Michigan Taste Treats

After visiting Sauble Beach, we went to Michigan for a reunion of my high school class. While there, we had a couple of nice food experiences. I wish we could have stayed longer and tried more restaurants. Our best experiences were:

1. Beirut Bakery (http://www.beirutbakery.net/menu.html). This institution is more than a bakery. My brother has been patronizing it since 1976. It makes wonderful Arabic food like mom used to make. My brother ordered take out food for a wonderful meal that included:
- grape leaves stuffed with lamb, rice, and spices, and cooked in broth. These were nice and firm, not the mushy stuffed grape leaves often found in restaurants in the U.S. (The Arabic stuffed grape leaves are not covered in egg lemon sauce - avgolemono - like the Greek version. They can be dipped in yoghurt.)
- cabbage rolls stuffed with lamb, rice, and spices, and cooked in broth.
- Mjedara - lentils and rice cooked in olive oil and topped with caramelized onions.
- tabouleh
- cheese bread
2. Matsuchan
This is a genuine Japanese noodle restaurant like those we used to patronize when we lived in Japan. It not only has noodle dishes, but others like katsudon. Many of its clients are Japanese. One of the main types of dishes it serves are huge bowls of ramen noodles in broth and with various veggies. (Don't confuse Japanese ramen with those little ramen cups you buy in supermarkets.) Matsuchan had the three basic types of ramen broths - soy, salt, and miso. I had corn butter ramen and my wife had katsudon. With two sodas, our total bill came to $19.90.
Matsuchan is located at 5990 N. Sheldon at Ford Rd. in Canton.

Don't confuse this restaurant with Ichiban, a large Japanese steak house located just around the corner from Matsuchan. (FYI, you won't find those Japanese steak houses in Japan. I only saw a couple in 4 years - one in the U.S. military hotel in Tokyo and one outside a U.S. military base on Okinawa.)
3. Palm Palace
This is an Arabic restaurant in Ann Arbor, MI. It is part of a chain (http://www.palmpalace.com/homemain.shtml). My brother, his wife and son took us there and treated us to a delicious meal. The food was very nice, but the grape leaves did not compare to those of Beirut Bakery. The Arabic bread was terrific - out of this world. My wife and I had the lamb combo, which included lamb meat pies, lamb shawarma, lamb kibbeh (cooked), a hummus dip, and a garlic dip.
4. DeLuca's Italian Restaurant
The night before our reunion dinner, our class had a pizza party at DeLuca's, which is owned by the family of a classmate. The pizzas were very tasty. In addition to our group of 80 or so people, who were in a separate room, the restaurant was packed - a testimony to its quality. It was wonderful to go back to a place whose food I'd enjoyed many years ago, and to see that it was still run so expertly by the same family.