From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published September 21, 2007 Jamila’s 2$ Riverbend: 7806 Maple 866-4366 Lunch and Dinner Tues.-Sun. AE MC V Tunisian. The front room looks as if a Middle Eastern restaurant moved into a former barbecue house. Rough wood paneling, covered with posters from Tunisia. The ceiling begs you to believe you are looking into a blue sky with a few puffy clouds. No two light fixtures match, although they look like they're from the same part of the world. Tunisia had three major influences in its modern history. For centuries it was part of the Ottoman Empire, which lends its food a Middle Eastern quality. It was later under French control, and picked up some of those flavors and techniques. Finally, it picked up Moroccan dishes and ingredients. Moncef and Jamila Sbaa grew up with all this. After working in a number of New Orleans restaurants, he opened this place, 16 years ago. From that day to this, the couple and their children have been most of the staff, with Moncef in the dining room and Jamila in the kitchen. The kitchen has become more ambitious over the years. The plate of steamed mussels, for example. It comes in an incomparably delicious broth of the mussels' own juices, butter, onions, garlic, and herbs. If you don't get mussels, think about the fish soup called "chorba." This is a mildly spicy soup with a variety of shellfish, thickened with chickpeas. Very good in cold weather. The appetizer called brik is reminiscent of Greek cheese pies, folded up inside phyllo pastry, but the sauce and the filling seem very French to me. They make brik here with shrimp, crawfish, tuna, and a few other things, and the sauce is on the buttery side. Do not miss merguez. A sausage of lamb and beef or veal, it has a dense texture and a significant spice level. They grill it and work it into a number of dishes here, including an appetizer of the sausage on its own. It's so well made that it comes as a surprise that Jamila makes it on premises, from scratch. The signature entree in Northern Africa is couscous. The standard version is a pasta made into tiny grains about the size of grits, steamed over a boiling pot of stock with savory herbs. It's combined with lamb, chicken, fish, and/or vegetables; I've never had a bad one here. It's almost absurdly healthy to eat, even though after eating it you may be as full as you have been in a long while.    Jamila's produces a great mixed grill platter, containing a lamb chop, a chicken breast, a link of merguez, a beef kebab, and a few other items. Very filling and good at about $20, which is as expensive as this menu gets. Also on the grill is a whole fish, different species every day, served what tastes to me a lot like the romesco sauce of Spain. As Middle Eastern food has become better known to Orleanians, Jamila's has added a few items along the lines of kebabs, roasted leg of lamb with herbs, and hummus. There's also a very French steak au poivre. All of this is accompanied by a better wine list than we usually encounter in extreme ethnic restaurants. Moncef, as busy as he is, always keeps the service flowing--although there are times when Jamila starts carrying the food from the line to the table herself. Desserts include baklava, makhroud (a sort of rough-skinned Fig Newton, with dates instead of figs), and tiramisu. They can serve a decorated plate of all three desserts for a couple of people. That's the best ending of all.   This was a restaurant in the 2007 Top Sixty Ethnic Restaurant Countdown. To view the entire list, click here. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.