Carmen's Cafe

Thursday nights are Cuz night. For almost eight years now my cousin and I get together and have dinner at various local restaurants. Our wonderfully zaftig bodies have enjoyed quite a few good meals accompanied with good dish. Tonight was an exceptional choice, Carmen's Cafe (2718 Gravois Ave). They bill themselves as a Mediterranean Bar & Grill with a hookah lounge. The cafe has taken over the location of the former Mary's Fine Foods in the shadow of St. Francis of De Sales. 7-letter Deborah (http://ephemeralchaos.blogspot.com/) raved about the place, so exploring we went. First I would like to say they had the coolest chairs. Okay so that doesn't make the food good, but from the first fried pita chip smeared with hummus, I knew Deborah hadn't lied and the chairs portended fine food. I am used to the St. Raymond's version of hummus which has more of a bite to it, but Carmen's creamier recipe made a believer out of me. Cuz and I kept saying, they have got to be using some kind of cheese or yogurt to make these chickpeas so yummy. We also enjoyed some of the freshest stuffed grape leaves I have ever had. The falafal wrap was amazing and coupled with the old standby of french fries, absolutely perfect. Our well rounded tummy's hummed all evening over the good meal and good service we received. Thanks 7-letter Deborah for the tip. Our only complaint was they were all out of baklava. I consoled myself with a cookie later at Borders.

Apparently, Carmen's has belly dancers on various nights of the weekend, I was told to call and ask which night (314-771-6442). So I thought a belly dancer picture would be perfect for my blog, so you can look above for that picture. But on a lark I thought let me see if I can find a photo of my belly dancer friend, Osmon, from Egypt. My motorcycle trip through the streets of Luxor on the back of Osmon's Honda was one of the craziest things that ever happened to me in a foreign country. So I searched under "belly dancer Osmon Luxor" and found this wonderful picture of him. He is truly one of the most lithe people I have ever had the fortune of being introduced to. I was told while in his prime Osmon would dance while holding in his teeth a table piled with two chairs and a then a boy would dance on top of heap of furniture. That is something I would have loved to seen, but by the time I met him he had all silver capped teeth and only taught belly dancing. Osmon is of course the gentleman in green.