Bagila (Bah-gee-lah) — in common with North African, Middle Eastern, and Arabian dishes such as rifissa and fatteh — allows for the use of day-old bread to line the serving dish and soak up good flavors. At this Iraqi-American bakery and restaurant, the bread is abundant, and so some of that morning's batch lined a bowl mounded with fava beans (the namesake bagila) and, for good measure, scrambled eggs. Another hefty round of bread, folded in two, arrived at its side. Translation: leftovers after all.
Also shown: gaymar, a sort of clotted cream drizzled with what our waitress identified as black honey, and kahi, gaymar's companion bread, tenuously clinging to crispness despite a shallow pool of syrup. These we finished.
H/T Peter Cuce, Bao and Butter Blog
Al-Mazaq Bakery
46 East Railway Ave. (Kentucky-Iowa Aves.), Paterson, New Jersey
862-239-9444
www.Facebook.com/مخبز-و-مطعم-المذاق-العراقي-Al-Mazaq-Bakery-Restaurant-1772278093034471
(Note: This post is based on a visit before Ramadan; call ahead to confirm the current menu and hours.)
