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The Spinoff
29-05-2025
- The Spinoff
The secret history of Wellington's most legendary falafel spot
Fighting on the streets of Beirut, recipes written on scraps of paper and a daring escape from near-certain death: the story of how Phoenician Falafel got its menu. Table Service is a column about food and hospitality in Wellington, by Nick Iles. Wellington, 2025. A menu, handwritten high up on the wall above the kitchen. Yellow, red and green on a black background. Traditional Lebanese dishes. Baba ghannouj, shawarma, makanek, kibbi. Behind the counter, Yolanda Assaf cooks orders with homemade ingredients as the noise of the busy junction outside fills the space. Beirut, the summer of 1958. While resting on the colourfully tiled floor of his living room, a seven-year-old Antoine 'Tony' Assaf looked up to see a bullet tear through the whitewashed walls of his home. His family gathered low in the middle of the room, all desperately praying that they would survive. The army outside was relentless in their attack; one shot came so close to a neighbour's head that it left a permanent scar. It was the first time young Tony had ever heard gunfire. Tony spent most of his childhood on the streets of Beirut exploring and adventuring among the fallen columns and ruins of civilisations past. Most days, he would arrive home from school only to throw his bag through the front door and leave immediately in search of more excitement. An entrepreneur at a young age, he used money he had cobbled together to buy up boxes of bright, individually wrapped bubble gum on the cheap before selling the contents on to the boys of the neighbourhood at five times the cost – until his mother caught him at it. The business was liquidated at once, and he was left looking for other forms of entertainment. Due to his keen sense of justice, this often meant fighting, looking out for the weaker ones being picked on and getting stuck in on their behalf. Before long, his reputation grew, and the other boys in his neighbourhood were told to stop playing with him. He was officially trouble. Behind the counter, Yola cooks the falafel in a traditional circular pan. Lined up neatly around the perimeter, they're fried so the edges turn lacy and crisp, delicate shards pointing in all directions. She assembles a heated wrap with pickles, tomato and homemade hummus. It is set to one side as she finishes the order. It was on New Year's Eve of 1961 that life got more serious. When walking across town to visit his uncle, Tony accidentally found himself in the middle of an attempted coup. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party had cut the military's communication lines and besieged the ministry of defence in an attempted hostile takeover. It lasted barely four hours and is a footnote in Lebanon's complex history, but it left a deep mark on Tony. He became politically motivated and devoured the newspapers every day. He wanted to make sure people were safe. It was with this full heart and strong head that he enlisted at the age of 20, but it was a short-lived military career. Within three months he realised the subservient life was not one for him; a superior officer tried to push him around and he responded in the only way he knew how. Tony was swiftly sent to military prison for a short sentence. Yola shapes the beef of the makanek, a kind of Levantine sausage, by hand and throws it leftwards on the flattop to cook. She heats a wrap and generously spreads the hummus, adds a fistful of homemade gherkins and fresh tomato. Three fat makanek are lined up on top, and the whole thing is wrapped. In 1975, Tony became engaged to Yola; they had known each other since they were children, and in 1977 were married. They were very much in love, but those early years were set against the gunfire and bloodshed of the Lebanese Civil War. Over the next 15 years, they raised four children while their neighbourhood was a near-constant battlefield. Tony did what most men in his area did: he joined the resistance and fought to keep his family and community safe. Late in the conflict, rival forces put a bounty on his head, making a public order for his capture. It was a death sentence. He was forced into hiding and plotted a plan to escape. Food would be his means of survival. He moved through the city quietly, calling in favours from those he trusted. In secret, he made his way to the best falafel seller in town and asked for his recipe, then to the best shawarma place, and then to the man who shaped and spiced the best makanek. They knew him. They loved him. They helped. Within weeks, he had a pocketful of recipes, all scribbled by hand and all of the best Beirut had to offer. In 1995, Tony, Yolanda and the whole family boarded a flight to Aotearoa and settled in Pōneke. Tony carried two precious items: that stack of handwritten recipes and a $100 BBC English language cassette tape programme. This was his lifeline to the new country he was about to encounter. He hid himself away in his apartment and studied. Eight tapes and several months later, he stepped out into Wellington with his newly acquired tongue. Before long, he had secured the deeds to the bricks and mortar he would call home for the next 28 years, 11 Kent Terrace. He wrote the menu high up on the wall that first week. It remains unchanged to this day. It is in this space and up those stairs that Tony and Yola still make every last element from scratch from the recipes written down in their previous lives in Beirut: the hummus, the baba ghannouj, all the pickles and garlic thoum. They even grind their own tahini from seed. Yola calls my name, and I am summoned to collect my falafel and makanek, both wrapped tightly in silver foil and presented on small blue plastic trays. They focus on quality ingredients, only using corn-fed chicken and lamb fillet for their shawarma and premium topside beef for their makanek. Spices of the Levant course through the beef, vast plains of aromatics and nuance: nutmeg, cumin, paprika. The falafel is at once delicate yet firm, light but with meaning. It is laced with those familiar spices that all take their turns appearing before making way for others: cardamom, cinnamon and more. Both in a flatbread with decadent hummus, thoum, tomato and crisp lettuce for texture. That menu, with so much more to explore, is a direct portal to Beirut in the early 1990s. It is one that has come so far and will continue its journey with their son Elie Assaf at his Auckland shop, Lebanese Grocer. It is a menu that tells just one of the many stories of Yola, Tony and their whole family. A piece of history written down by hand, wrapped tightly in foil and before us all now in this faraway country.
LBCI
27-03-2025
- Politics
- LBCI
Speaker Berri discusses Lebanon's challenges with UN and SSNP, emphasizing unity and reconstruction
Lebanese Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri received the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, at the Presidential Palace in Ain al-Tineh. During the meeting, they discussed the developments in the general situation, political updates, and field developments, particularly in light of Israel's continued attacks, occupation of parts of southern Lebanese territory, and violations of U.N. Resolution 1701 and the ceasefire agreement. Berri also met with former Minister and head of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, Asaad Hardan, who was accompanied by a delegation. They discussed the current developments in Lebanon and the broader region. After the meeting, Hardan stated: "We met with Berri in these circumstances to reaffirm our position and reading regarding his stance on both the national and regional situations. On the national front, our party greatly appreciates the Speaker's approach to all the crises Lebanon has faced and continues to face, as well as his wisdom, patriotism, and sense of responsibility in reinforcing national unity and civil peace in Lebanon.'' He added, ''We all agree on the fundamentals of how to face aggression, its impact on the south and Lebanon, and the right to reconstruction, which is the right of all Lebanese citizens and a responsibility of the state and officials." He emphasized that these positions are consistent with Berri's views, especially concerning the parliamentary elections, electoral law, and the belief that the law should unite the Lebanese rather than divide them. He criticized the current state of Lebanon, which he described as fostering sectarianism instead of national unity. Hardan called for a reduction in the confrontational rhetoric in the country, which he said is inciting Israeli aggression and undermining Lebanese unity. "The Lebanese should stand united in the face of aggression and its consequences on Lebanon," he stated.
Saba Yemen
22-03-2025
- Politics
- Saba Yemen
SNP condemns continued US aggression against Yemen
SNP condemns continued US aggression against Yemen Facebook Facebook Whatsapp Whatsapp Telegram Telegram Email Email Print Print [Sat, 22 Mar 2025 13:14:05 +0300]Damascus - Saba:The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SNP) condemned the US aggression against Yemen, considering it a full-fledged crime that involves legitimizing terrorism and committing massacres against humanity."We strongly condemn the continuation of the barbaric US aggression on the Yemeni capital Sana'a and many provinces," the statement issued by the party's media dean, Maan Hamia, party's statement added that this blatant aggression against Yemen is in the context of the policies of arrogance and criminality pursued by the United States to subjugate countries and peoples that resist terrorism and stand for the right in the face of occupation and statement emphasized that "Yemen stands by the side of our people in Palestine and supports them in the face of Zionist aggression, a position that should be taken by all countries, especially those that claim to defend human rights and claim to respect international , humanitarian conventions and laws, because what the Zionist enemy is doing is a war of extermination ,described crimes against our people in Gaza , Palestine, and the whole world must assume its responsibilities to stop this continuous extermination."The SNP statement stressed that "the US aggression against Yemen, the destruction of its facilities and the killing of its people, gives the Zionist enemy an open license to continue its crimes and massacres against the Palestinians and its aggression against Lebanon and the Levant.""This confirms that the United States is a primary sponsor of all massacres and terrorist crimes against our people, and is working to stabilize the global unilateralism system by liquidating just causes, subjugating free peoples, and threatening countries that believe that maintaining international peace and security requires a new multipolar world," according to the statement concluded by noting that "the whole world, and all of humanity, is facing a serious challenge, represented by the project of American hegemony and arrogance, for which the Zionist enemy, with its criminality and racism, is the main tool. Therefore, confronting this dangerous project requires international condemnation of the Zionist-American aggression and the massacres committed, rejection of the plans of liquidation, displacement , subjugation, support for the resistance of our people and all peoples struggling to liberate their land from occupation and hegemony."
Asharq Al-Awsat
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
On Violence, What Precedes It, and What Follows
The events that transpired on the Syrian coast were triggered by a terrorist operation at the hands of "remnants" of the deposed regime. However, it quickly morphed into something else, something much bigger that raises a series of pressing questions about our lives and our politics: How can we deal with grudges and vengeful tendencies? How should we approach the social contract in a pluralistic society? And how can we prevent extremist ideas and their proponents from taking over and shaping decisions? In addition, it seems that another issue these painful events have reintroduced: how violence and nonchalance toward violence shape our lives. There is no doubt that we are deeply inclined to fall into the illusion of controlling violence, of restricting it to one place and leaving it out of another, of using it here and abating it there, and thus of steering it to serve the ends that we believe to be righteous. This inclination is often exploited to rationalize violence, while our mainstream political culture encourages us to embrace this delusion. For decades before Islamist movements eliminated all metaphoric interpretations of "jihad," Levantine parties like the "Syrian Social Nationalist Party" and the "Arab Nationalist Movement," influenced by European fascism, had idealized the use of force. Martiniquais physician Frantz Fanon, as a result of his enthusiasm for Algeria and its revolution, taught us that violence against the colonizer is a form of therapy that cleanses the psyche of the oppressed. With the Iranian Revolution of 1979, a new theory flourished: Khomeini had precipitated a major shift by channeling ritualistic violence, which had been directed inward, toward "imperialism and its stooge the Shah." And whenever an Arab country is rattled by domestic instability, there is always someone there to lecture us and insist that we ought to direct our rifles at "the Zionist enemy." However, it seems that, relatively quickly, these teachings were proven spectacularly misguided. Algeria, despite having been "cleansed" by its "million martyrs," was not spared a long and costly civil war that saw Algerians killing Algerians. And every jump Khomeini's Iran made in its fanaticism against imperialism did nothing but aggravate self-directed ritualistic violence. As for the "Zionist enemy," at no time have civil wars and intra-Arab disputes flourished like they have when our rifles had ostensibly been directed at the Zionists. Violence, in this sense, resembles the unruly forces of nature that pre-philosophy philosophers believed to be the source and root-cause of the world. That is, contrary to its architects' claims, we cannot control the forms and trajectories violence takes; we have just about as much control over it as the movements and trajectories of air, fire, and water. As for the (correct) claim that violence had been at the center of our lives in the past, this is not a compelling reason to grant it a central role in our future. Accepting it as the inevitable "vehicle of history," simply because it had been so in the past, amounts to considering ourselves passive inertia in the face of violence - an inertia that benefits from neither civilization, nor progress, nor experience. Moreover, since we are weak and lack any lever of power, all that violent ideologies do is compensate for our weakness by spreading an illusion of strength. The only material translation of this illusion is the circulation of the supposed force among ourselves. Overwhelmed with frustration by the clash between our imaginary world - where battles and victorious warriors define history- and the reality of our defeats, we delude ourselves once again, becoming convinced that we can overcome our frustration with more violence that, this time around, will surely do us justice and deliver an unequivocal victory. It is true that we have had peaceful political movements in our modern history. Egypt's Wafd Party may have been the first to launch one with its revolution in 1919. The first Palestinian Intifada of 1987 was also largely peaceful, as were the early days of the Arab Spring before they were crushed by force. However, violent means would always eventually take hold, especially since we have never had any truly consequential peaceful movements. Thus, our lives have never been drained of sources of violence, while politics was marginalized, freedom of expression was stifled, and justice for victims was denied. We have never managed to distinguish between allegiance to an idea and allegiance to a community, nor to prevent one ideological allegiance's victory over another from turning into a victory of one community over another. We have never made serious efforts to reconcile our support for an idea with tests of the others' will or their capacity to endure the consequences of the victory of our idea. As for the worship of power and the monopolization of righteousness, both have become ingrained through a variety of mediums, some old and modernized, others modern and spiritually drowning in antiquity. Through a fusion of these mediums with a conspiratorial worldview that has mastered the craft of associating evil with foes that never change, power and resistance are presented as our destiny and only option. With toxic slogans like "a war of existence, not a war of borders" and "never humanize the enemy," the door to tolerance between two sides of a conflict is closed shut, pushing everyone to firmly identify with their organic and sectarian background - identification that is more suited to genocidal violence than anything else. The fact is that no cause justifies arbitrary violence. And now, with the immense opportunity that has presented itself to the peoples of Syria and Lebanon, both the victors and the vanquished, the choice might be clearer than ever before. We can choose either politics and justice or force that leads to savagery and turns potential new beginnings into conclusive endings.
