Halleluia (Uzbek and Middle Eastern)

There's a diner in Montreal that describes its hashbrowns as 'God-like potatoes.' Well, there's another contender for that title in Halleluia. Their home-style potatoes seemed last night like the pinnacle of garlicky-buttery heaven. Perhaps the dill was the secret ingredient that kept us saying, "OK, just one more," until the plate had only one golden, starchy chunk left on it to feebly testify that we weren't complete gluttons.

It seems wrong to rave about a side dish when there were many other delights to this modest resto tucked into the side of a strip mall. The menu is a mix of Middle Eastern with a Greekish influence and several 'Uzbekian' specialties. Lots of Levantine spreads, salads and fish on offer.

We started with a flavourful eggplant salad, and Uzbek samsa, a meat-and-onion-filled pastry with a mildish hot sauce on the side. Mains included another Uzbek dish, manti. These hearty lamb dumplings are wrapped, as our charming waitress described it, like a diaper. That is to say, these dumplings are bigger and bit more loosely wrapped than their Far Eastern counterparts. Our other plate was a whole batter-encrusted trout laced with garlic. It was crisp and not terribly greasy considering it had likely taken a quick bath in a deep fryer.

There was also entertainment - quirky, but obviously meant to fit the mixed-ethnicity menu and clientele. A woman with a synthesizer crooned soft-rock classics in English and folk songs in Russian, then threw a smattering of Hebrew into her between-song banter.

Dinner for two $40 plus tip

Halleluia Restaurant
2150 Steeles Ave. W. (1 set of lights E. of Keele St.)
Concord, Ont. L4K 2Y7
905-738-4492

Second location at 870 Eglington Ave. W at Bathurst