For atmosphere, Village Cafe is roundly beaten by my second-favorite Azerbaijani restaurant in Brooklyn, Old Baku in Kensington. Walk past the awning that says “private club,” past the curtained booths in the front dining room, past the open kitchen where chefs scoop burning coals to keep the fire under the kebabs going strong, and you enter a courtyard from another country. Almost everybody at Old Baku is smoking under the arbor of grape vines that weave around strings of white lights. If you go in the fall, you might be brought a plate of purple grapes, newly picked a few feet away.
But Village Cafe gains its edge on Old Baku in the kitchen. The stewed fruit ladled over saffron rice in its plov, for instance, is a richer and more varied compilation of dried plums, apricots, chestnuts and deeply browned lamb.
The salads are brighter, too, if you can get over some of the names. The menu was evidently written by someone with a weakness for poetry, so the salads are called things like “Journey to Baku,” “Winter Fun” and “Unexpected Guests.” The Journey to Baku is worth taking; it’s a sharply seasoned, smoky eggplant mash with peppers and tomatoes. The kidney beans in a traditional lobio salad are creamy, salty and well-oiled under their topping of chopped walnuts and cilantro.
Main course names incline toward the allusive as well, with one chicken cutlet called “Miracle of Village” and another — buried under a white pillow of cheese and cream sauce — that goes by “Mother In Laws Chicken.”
But really, the best place to go once all the amenities have been polished off is the kebabs. The quail may be a bit wizened. The grilled testicles with a hint of lemon in their lightly browned surfaces will always be a niche proposition. But the lamb ribs, the marinated lamb chops known as chalahac and the flatbread-wrapped Azerbaijani version of kofte called lulya kebabs (made from chicken or lamb) are extremely good. The vegetable skewer choices begin and end with blistered tomatoes and softly collapsing eggplant. Both are worthwhile. So is the side dish called “homemade potatoes,” if there is any room left on the table. Sliced and fried with onions, they narrowly beat out the pretty good fries.
A cup or two of strong dark tea will speed your recovery from this onslaught. Dessert may not. Still, there is something to be said for trying a Napoleon made like baklava and a baklava made like a Napoleon.
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