Andrew Coppolino's 5 local food surprises of 2019

Narrowing down a few "good" dishes out of a whole year of delicious food is a difficult task, sohere are some of the most pleasant surprises I had in 2019.

All five I would easily eat again.

• Top food stories from K-W in 2019, from Andrew Coppolino

Shakshuka

I am declaring shakshuka my surprise dish of the past year. Shakshuka is a pan-cultural food with roots in Syrian, Israeli, Italian (where there's a dish called "uova in purgatorio"), as well as Indian cuisine.

Just check out the "eggs for dinner isn't weird" TV commercial on YouTube or Alton Brown's "Good Eats" to see it in action.

The simple combination of tomatoes, peppers, spices and poached eggs made it into several local restaurants, from Naranj Blossom in the Kitchener Market (where I first tasted it) to Red House Uptown, and even as a special feature in a pumpkin at Arabella Park Beer Bar.

You can also find the decidedly rustic dish at Naranj Blossomand Nanaz Kitchen in north Waterloo.

Jacket Potato

Jacket potatoes are another pan-cultural favourite. Andyou don't need to look any further than the improbably named iPotato in University Plaza to try a local take on this global street food.

A baked Idaho Russet loaded with sour cream, bacon and green onions is probably familiar to aficionados of North American steak houses. But restaurateur Hassen Shinwary of iPotato tells me the baked potato is also a roadside snack in Turkey and Germany, as well as England (from which he imported a quaint little counter-top oven for roasting).

At iPotato you can load yours with shawarma, topped with pickled turnips, cucumbers, cheese, tomatoes and some spicy mayo; or if you prefer, you can go the vegetarian route (which can weigh as much as a pound).

You're not likely to find a baked potato like thisin many other places.

Haleem

Indian restaurants dot the region's culinary landscape.

There are small mom-and-pop places tucked into nondescript plazas and larger venues with buffets that serve familiar flavours, spices and textures.

Though one type of curry I ate at Urwa's Pakistani and Indian Cuisine was truly unique.

Haleem is a beef curry found in northern India and Pakistan, made with dhal and lentils and spices. The mildly spiced dish is stewed down, creating a surprising, gelatinous mouthfeel like a porridge or fine polenta that is unusual but not unpleasant.

It's best eaten by scooping it up with pieces of nice warm naan.

Egyptian Bread Pudding

Nanaz Kitchen on Weber Street in Waterloo makes Middle Eastern food in a hard-to-find location tucked back off the road.

If you can't spot it at first, keep trying. Your persistence will pay off.

The cauliflower fritters and falafel are excellent. As is an eggplant salad with walnuts and pomegranate.

But the bread pudding was another significant 2019 discovery for me.

A variation of Umm Ali ("Ali's mother"), the creamy, milky dish is a few centuries' old and has variations around the Mediterranean.

This version, "Umm Hamza," is Egyptian.

Chef-owner Nansi Aburaneh says she combines almonds, pistachios, walnuts with milk, sugar and a fresh cream called kishta. The bread component, like a North American bread pudding, is phyllo and croissant for some crispy texture.

She adds whipped cream and gives it a blast under the broiler for a few moments. The result is a delicious, warming dish that's both both sweet and savoury and milkier than bread pudding you may have had before.

Shingleesh

Decades ago, on CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada" there used to be an advertisement for Kraft cheese balls, studded with toasted pecans.

These are not those.

Mashawi Charcoal Grill and Shawarma's cheese balls were a surprise I enjoyed late in 2019.

Brother and sister co-owners Abdul and Lina Alzahal don't use Kraft cream cheese. Instead, they cook down salted yogurt to make shingleesh. The "mezze" appetizer is packed with red pepper, salt and pepper and herbs like za'atar.

It ages for 24 hours and is served cold with cucumber, red onion and tomato, all to be eaten with wonderfully fresh crispy-chewy saj bread.

A delicious vegetarian snack, Abdul says the best drink pairing is a cup of tea.

A resolution for 2020

Be open to new food experiences. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by what you discover.