Casa la Femme

The dazzling Casa La Femme—now in its third incarnation—fully embraces the Middle Eastern fantasy cliche. Thankfully, it’s still a lot of fun: The interior is exotic and opulent (note the private tented tables), and a bellydancer wiggles through the dining room at 9:15 every night. Sophisticated Egyptian fare includes charred chicken skewers, sprinkled with sumac and speared with rosemary and lemon; moussaka is a spicy casserole piled with tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. For dessert there’s kunefa—delicate strands of crispy phyllo nestling vanilla custard—but another puff of a hookah pipe is just as pleasant a finale.