Today in LA Weekly's "Ask Mr. Gold" column, beloved food critic Jonathan Gold responds to this question: "My colleagues and I are interested to know if Palestinian chicken, as featured in last week's Curb Your Enthusiasm, is really a dish. If so, is it something you have sampled or seen a recipe for?"
The reader is, of course, referring to a recent July 24 episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in which Larry and Jeff plotz over some outrageously delicious Palestinian chicken from an LA restaurant called "Al-Abbas."
Some choice quotes from the episode, via Eater LA:
- Larry and Jeff say that if the chicken was sent to Israel, "they'd take down all the settlements immediately."
Larry and Jeff also note that the restaurant is the perfect place for a Jewish couple to conduct an affair, since no one else from the community would be caught dead patronizing the place. For those who are still catching up on their TiVo, we won't spoil the ending.
Of course, any LA native worth their salt recognized immediately that the restaurant's food and employee uniforms were modeled loosely on Lebanese-Armenian chain Zankou Chicken.
Gold is quick to point this out, but being the helpful guy he is, also notes that the restaurant scenes were probably filmed at Sunnin in Westwood, a Lebanese joint. Of Zankou and Sunnin, Gold wryly says, "You will find the pro-Palestinian posters in neither restaurant."