The Belly Dancing Cafe on Woodward in Ridgewood. — Photo by Kevin Armento

Southwest Ridgewood boasts a fantastic showing of flavors Ecuadorian and Peruvian, as well as a few more general joints con sabor Latino. But rare in the neighborhood, insofar as this writer has explored, is a source of authentic Mediterranean: hummus, chicken and sun dried tomato pizza, falafel plates, leg of lamb. Still rarer? Neighborhood hookah bar. Rarest of all? A venue for live belly dancing.

These rarities on their own would make for three very welcomed additions to the Greater Bushwick culinary and social scene, but what would you say to one place that can claim all three? If you are like me, you wouldn’t have time to say anything at all; you’d already be out the door.

And not long after, we’d meet at the Belly Dancing Cafe, a hidden little jewel of a place that transports New Yorkers daily to a pseudo-Egyptian wonderland. The place is not extravagant, mind you, but then we are not looking for the Disney treatment. The vibrant wall-paintings, couch-like bench seating, and exotic scents should satisfy our imagination’s prerequisites for indulging this journey, and soon after being handed the extensive menu, we ought to be focused on selecting a dish or two anyway (or perhaps three — they’re very reasonably priced). We’ll sit back (or maybe you and a friend will enjoy a game of pool in the back corner) and think over our hookah selection. Are we in the mood for fruit? Mint? No, it’s our first time here, so we go with the neighborhood special: “Ridgewood” flavor.

One of us looks over at the bar (no alcohol yet, but that changes this week) and sees a monster of a hookah sitting atop the counter. It must be about five feet tall! We get the attention of our server, Sam, and ask him what the giant pipe is about. He explains that the size allows for a smoother smoke (yes, this prompts one person in our imaginary group to make the unavoidable remark that in hookah, size does matter…). Sensing our curiosity, Sam asks if we’d like to try it. Would we?! He carefully hoists the beautiful monster over the bar, and sets it on the floor in front of us. We ask if he’d like to join us for a hit or two, and we pass the nozzle around, intermittently scooping up hummus as we talk about…(I’ll leave you there).

But where is the belly dancing? For that, we must come back this Saturday night (April 11), when the Belly Dancing Cafe gets its liquor license and the dancing commences. Fair warning though: if you’re interested in smoking out of the hookah behemoth, make sure you get there early, because you’ll have to beat me to it.

Belly Dancing Cafe
476 Woodward Avenue | 718-456-7770

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