Sunnin Lebanese Café

It's no stretch to say that Em Toni makes the best kibbeh maqliyeh around. What, you may ask, is kibbeh? The Lebanese specialty is a walnut-sized torpedo-shaped meatball of lamb and bulgur ground to a paste, filled with browned meat, onions and pine nuts and deep-fried. The trick is to make the crust as thin as it can be without breaking up as it fries. Many a Lebanese teenager has cried herself to sleep because she hasn't mastered this exacting skill.

Em Toni has, though. Toni first surfaced at Al Amir Restaurant on Wilshire; when it closed in 1996, she opened her own place in Westwood, where she still makes much of the kibbeh (she's semiretired now, and her children make the rest). Made from beef rather than lamb, it's a top-notch version. Sunnin's kibbeh plate has four pieces with a bit of hummus and turnip pickle on the side.