fries, a salad, and lavash.
Other khorovats (the Armenian word for grilled meats) come with bulgur
pilaf made with vermicelli, grilled tomatoes and onions, and piaz,
a parsley-onion salad with sumac and a little heat from Aleppo pepper.
Order beef ($16), lamb ($17), chicken ($15), or luleh, which is ground
lamb and beef in hand-shaped, thick, sausage-like links ($15), and be
prepared for a surprise: This exceptional meat is loaded with flavor
and a little chew, and it's perfectly cooked. You can also order meat,
chicken, falafel, or Greek salad wrapped in lavash ($7 to $10), or
get a salad ($6 to $10) topped with a highly seasoned vinaigrette
and khorovats ($5 to $6 extra).
Homemade desserts ($1.50 to $3) include cigar-shaped boorma, phyllo
dough rolled up with walnuts and pistachios, walnut paklava, ma'amoul,
date-filled cookies, and the butter cookies, khurbya.
Seta Dakessian is making slow food, so don't appear, place your order,
take a seat, and tap your foot impatiently. You wait on yourself and
bus your own table. This food is sent out of the kitchen with such
care and thoughtfulness that you'll wonder how she does it. And if you
complain that the grilled lamb plate, with all its accompaniments,
is expensive at $17, then you shouldn't be eating here. Plenty of
others to take your seat.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2013/11/12/mediterranean-and-armenian-slow-food-prepared-thoughtfully-belmont/iug6v5GfXlrpiBYskw6dML/story.html
The Boston Globe
Nov 13 2013
By Sheryl Julian| Globe Staff
November 12, 2013
I am almost hesitant to tell you about Seta (pronounced Sehtah)
Dakessian's new place, Seta's Cafe in Belmont, because she has
only 20 seats. She's cooking Mediterranean and Armenian food with a
heightened sense of sophistication and the best possible ingredients:
antibiotic-free chickens, meats raised in Lunenberg, farmers'
market produce.
Dakessian, 39, was raised in the restaurant business, she's
professionally trained, she's spent the last few years at farmers'
markets selling Seta's Mediterranean Foods and getting to know the
growers around her, and she really understands good ingredients simply
prepared. All those pieces add up to a splendid menu.
Take something as simple as a poached egg ($4 individual, or three
for $11 at brunch), which is available Saturday mornings. The egg,
sprinkled with black pepper, sits on warm olive oil in a little square
white dish. If you were smart enough to order grilled halloumi,
a deliciously salty cheese, you can dip it into the golden yolk
and accompany it with Armenian cukes, tomatoes, scallion, and mint
rolled up in a triangle of warm, homemade lavash. Loose tea comes
in a cast-iron pot. Sit at a window in this light and sunny spot and
you might be tempted to spend the entire day here.
Dakessian's parents are Armenian, her mother from Lebanon, her father
from Palestine. They owned Aris' Armenian Bakery & Cafe in Worcester.
After Johnson & Wales University culinary training, and working her
way from prep cook to the line at Rialto under Jody Adams, Dakessian
started her packaged food business, with specialties such as hummus,
baba ghanouj, metch, and grape leaves (Seta's Mediterranean Foods will
be at the Somerville winter market and on the Greenway and farmers'
markets next summer). Her versions at the cafe - you order these
from a prepared foods counter and if you're staying, they go onto
more pretty white dishes ($4 or three for $11) - are memorable,
the hummus exceptionally creamy, the baba infused with smoke.
Chicken soup ($4 and $8) has chunks of chicken, root vegetables,
and noodles in an intense broth (none of Seta's food needs any
more seasoning). Fattoush ($8 and $10), the Middle Eastern salad of
chopped vegetables with pita toasts, is delightful with a lemon-sumac
vinaigrette.
Before Seta's, the place had been renovated to house CE Restaurant
(formerly Chicken Express). Dakessian didn't have chickens in
mind, but inherited a giant rotisserie, so she salts and peppers
her vegetarian-fed birds and they roast to a golden succulence on
the spits. An individual chicken dinner ($12) comes with hummus,
a garlic sauce that is bright white (but contains only oil, garlic,
lemon juice, and salt), wonderful fries, a salad, and lavash.
Other khorovats (the Armenian word for grilled meats) come with bulgur
pilaf made with vermicelli, grilled tomatoes and onions, and piaz,
a parsley-onion salad with sumac and a little heat from Aleppo pepper.
Order beef ($16), lamb ($17), chicken ($15), or luleh, which is ground
lamb and beef in hand-shaped, thick, sausage-like links ($15), and be
prepared for a surprise: This exceptional meat is loaded with flavor
and a little chew, and it's perfectly cooked. You can also order meat,
chicken, falafel, or Greek salad wrapped in lavash ($7 to $10), or
get a salad ($6 to $10) topped with a highly seasoned vinaigrette
and khorovats ($5 to $6 extra).
Homemade desserts ($1.50 to $3) include cigar-shaped boorma, phyllo
dough rolled up with walnuts and pistachios, walnut paklava, ma'amoul,
date-filled cookies, and the butter cookies, khurbya.
Seta Dakessian is making slow food, so don't appear, place your order,
take a seat, and tap your foot impatiently. You wait on yourself and
bus your own table. This food is sent out of the kitchen with such
care and thoughtfulness that you'll wonder how she does it. And if you
complain that the grilled lamb plate, with all its accompaniments,
is expensive at $17, then you shouldn't be eating here. Plenty of
others to take your seat.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2013/11/12/mediterranean-and-armenian-slow-food-prepared-thoughtfully-belmont/iug6v5GfXlrpiBYskw6dML/story.html