If humankind never learned to play with its food, it would never have learned to play with its ingredients, and the world would be one bereft bowl of gruel. Taste the fruits of culinary creativity with today's Groupon: for $15, you get $30 worth of Mediterranean cuisine at Casablanca Bar & Grill in Claremont.
Within a former lemon-packing house, Casablanca Bar & Grill's chefs season heaping portions of kebabs, seafood, and salads with authentic Mediterranean spices to be enjoyed indoors among hanging ivy and gilt-framed paintings or on a spacious outdoor patio. The classic golden-brown chickpeas of falafel ($6) or the pan-cooked jumbo scallops served atop eggplant ($19) flood taste buds with flavor.
Owners of omnivorous palates can satiate cravings with an entire lamb shank, evenly cooked and bedazzled with garlic sauce and pine nuts ($16), or savor the faraway flavors of the beef shish kebab, skewered, marinated, and grilled filet-mignon brochettes as tender as a child's dream to become a princess who becomes a pro-wrestling superstar ($17). The clinking of coins emitting from belly-dancing hip scarves drifts into the audial canals of diners every Friday night as belly dancers drift between tables, performing scintillating movements.
Casablanca Bar & Grill
Housed in a former lemon warehouse, Casablanca Bar & Grill fills spacious eating areas with the aromas of piquant Mediterranean cuisine. Chefs skewer beef, chicken, shrimp, and lamb kebabs and sauté seafood such as scallops and frog legs. Tender falafel balls can be dunked into tahini sauce or rolled across white tablecloths into the mouth of a dinner companion.
Live entertainment at Casablanca Bar & Grill engages eyes as well as mouths. On Friday nights, belly dancers swivel their hips as they weave through wisps of smoke from flavored hookahs. Paintings in ornate gilt frames keep watch over the festivities, and an outside wooden deck lets diners watch the sky for menu recommendations spelled out in clouds.