Salam, he likes ’em!
Borough President Adams honored Brooklyn’s outstanding Arab Americans at a ceremony at Borough Hall on April 28, including celebrated Bay Ridge restaurateur and chef Rawia Bishara, owner of Third Avenue’s Tanoreen. Bishara plans to frame the citation and proudly hang it in her restaurant, but the true honor is that Brooklynites line up to dine at her table, she said.
“I feel very proud and it’s a honor to get it from the borough president,” she said. “We have also been honored for 17 years by our customers — this is the big honor.”
Bishara’s culinary roots go back to Nazareth in northern Israel, where she grew up eating — and learning to prepare — her mother’s creative takes on traditional local dishes. She moved to Bay Ridge in the mid-1970s and took her mom’s cookbook with her, first serving dishes to family and friends before opening Tanoreen with a handful of tables and a small menu in 1998.
Word quickly spread of Bishara’s prowess though and soon she regularly had lines of hungry patrons out the door, including Borough President Adams’ predecessor Marty Markowitz, she said. She moved Tanoreen to its current home on 76th Street in 2009 and released her first cookbook, “Olives, Lemons, & Za’atar: The Best Middle Eastern Home Cooking,” in 2014.
And attendees got to try Bishara’s famous eats — the restaurateur served lamb kibbeh, spinach pies, and hummus during the party alongside fare from Brooklyn eateries Le Sajj, Damascus Bakeries, Karam Restaurant, Oriental Pastry and Grocery, Yemen Cafe, and Li-lac Chocolates.
The Beep also honored Lebanese percussionist and composer Michel Merhej Baklouk and Arab American Family Support Center board treasurer Assad Jebara. Comedian Dean Obeidallah gave a keynote speech and Egyptian ambassador Ahmed Farouk closed out the night.
