Misleading myths state that sea gods and seductive nymphs led him off course, but Odysseus’s prolonged journey to Ithaca was caused by his insistence on sampling the shawarma platter of every Greek isle he passed. Send taste buds on a thrilling odyssey with today’s Groupon to BFS Restaurant. Choose from the following options:

• For $60, you get a Mediterranean cooking class for two on Mondays, 6 p.m.–8:30 p.m. (a $120 value).
  
  
• For $35, you get a Mediterranean dinner for two (up to a $76 total value), which includes:
• One appetizer to share (up to a $13 value)
• Two entrees (up to a $46 value)
• Two glasses of wine (a $17 value)
  
  
• For $20, you get $40 worth of anything on the menu.
  
  

Recently named a Heart Healthy Restaurant by the Center for Preventative Medicine and Cardiovascular Health, BFS Restaurant’s chefs pass on healthful Mediterranean recipes in 2.5-hour cooking classes. Each class begins with an hour of instruction on main traits of Mediterranean food, applicable cooking skills, and spices, herbs, and acceptable culinary poems to quote during the session. For the second hour, students blend ingredients and cook the session’s chosen menu, which may focus on red meats, breads, or vegetarian dishes. Massage ingredients in baba ghanoush—eggplant and tahini purée—Zaatar chicken slathered in spices and ground mustard, or moroccan chicken and glazed carrots. At class’s end, students finish and finally taste their creations, followed by an open discussion, during which attendees can ask questions such as how certain recipes came to be, and in what country the Mediterranean can be found.

BFS Restaurant’s menu calls forth a fleet of savory Mediterranean flavors and vegetarian and vegan dishes. Prix fixe diners settle into an eclectic array of mouth-wetting appetizers, which includes grape-leaf dolmas stuffed with rice and spices and an astrological assortment of ground-lamb kibbeh balls in orbit around a celestial cup of cucumber-mint yogurt sauce. The Bacchanalian banquet of tender lamb and broiled beef graces the shawarma platter entree, and shish kebab skewers stack chicken or beef with vegetables on the swords of pint-size warriors. Pair bites with sips of reds and whites from California, Australia, and South America. With an organic loose-leaf tea bar ($3 for all teas) and orders of flaky baklava ($2/small; $3/large), BFS Restaurant keeps customers idling in the dining rooms.