Beat monotony with Olive Cafe's lively Mediterranean fare

The flavors of Middle Eastern cooking, cool mint, sour sumac (the Mediterranean kind, not Maine's ubiquitous poison sumac), tahini and an abundance of parsley and tomatoes, are perfect for relieving January monotony. The Olive Cafe in Portland handles these particulars with panache, tossing grilled slices of aromatic beef on top of a thin pizza that ranks at the top of good things I've tasted in Portland lately.

The cafe, open since November 2008 for lunch and weekend brunch and breakfast, has been serving dinner since July.

Rayan Elkhatib, the owner of Olive Cafe with his wife Charlotte Elkhatib, is from Beirut, Lebanon. His enthusiasm for his native cuisine is echoed by the server who waited on us, fully informed about the dishes and quick with descriptions.

The Mediterranean Plate ($11.99) could make a meal on its own, although it is listed as a starter on the dinner menu. This version (another version is $9.50 for lunch) holds crunchy falafel, which are fried, cumin-scented mashed chickpea balls, on shredded lettuce, a mound of rough-textured hummus capped by a pool of olive oil, hot fried cauliflower and oily fried eggplant with thin, delicate pita bread. Little metal cups hold hot sauce and tahini sauce, ready to anoint a bite of eggplant.

The small pieces of cauliflower on this plate were particularly good, seasoned with kosher salt and pepper before being fried and cooked to tender, slightly spicy perfection.

Bruschetta with chopped tomatoes and mint ($8.99) benefitted from the good olive oil. The cool, summery flavor of the mint enhanced the bland tomatoes of winter. The ones used at Olive Cafe come from Maine's Madison greenhouse business, Backyard Farms.

Garlic mussels with fresh tomatoes and parsley ($11.99) are served with toasted bread. Salads and a veggie plate with baba ghanouj, an eggplant dip, and tabuleh offer more variety to vegetarians than many dare to hope for in Maine restaurants.

A glass of the Argentinean Puntapays Malbec ($7), a generous pour into a stemless goblet, made good sense with the kabobs, the full-bodied red wine dry and warm with robust fruit. The wine list of three whites and three to four reds changes every week. "I'm always looking for something that goes well with my food," Elkhatib said, and the inexpensive, earthy Malbec is one example. "Down the road I hope we can feature some Lebanese wines."

Brooklyn Lager and Stella Artois are available on draft.

If the prospect of lamb kabob makes you yawn, prepare to sit up straight when you dine on the Olive cafe's version. Though the charred red onions could been made anywhere, long marination and careful trimming transformed the tender lamb, exactly cooked to order at medium rare, infusing it with gamey savor. The rice, moist, tender and delectable, benefitted from the kitchen's liberal hand with oil.

But it won't be too challenging to ignore the kabob and leave it to a friend if you order the beef shawarma pizza ($12.99). Topped with a lattice of tahini sauce and thoroughly reddened with a shower of ground sumac, the sweet and sour, spiced beef, ensconced on a crisp crust beside a bit of hot tomato and crunchy red onion, fills the mouth with savory and sharp, creamy and piquant flavors.

The beef is sliced thin and marinated overnight with vegetable oil and cloves, cumin, pepper, coriander, and cinnamon, among other spices. Elkhatib's version of shawarma, whether chicken or beef, is not spit-roasted but simply grilled.

Pepperoni and three-cheese pizzas are on the menu too, but why not opt for garlic chicken ($11.99), with garlic sauce and sumac among the mozzarella and chopped tomatoes, or shrimp kabob, instead of the grilled Atlantic salmon ($16.99).

"We always have specials," Elkhatib said. "Tonight we have mussels in white wine and garlic sauce, served with Standard Baking Company bread. We like to go the vegetarian way with the stuffed grape leaves. There are a lot of vegetarians in Portland. Check us out for lunch sometime."

A wrap called Ya Babba ($7.99), available for lunch, is served with pita chips (from a local bakery) and filled with baba ghanouj, fried cauliflower, french fries, romaine, tomatoes, tahini, and optional hot sauce.

Two small tube-shaped pieces of baklava, slightly dry and still partially frozen, was not as appealing as it could have been. Brownies with a scoop of vanilla ice cream was the other option on that night's short dessert menu. Another week you might find a ricotta cheesecake, baked by Charlotte Elkhatib.

Mugs of mint tea ($1.99) were perfect at the end of that lively meal, and so welcome in predictably cold weather. Turkish coffee is another option to end a meal.

N.L. English is a Portland freelance writer and the author of "Chow Maine: The Best Restaurants, cafees, Lobster Shacks and Markets on the Coast." Visit English's Web site, www.chowmaineguide.com.

Olive Cafe