Omaha Standard : M’s Pub’s Lahvosh
There is a history of civilization that is only discoverable through the dogged and deft perusal of restaurant menus. The forgone lists of the things we once served each other for lunch are supreme fodder for the culinary anthropologist. I am not so learned to engage in such a pursuit.
But I do love me some lahvosh from M’s Pub. There is no telling when it first arrived on the menu. Although my gut tells me that it was sometime after the fabled Carrot Dog that I have yet to muster the gumption to try, I have no recollection of a time when lahvosh was not on the menu. Neither did the two M’s servers, or former M’s chef that I spoke with during my obviously exhaustive research for this article. No matter its inception date, the lahvosh at M’s has impressive tenure—long enough to make the culinary anthropologist in me wonder about Omahans’ general fear of trying something new in relation to their fiercely loyal spirit.
M’s lahvosh is a hybrid of the classic Tex-Mex nachos and the hyper-popular gourmet pizza trend of the 80’s temples like Spago in LA. Speaking of temples, while there is some debate as to whether the Armenian Flatbread Cracker used as the base for M’s creation is indeed Armenian-style lahvosh as the menu indicates or if it is more closely related to the Turkish cracker bread called mysteriously “yukfa”, there is no debate over the popularity and deliciousness of M’s constructions. I guess here is where I meant to say “speaking of temples”, both of these unleavened breads share sacred space in the Eucharist traditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
[Editor’s note: the aforementioned “debate” is mostly limited to Chef O’Malley’s head, as we here at Food & Spirits Magazine have never heard such malarkey:]
My personal favorite is the Thai: loaded with havarti cheese, grilled chicken, tomatoes, scallions, peanuts, basil, cilantro and Thai pepper sauce. I pick off some of the cilantro and my wife asks for more sauce. It costs twelve bucks, but easily feeds two. There are several other varieties: Vegetarian, Seafood, Florentine, The Original, Cheeseburger, Chicken Caesar, and Sicilian. All worthwhile in their own right, except cheeseburger which just sounds weird and is not possibly better than the Thai or an actual regular cheeseburger from M’s. M’s Pub is one of the flagship restaurants in the Omaha scene: displaying incredible longevity, upholding quality, breeding chefs into the community like rabbits, and single-handedly elevating the lowly nacho/funky pizza into an Omaha Standard.
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