Cafe owner asks: 'What would Mother reach for?'.

Byline: ON THE MENU By Randi Bjornstad The Register-Guard

Restaurant: Casablanca.

Owner: Ibrahim Hamide, who grew up in a Palestinian family in Bethlehem and still has close relatives there. His mother, "the best cook," served as his inspiration for much of the food he serves.

"When I try to create a dish, I think, oh, what did my mother reach for?" Hamide recalls. "When I was little, she played a game with me when she was cooking. I would watch, and she would tell me to bring the tumeric or the saffron, and that way I learned what she did."

Cuisine: Middle Eastern. "When I came here as a college student, there was no place that served this kind of food except for one little place near campus called Oasis, and then it disappeared," Hamide says. "I really missed the food, and there were enough people who said, 'Where can you get falafel, where can you get this or that?' that I decided I should open a restaurant." So he changed his major from pre-med to business, and he's been here ever since.

When he started Casablanca, Hamide assumed only Middle-Easterners would come to eat there, but 90 percent of his business is people with no connection to that part of the world.

"I'm always amazed how many people like it, how many people want this kind of food," he says.

Philosophy: Palate and passion. "Those are the two main ingredients for the restaurant business," Hamide says. "You have to know what you're doing and want to do it. If you can't dip a spoon in and know whether a taste is right or not, you're not going to have anyone's respect."

After all these years, it's passion for his little cafe - "It's my baby," Hamide says - that keeps it open. He also owns the upscale Cafe Soriah, with its more eclectic menu and sophisticated style, at 13th Avenue and Lawrence Street.

High rent, restricted hours and limited parking at the Fifth Street Public Market location limit Casablanca's profitability, "but I started it myself, and I have a crew that believes in it and works hard at it," he says. Not to mention a loyal following of up to 200 customers per day. But if it were purely a business decision, Hamide says, "I'd probably pull the plug."

Entrees: Lots of combinations. The menu offers four lamb, four chicken and four vegetarian dishes plus four salads and dips. Regular combination plates include one choice from the lamb, chicken and vegetarian list plus two from the salad/dip side. The Casablanca Special allows two plus two. There's also a choice of daily specials or soups, as well as several types of pocket sandwiches. Casablanca also has a refreshing Middle East-inspired beverage that Hamide calls "Majik," made with pomegranate, rosewater, tamarind and lemon.

Specialties: Chicken Gazza and Chicken Casablanca "are my own inventions," Hamide says. "That's part of the pleasure of running a restaurant. If you do the same thing day in and day out, you burn out. But if you have passion for what you do, it keeps inspiring you."

Price range: $7 for a combination plate, $9 for the Casablanca Special. The salads and dips - tabulah, cucumber and yogurt, and hummus - come in two sizes, for $4 or $5, with baba ghanouj at 25 cents more.

Decor: Plain but at the same time exotic, like slipping out of the crowd into a corner of a Middle Eastern bazaar. Despite its location on the "basement" level of a boutique shopping center, Casablanca feels secluded, with maize and terra cotta mosaic tile columns separating it from the rest of the scene.

Capacity: Cozy. The bar offers five spaces, with three other tables that each seat three. Overflow seating moves out into the shared part of the lower food court or even to the outside courtyard in good weather.

Serving hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week. "We're closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day," Hamide says.

Opened: 1981. "The restaurant was probably conceived about the same time as most of the guys (currently Silas, Eric and Tig) who work behind the counter," Hamide jokes.

Location: Fifth Street Public Market, lower level, 296 E. Fifth Ave.

Telephone: [phone].

Reservations: No.

Shared recipe: Falafel topped with tahini sauce, available as part of a combination plate, in a falafel pita sandwich - or as a stand-alone side dish for $1 apiece on the menu.

Casablanca's Falafel

4 cups dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans), soaked in water to soften

1 bunch parsley

1/2 medium white onion, cut into chunks

1/8 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons cumin 

2 tablespoons coriander 

1 tablespoon salt

3 cloves finely minced garlic

2 teaspoons purple sumac powder (available online)

Safflower or peanut oil

Soak the chickpeas for at least three hours but preferably overnight, until still crunchy but with no hard core when bitten. Drain well and set aside.

In a food processor, process the parsley first, then add the onion and finally the chickpeas, until the mixture is smooth. Add the pepper, cumin, coriander, salt, garlic and sumac powder and process again. Remove to a mixing bowl.

Pour safflower or peanut oil into a heavy pot, to a depth of 2 inches. Heat to about 375 degrees; a bit of the mixture dropped into the hot oil should sizzle immediately.

Form patties, using about 1/4 cup of mixture for each, or adjust size as desired. Cook in the oil a few at a time to prevent the temperature from dropping, until the outside forms a golden brown crust. Some cooks poke a hole through each patty with a straw or a chopstick to allow heat to penetrate to the interior of the patties.

Drain on paper towels before serving. Top with tahini sauce.

Makes about 2 dozen.

Tahini Sauce

1 cup tahini paste

1 bunch parsley

4 medium tomatoes, diced

1/4 cup lemon juice

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon salt

Put all ingredients into a blender or food processor, and mix until smooth. If too thin, add more tahini paste.

Makes about 2 1/2 cups.

CAPTION(S):

At Casablanca, a cafe in the Fifth Street Public Market, specialties of the house include falafel with tahini sauce (right), baba ghanouj and tabulah. Casablanca, tucked in a corner downstairs in the Fifth Street Public Market, has been a popular place for fans of Middle Eastern cuisine for almost 25 years. Paul Carter / The Register-Guard