Thursday, December 21, 2006

Dining and Dancing

We recently went to Kan Zeman Restaurant in Palo Alto and had some Mediterranean cuisine after a long time. Its situated right on University Avenue(with parking conveniently nearby) and is a good place for a night of dining and (belly) dancing.

The restaurant has a good vegetarian selection, which is an important criterion for any restaurant we go to. I had the Vegetarian Magluba, which was really tasty and not too heavy either. My wife had the Falafel Plate while Kavya started with some yummy Lentil Soup and then had a bit of both our entrée’s. We wrapped up dinner with some very tasty Baklava.

They have belly dancing every night and though the restaurant is not very spacious and the dancer had to squeeze herself between the tables, she put on a good show. Kavya and her friend (who was responsible for Kavya not being her usual, shy self) joined the dancer and repeated some of her moves with the other patrons cheering. It was really cute watching the two of them on the floor. Karthik, for his part, never took his eyes off the dancer the entire time she was on the floor. I guess her colorful dress and the clinking of her jalras really caught his attention. He started crying if she came too close but otherwise was completely enraptured by her. It came to the point where some of the patrons were looking at him rather than the dancer and laughing at the way he was staring at her(his perennial drooling didn’t help matters either!).

All in all, a fun night for the entire family...

15 Comments:

At 12:54 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

.. And here I was thinking, belly dancing wasn't for a family audience!!!..

Just wondering, was this is family friendly belly dancing (where the dancer clothed herself fully) or just the regular belly dancing?

We had a discussion recently where somehow we ended up talking about whether belly dancing can be considered family friendly or not... and boom, you write something about going with your entire family to see it as part of your Mediterranean dine out.

Now, I'd guess you probably find it more family friendly than I would! :-) ;-)

 
At 5:46 AM, Blogger rads said...

that's cool. We have a Maharani in our neighborhood with belly dancers, but it's hugely upscale and folks who've been there say it's kid-friendly.

Bringing bellies mainstream I suppose ;-)

 
At 5:46 AM, Blogger rads said...

uh, I meant belly-dancing, not just bellies!!

 
At 10:43 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sandya, have seen a lot of indian families come with their parents too for this one. Its surely family friendly, and other than dancing..she usually does stunts such a balancing a sword in the kondai etc which is quite entertaining.

 
At 11:43 AM, Blogger mitr_bayarea said...

Balaji-

Kan Zeman is one of our favorite restaurants, although the food is not too great compared to some other Mediterranean places, we love the ambience and the belly dancing. Both Karthik and I thoroughly enjoy eating there on Saturday nights.

 
At 12:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

good place. Ive been there once and also remember nearly killing my then fiance, now husband for dancing too closely with her out of his own free will. So..we decided that for my husband's survival we wont go there again ;)

 
At 5:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Belly dancing is a very beautiful dance. I took up belly dancing last year @ uni. My friend and I couldn't move any parts of us adn felt quite ashamed cuz we considered ourselves very good dancers. *big sigh*.

That's cute about Karthik watching the dancer with amazement.. I did the samethign when my teacher danced, wow can that lady move!

Oh by teh way.. the "jalras", they call it "Zills" =). I have a pair! But I could never dance and jingufy the zills at the sametime. LOL!

~Merino

 
At 8:55 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

whoa merino.....i thought u were a guy? can guys belly dance too?

 
At 12:10 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

his perennial drooling didn’t help matters either!

--> pulikku porandhadhu poonai aagumaa!!!! ;-) ;-)

 
At 9:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why does this website have 'thots' everywhere? You do realise it's spelt 'thoughts', right?

 
At 11:09 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

anon; what gave you the idea that i was a dude?

and yes.. guys do take bellydancing... we had 1 guy in our bellydancing class, gotta give the guy some credit for trying! :)

~Merino

 
At 9:12 AM, Blogger Swamy Srinivasan aka Kittu Mama said...

ennadhu belly dancing aa. adaengappa..super night daan ponga sir :)

 
At 9:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

sorry...my bad merino...ur name sounds a bit dudish, so i assumed....sorry again....but now that i think about it, it could be a girl too.....:)

 
At 11:31 PM, Blogger Balaji said...

sandya, i've been to other places with belly dancing b4 but wouldn't consider those family-friendly. but the atmosphere here was different and the dancing too was decent. so would definitely call this place family-friendly.

rads, this place wasnt too upscale

s, this same place? no stunts like that on the night we were there :(

mitr, maybe cos we havent had mediterranean cuisine in a while we really enjoyed the food. so will surely be back. maybe we'll run into u guys :)

vidhya, lol. in our house it was karthik who did all the ogling :)

merino, zills huh? good to learn something :)

ram, expected somebody to make that comment... or "appaakku thappaama porandhirukkaan" :)

anon, yes i do... just using the IM shorthand notation :)

kittu, yes it was :)

 
At 8:22 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

As someone who is not a big fan of nonveg items I usually find my options limited, however, middle eastern and thai food really cater to veg and non-veg alike. You should also be on the look out for Thai places in your area.

 

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