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Saturday Specials at the Olive Tree

They eat heartily in the Middle East, judging by the huge plates of rice with meat or fish that are Saturday specials at the Olive Tree restaurant in Anaheim's Little Arabia.

The fish, a whole tilapia, is deep fried until the skin is golden and crisp, while the white flesh remains moist and soft. The photo at top shows how It's served with containers of tahina sauce and a searingly spicy cilantro sauce.  The name of the dish is sayadiyet samak. 

The rice on the plate is brown rice flavored with an amazing 22 spices and cooked with fish fillets so that it complements the tilapia.

The other Saturday choice is kabseh, a Saudi Arabian rice cooked with 17 spices and served with lamb shanks or half a chicken (above).

The lentil soup that comes with these dishes is as delicious as it is plain.  A bowl of yogurt with cucumbers, similar to an Indian raita, also appears. Wonderfully creamy, it's flavored with dill.  

The servings are so large that you either have to share with a companion or leave with takeout cartons.

Abu Ahmad, who owns the Olive Tree, is from Palestine. He's  everywhere, greeting new arrivals, cooking on the grill, checking how people like their food, passing around a tin of chocolates. In the photo above, he's the man in the dark shirt behind the counter. 

The restaurant is small and modest, but the atmosphere is so pleasant you'll probably be back. Each day, there's a different special along with a full menu of kebabs, shawerma plates, hommus, falafel, stuffed grape leaves and many other Middle Eastern dishes.

Olive Tree Restaurant, 512 S. Brookhurst St., # 3, Anaheim, CA 92804. Tel: (714) 535-2878.

Something Different--a Purple Latte

Remember that old ditty, "I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one"?

That cow may still be hard to find, but any day you can have a purple latte at Paris Baguette, the Korean-French bakery chain.

Actually, it's a purple sweet potato latte, nothing but purple sweet potato blended with milk, which is as close as it gets to a cow. No coffee included.

This delicate lavendar drink comes hot or iced. It may look beige in the photo, but that's due to the lighting and lack of Photoshop. Trust me, it's truly purple, although very pale. You won't find a latte like it at Starbucks or Peet's. But that's why you go to Koreatown, to taste something other than the same old thing.

Paris Baguette, 3470 W. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90020 (in Koreatown). Tel: (213) 384-0404. And other locations.

Danish Pastry Arrives in Culver City

I don't run into many other Danish Hansens, but the one I met last week deserves lots of praise, thanks and your, and my, business.

This Dane is Karen Hansen, who has taken pity on the Danish pastry-deprived in West Los Angeles. In July, she opened Copenhagen Pastry on Washington Boulevard in Culver City.

You can almost smell the butter as you walk into this spare, neat little space. Nothing distracts from the counter, which is filled with tempting pastries never before seen on the Westside.  Even more are heaped on top.

You can't get everything right now. No cookies yet, no cakes and only one bread, at least when I was there. It was a sesame-coated rye bread (above) with great texture and flavor, unlike any you'd get in a deli sandwich or in a supermarket. 

I could evaluate this and many of the pastries thanks to samples set out on the counter. 

The plate above holds what I bought. The long, poppyseed- and sesame-sprinkled pastry at the left is what Hansen calls a "savory pastry." This means it is only slightly sweet, not savory in the sense of salty.

The slim pastry that looks like a ladyfinger at the right is "coffee bread," which is baked twice. The plain dough that forms the base is baked first, then topped with sweet almond paste and baked again. The only coffee involved is the hot liquid into which Danes dunk this pastry. 

At the front is a round cinnamon pastry topped with a circle of white frosting. Behind it is a nougat crown, which is filled with custard, hazelnut and almond paste. 

Also on display were hard-to-resist raspberry pastries and the Copenhagen, which is lined with strips of white and chocolate frosting and filled with custard. Hansen says head baker Henrik Gram will add a new pastry each week.

A great find is the pretzel-shaped kringle (above), a Danish classic filled with almond paste and topped with sliced almonds and sugar. Until now, I had to drive to Solvang to get one.

Hansen advises calling in advance to make sure that kringle is available. Apparently, other Danes have discovered it too. 

Copenhagen Pastry, 11113 Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. Tel: (310) 839-8900.