Mediterranean and Arabic Kitchen

5930 Bellaire @ Mullins

I had noticed this new truck several times, right across from Honduras Maya Grill, and today was the day to stop and try it out.  I thought I would go blind standing next to the gleaming white and silver truck, trying to read the menu card in the brilliant afternoon sun, but I squinted my way through and made the choice of a Saj Sharwarma.

A saj is a domed grill, like a large overturned wok, used to bake thin flatbreads like markook and a bread itself called saj, which is thicker than markook and thinner than a pita.  That is presumably why this is called a Saj Sharwarma and I don't know that it differs in any other way from the Chicken Shawarma on the menu.  I got it with a spicy sauce added and it was a very wonderfully aromatic sandwich.  Some pieces of the chicken sliced off the spit were well done to the point of having charred tips but most were not overdone and the addition of the thin sauce made for a very drippy and tasty sandwich.   There was also lettuce, tomato and mild Middle Eastern pickles as condiments and the sandwich was griddled very briefly in a press and heated through before being wrapped and sliced for presentation.

The menu includes dishes labeled as Saudi, Jordanian and Iraqi plus there is Kushari, which is Egyptian.  Not all dishes are available every day - they couldn't serve the Arabic Mixed Salad this day - and I was advised it's necessary to call in advance for some dishes.  It would truly be amazing if the kitchen on this truck could turn out all of these dishes everyday.

As much as I loathe having to get up and go out for breakfast, I'm very tempted to make my next visit on a weekend, to try some of the special breakfasts offered.

Halal Food Al-Arabi

Almeda @ Hepburn (between OST and 610), in the parking lot of a Texaco station

I'd seen this little truck several times when headed down Almeda, about a mile south of the intersection with OST where Gyro King and Abou Omar's halal stands hold forth, but it had never been open.  It turns out it's open only in the evening.  The sign on the side says Mediterranean Food, on the back one proclaims Halal Food, but shields on the hood and one of the cabinets on the rear give the Al-Arabi name.

I wanted to try the Koftah Halabi pictured but it's not available.  In fact, none of the dishes pictured on the side of the truck are served anymore, only sandwiches/wraps made with either chicken or lamb.  I think it's a very small menu.

I got what was called an Iraqi Kabob - lamb (gyro meat), freshly grilled, with grilled white onion and tomato, mixed salad greens including lettuce, red onion and more tomato I think, dressed with tahini sauce and a hot sauce that provided a pleasant heat, wrapped up in a 9" pita.  It was a good sandwich, really hit the spot.  I wish the truck was closer to me as I don't get over that way very often.

One of the other sauces visible in the window is just ketchup I understand; the fourth one I didn't inquire about.

House of Mandi Mediterranean Restaurant - UPDATED 10/2015

8403 Almeda @ Holly Hall

UPDATE 5/7/17:  This restaurant is now known as Tayeb Mandi and Mediterranean Grill.  The menu has changed considerably.

The official name is House of Mandi Mediterranean Restaurant but the food is Yemeni and the dishes are probably not what most people think of when they think of Mediterranean cuisine.  This is Houston's third Yemeni restaurant.  Isn't that an amazing statement to be able to make?  Ok, so the two previous ones didn't last.  There was the short-lived Yemeni Cafe on Beechnut and the likewise short-lived Mandi Halal restaurant that took over East Africa and Middle East Restaurant and served Yemeni and Somali food.  I went to the Yemeni Cafe just once before it closed but never got around to going to Mandi Halal.

On my first visit I had one of the namesake dishes, Mandi Lamb.  As tender as if it had been braised this is actually roasted in a taboon, an oven very similar to a tandoor.  It was served on a bed of very fragrant rice.

A Yemeni meal begins with lamb broth, called Maraq; there was a simple salad and a condiment called, I think, Sahawiq which is sometimes referred to as a Yemeni salsa and can be used in just about any way including for dipping pita like tortilla chips; it has no heat.  No dressing was forthcoming for the salad so I squeezed some lime over it but I learned later the lime was apparently supposed to be used on the maraq to taste.

This was a very satisfying meal.  I couldn't stop eating the lamb or the rice and I left very over-stuffed and with a very modest amount of left-overs.

Both the salad and the maraq were more elaborate versions on my second visit and this time I got a small cup of dressing for the salad that tasted like bottled Italian.  The maraq included peas, zucchini, potatoes, tiny baby okra no bigger than the tip of your little finger, carrots, onion, and maybe a couple of others I've forgotten.  It was good but I confess I found the simple broth more satisfying.

Plus, the simple broth would have left a little bit more tummy room for my main, one of the 'Special' dishes listed on the menu, Lamb Agada (short 'a' sounds in all three syllables, emphasis on the first syllable).  Described as a stew in discussions online, this is tender chunks of lamb in a tomato and tomato paste base with all the vegetables in the maraq appearing plus strips of golden bell pepper and parsley for garnish.   I thought the tomato tended to overwhelm all the other flavors too much but once again I ate way too much.

Fresh pita from the taboon and Yemeni spiced milk tea are free accompaniments to each meal as I understand it.  You help yourself to the tea, adding as much milk as you like.  There is sugar available but be advised the tea is already sweetened.

The menu isn't large but is more extensive than Yemeni Cafe had; the room, while not posh by any means, is nicer than either of the other two places and is very clean and well-lit.  I had been told by the proprietors of both Yemeni Cafe and East Africa Restaurant that Houston's small contingent of ex-pats from the Gulf States lives south of the Medical Center and doesn't go out in public much; perhaps this restaurant will have greater staying power since it's much closer to its customer base.  It's not in a part of town most Houstonians would think of as a destination for dining but it's worth a trip to try it out.  The staff have been very welcoming and helpful.

The menu has been posted on Urbanspoon and there are a couple of reviews on Yelp, one of which convinces me I need to go back to try some Kabsa.  Breakfast is available until 12 N or 12:30 pm and I'm going to be going back to check out the Foul and perhaps some of the other dishes; I think the 'Lam Leaver' may refer to Lamb Liver.

Openings and Closings 2013 - 2014 (Edited 10/3/14)

So I don't go out for a year and a half and there are all these changes.  Who knew this was going to happen?

Around the intersection of Hillcroft and Bissonnet, which I once bragged about as one of the most diverse in Houston the kosher pizza place Aroma Pizza Cafe has closed.  It looked for a while like a pizza chain was moving in but the space is now vacant.  Tortilleria La Reyna and Birirria La Reyna, next door to each other, have merged into just the tortilleria.  Their Miercoles con Pollo Wednesday special is a cheap eats bargain - a whole rotisserie chicken, a cup of rice and half cup of a decent ranchero type salsa for just $6.  Fresh, warm, corn tortillas are extra but just $1 per pound.

Sheba Cafe has apparently become Habesha although the Sheba name remains on the building.  Sometimes it's closed when the sign says it's supposed to be open and other times a I see the Open sign lit in the window.  Next door, which long ago was Hoagies and More offering banh mi and pupusas, is now Ostioneria La Reyna.

South on Hillcroft, Istanbul Market has closed and Pollo Loco Charcoal Roasted Chicken has moved into the strip center with Pupusa Buffet.

On South Post Oak where Willow dead ends, Super Chicken offers Peruvian style charcoal roasted chicken with sides.  There's a dining room but I've never seen any one dining in the couple of times I've stopped in.    SUPER CHICKEN HAS CLOSED.
 
On Fondren at South Braeswood a shop offering cake pops, donuts, cupcakes and coffee according to signs in the windows has taken over the space formerly occupied by the Chili Bowl and before that Luke's.  There's still no sign on the building or streetside but a banner on the building now announces the Grand Opening of The Cake Fairy.  Maybe the third time will be the charm for that space.  ETA:  There is now a street-side sign, although it's mostly obscured by trees.

Shortly after I reviewed it, East Africa and Middle East Restaurant changed names to Mandi Halal and was identified online as serving Somali and Yemeni food.  Now Mandi Halal has closed but a new place has opened at 8403 Almeda at Holly Hall named House of Mandi.  Mandi is a Yemeni dish. 

Our second Afghan restaurant, Afghan Village, 6413 Hillcroft, has been open for about a year and I still haven't gotten around to going; now another Afghan place, Afghan Dastarkhwan, a word which I understand means something like smorgasbord, has opened at 6800 Southwest Freeway, back behind Lucy, which I've never been to either.  Edit to add:  a second location of Afghan Dastarkhwan has replaced Durrani's Tandoori Grill at 10581 S. Hwy 6 at West Bellfort, Sugar Land.

On Gessner between 59 and Beechnut, Taqueria Cancun has closed.  A block south of 59 Taqueria Arandas has become Don Rey Mexican Restaurant.  The huge streetside sign is new, as is the hand-painted plywood sign saying they're open.

I watched for months for the opening of Lahori Maza on Bissonnet next door to Afrikiko Ghanaian Restaurant, then I found out it was only open in the evenings or maybe only after dusk.  I still haven't checked it out.  Signs in the windows have advertised supari, bun kabob, keema paratha, samosas, tea, chess, and pool.  The other Desi game rooms I've been to, Salaam Namaste, Alpha Capri and Mehfil Grill, have more than just snacks on the menu.  The strip center parking lot up front is notorious for prostitution activities and raids

And probably the two best for last - AA Supermarket, 9896 Bellaire, is in the process of becoming an H Mart.  I read about it on Yelp and went to check it out.  There's no indication outside or in except that your receipt will show H Mart and you groceries will be in H Mart bags.  It's not a bad supermarket but it has a long way to go to match the H Mart on Blalock.  Still, I'm excited to have an H Mart much closer to home.

And Pho Binh, the acclaimed pho restaurant, has opened it's fifth location, Pho Binh Grill, in the shopping center at the corner of Gessner and the SW Fwy, between Maharaja Bhog and Peking Cuisine, making that strip center a great destination for dining.

Edit to add:  India Grocers, 6606 SW Freeway @ Hillcroft, has become Subhlaxmi Grocers.

Saadeddine Sweets

6126 Richmond

I stopped in at this new 'Fine Mediterranean Sweets' shop right next door to Cafe Byblos the other day.  The owner is from Lebanon but the sweets are common throughout the Middle East and originate from several countries.  I haven't had much of a sweet tooth for a many years but I do feel like splurging from time to time and I walked out with a load of goodies.

Only one item in the entire store was labeled so I peppered the owner with questions.  He was not very fluent in English and I think I overwhelmed him with all my questions and I wound up leaving without even the Arabic names of a couple of the items I bought, though I think I've been able to identify them subsequently.  The items in the lower left corner are petit fours, one with pistachio and one with coconut.  These are also available with chocolate and walnuts.  In the lower right is Halowet el Jebn, the only item in the store that was labeled.  This involves a cream wrapped in a very thin pastry; I think the cream is the Lebanese clotted cream ashta.

In the upper right is a variety of kanafeh that is rolled rather than flat and has a cream filling instead of cheese.  The two on the upper left I got no names for but I think the nest-like items are possibly varieties of borma or burma and the cake I'm pretty sure is basboosa, a sweetened semolina cake with almonds and coconut.

I also got a box of sesame cookies, undoubtedly my favorite variety of Middle Eastern cookie.  I've had these from other bakeries and they're called barazi or barazik.  Of course they have baklava, lady fingers, mamool and other familiar Middle Eastern sweets, too

So far my favorites have been the petit fours and basboosa but I haven't tried the kanafeh - I'm saving what I think will be the best for last.

There is no web presence other than on Yelp where some pictures of the store have been uploaded.

There are three tables for those who can't wait to get their sweets fix and there's a small menu of manakeesh and spinach pies; the savory menu is visible on the wall in the rear of the store in a couple of the  pictures.

Openings and Closings on the Southwest Side

Bansuri Indian Food Corner is currently closed and will be re-opening in Sugar Land.  The way I read the announcement on the website, it seems they're going all brick and mortar on us eventually.

A new truck has been parked in Bansuri's long time spot on S. Wilcrest, Yashoda Chat Express, and has a menu posted that is very similar to what Bansuri offered.  I haven't caught it open yet.

The Chili Shak, Fondren at S. Braeswood has closed.  That is a location that has failed a couple of times now.

Yemeni Cafe, Beechnut at Wilcrest, has closed after only a few months.  The restaurant was a long way from where most of the Gulf States expats reside in Houston and drew little attention, I enjoyed a Fattah Lahm and some Yemeni tea there before it closed.

Mo's Knock-out Grill in the Medical Center area has closed.  I'm very sorry to see that one go.

Edit to add:  Pupusa Baleada Buffet has been open for several months at 7303 Bissonnett @ Lugary, apparently riffing on the success of the Pupusa Buffet restaurants on the SW side.  Actually a baleada buffet sounds like a good idea, I much prefer the Honduran over the Salvadoran specialty.  I haven't been.

Mido

6905 Bissonnet

THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED.

The menu board at Mido includes subs, sandwiches and burgers plus juices and smoothies and other items.  There are some familiar terms, some with amusing misspellings - kaboob, flafel, homace and hmmose, plus rotstry chicken and hollirotstry chicken - and also some unfamiliar names - Goss meat, Mekane, a Camekaaz sub, Tawook and a Fordsun burger among them.  I asked what kind of cuisine was served and was told ‘Turkish-Italian.’  Well, I think that’s what was said but maybe I heard it wrong.  I’ve identified most of the dishes as Turkish, Lebanese or ‘Arabic.’  Perhaps the ‘Italian’ refers to the subs, although subs are actually an Italian American creation, not Italian.

Prices are modest and I expected the sandwiches to be sized accordingly but prices are fair for what you get.  The Falafel sandwich was presented in an interesting purse-like bread I’ve never encountered before.  There were two falafel balls, one broken up inside the sandwich, plus lettuce, tomato, mild Middle Eastern pickles, maybe a couple of french fries,  a common addition in sandwiches here, and maybe a little bit of dressing, tahini or just mayo.  The falafel ball on top had absorbed a bit too much grease in the cooking but otherwise this was a very good sandwich.  I inquired about the bread and as best I could understand what I was told, this is considered neither a pita nor a pide but is a ‘special bread.’

The Tawook sandwich was even better, presented in a thin pita as a wrap.  Tawook is the Turkish word for chicken and this was tender, juicy and flavorful chicken kabobs.  The pickle spears ran the whole length of the wrap (I like pickles - this was a good thing), there were a couple of french fries and a generous amount of roma tomato.  Again there may have been a little dressing, hard to tell.  If so it was pretty well overwhelmed by the juiciness of the meat, pickles and tomatoes.

Goss is apparently another term for Turkish Doner because that’s what the Goss sandwich turned out to be, shavings of lamb and beef in a seeded version of the purse-like ‘special bread.’  Again there was lettuce and tomato and a couple of french fries plus pickles but the dressing was a big surprise, not a garlic or cucumber or yogurt or tahini sauce but a tart vinaigrette reminiscent of an Italian salad dressing. Edit to add:  I have learned doner in Denmark is also known as guss plus guss is the Iraqi word for shawarma/döner kebap, and it comes from the Arabic word for cutting (قصّ)

I had to try the Kamikaze sub, just had to find out what it was.  It involved a thin chicken white meat patty, not a flattened breast, on a very good sesame-seeded sub roll, with the usual fixings for a sandwich here plus a surfeit of mayonnaise.  It occurred to me this was a New Orleans style po-boy with it’s gobs of mayo, one of the signatures of a New Orleans po-boy to me, but with a chicken patty rather than the thin sausage patties of a New Orleans sausage po boy since Mido is Halal.  In this case, there was just too much mayo for my taste.

I also had to try the oddly named Fordsun Burger.  I was told it would include 2 kinds of cheese, peppers and onions.  Around here when you’re told a burger will have peppers on it you expect to find jalapenos or maybe roasted red bell pepper but this was green bell pepper and there were also mushrooms.  It was served on a large sesame seeded bun, a thin meat patty, nicely seared on both sides, and underneath the patty lettuce plus dollops of ketchup and mayo.  I can abide a little bit of mayo on a burger but ketchup is a real no-no and if I had known it was going to be included I would have asked for it to be left off.  With all the grease from the sauteed vegetables and the mayo and ketchup providing lubrication, this proved to be a very slippery-slidey burger.  Next time I'll be sure about all the ingredients when ordering a burger.  The Fordsun came with a generous side of french fries, perhaps as much as half a pound.

This burger perhaps gives a clue to the provenance of this little sandwich shop with the unique menu and breads.  Googling for the name you’ll find yourself looking at several listings in Dearborn, MI, the home of Ford Motor Co., which once upon a time made farm tractors.  In their later years of production they carried the Ford nameplate but in the beginning, in the early part of the last century, they were known as Fordsuns.  There is a Fordsun High School in Dearborn and also a Fordsun Halal Meat Market and a Fordsun Bakery.  Fordsun High was the subject of a documentary a few years back chronicling the exploits of its all Arab-American football team and another thing Dearborn is notable for is a huge population of Middle Eastern immigrants, said to be the largest outside of the Middle East.  Dearborn is also said to be home to a bevy of good Middle Eastern restaurants. I Googled on some of the unusual sandwich names at Mido also and found a couple of small sandwich shops in Dearborn with similar menu items including Kamikaze subs but no Fordsun Burger.

Mido is a one man show but the man who runs it turns out the orders quickly and efficiently.  There is a small, clean, well-lit dining area with four tables but otherwise pretty much bereft of adornment; most other customers I’ve encountered have been doing take-out. The rotisserie chickens have to be ordered in advance (allow forty minutes) and there is also a baked whole tilapia dish with ‘special rice,’ not listed on the menu but pictured on the menu board, which has to be ordered in advance.  The store is open 7 days a week starting at 12 Noon.

The printed menu has some different spellings than the menu board - Mekane, for instance, becomes Mekanek, a reference to the Lebanese sausage.  Some of the items, including most of the juices and smoothies, the Kishta plates and the ‘Liver Chicken’ sandwich are not being offered currently due to the perishable ingredients necessary and the as yet very small customer base. 

Prices and dishes may, of course, differ at the restaurant.

Dandanah Cafe & Grill

2707 Fountainview

I first happened upon Dandanah a couple of months ago, wandering around in the Galleria area, a part of town I usually avoid, trying to find my way home after spending several days in a dentist’s chair.  When I discovered they offered Egyptian cuisine it redeemed the whole ordeal. 

Some of the most common dishes served in Middle Eastern cuisine originated in Egypt, among them falafel and ful medammes, but this is the only restaurant in Houston I know of offering more of the special dishes of the country’s cuisine.

 

 Though falafel originated in Egypt, where it is called ta meyya, the version served everywhere else differs from the original.  The Egyptian version is made from cooked, mashed fava beans instead of ground chickpeas.  The Falafel Platter at Dandanah comes with 5 rather large patties, along with vermicelli rice, hummus and pita bread.  It’s a rather generous spread for the price.  The interior texture was kind of mushy, which I sort of expected, but on another occasion, the patties had more of a fine cake-like texture.  I liked that a lot better.  A house-made hot sauce (shattah) was offered (it hadn’t arrived in time for the picture) but I found it too vinegary for my taste and anyway the creamy tahini sauce was excellent.  The falafel has a very mild, pleasant level of heat itself.  The Wikioracle says Egyptians like their hummus served with lots of olive oil and it seem the Wikiwriter got that right.  The mild Middle Eastern pickle assortment was a hit - pickled cauliflower, cucumbers, turnips, carrots, and olives - and the pita bread, fresh out of the brick oven was too.  It was still puffed up and stayed that way - it had been baked beyond the point of being pliable and the stiffness, almost cracker-like though not brittle, proved ideal for scooping up all that hummus. Unfortunately the vermicelli rice was dry and at room temp; it was a shortcoming of the kitchen I encountered on one other visit, too.

Koshari is sometimes called the national dish of Egypt, a version of the ‘mess of pottage’ from Biblical times.  Having just been wowed by the .mujaddara at Dumar’s and another version at Jersusalem Halal Meat Market, I was eager to try the Egyptian version.  The basics of the dish are brown lentils, a grain and caramelized onions.  The Egyptian version uses rice instead of cracked wheat and adds macaroni with garnishes of a tomato sauce and chickpeas.  This came with more of the tomato sauce and some of the hot sauce on the side.  The drill is to add the sauces to taste, turning it into a dish to your liking.  Apparently some people make this into a rather soupy dish but I never managed to get it adjusted where it tasted right to me.  The caramelized onions were pretty much negated by the blandness of all the rice and macaroni and I found myself wanting some more spice since I found the hot sauce again too vinegary. 

There are only a couple of dishes listed as spicy on the menu but I decided I needed to try them since I prefer spicier food and the Kebda Es Kandarany proved to be just the ticket - fried liver, Alexandria style.  Fried liver is said to be a specialty of Alexandria and there probably isn’t much competition from other cities in that category I would guess.  I’ve never had either a big aversion nor big attraction to liver but it does have that stigma of being ‘good for you.’  This was easily the best fried liver I’d ever had - bite sized pieces of beef liver, speckled with bits of red and green peppers including the seeds, seasoned with lemon juice and cumin.  This came with a portion of the pickles plus tahini that had itself been spiced up a bit, and a fresh, hot, pliable pita.  Though only an appetizer it was a generous sized portion and proved to be a meal for me as liver is pretty filling.

Making use of their brick oven Dandanah offers pizzas with both Italian and typical Middle Eastern toppings plus Hawawshy, the Egyptian version of pizza which is kind of a cross between manakeesh or Lebanese pizza and an empanada.  There are only two version on the menu and I wanted the special one with pastarma but had to ask if I could have it spicy.  I was told I could have it spicy or mild.  Now I’m wondering if I could have had the same options with the other dishes that I found too bland for my taste.  The filling is a typical Middle Eastern minced beef with onions and parsley such as would be used for kofta or kubideh and had some finely minced pastarma, the seasoned, air-dried beef, added, and it was good and spicy, This was the best entree I’ve had yet at Dandanah and I wish they had more varieties of Hawawshy on the menu.

There are some special beverages including Karkade, the Egyptian hibiscus tea, a deep burgundy beverage served just barely sweetened, tasting like a slightly citrusy cranberry drink but without quite the acidity of cranberry.  You can add more sugar or sweetener to taste at the table.  I had this with the liver, a generous 20 oz glass with a free refill and it’s part of the reason the appetizer was enough for a meal. 

Another special beverage is Sahlab, the Middle Eastern hot drink based on ground orchid roots.  I had this with the Koshari and it arrived at the table frothy, preceeded by it’s fragrant bouquet.  The authentic ingredient is a very rare and expensive variety of orchid grown only in Turkey and most versions served are based on substitute ingredients I understand.  I’ve never had it before but it is on the menu at at least one Turkish restaurant here.  It came garnished with crushed pistachios, slivered almonds, raisins and grated coconut and it not only redeemed that meal, it made my day.  You get protein, fiber, micronutrients and some aromatherapy all as part of the package.

Among the deserts I tried the Konafa, the Middle Eastern cheese pastry, a layer of mild, white feta like cheese sandwiched between layers of grated coconut and vermicelli, drizzled with simple syrup, garnished with crushed pistachios and raisins and lightly grilled on each side.  I never had room to try the Um Ally, the Egyptian national desert, variously described as a raisin cake or bread pudding.  I understand it is made with phyllo but I was told it needs to be consumed hot and doesn’t travel well or I would have gotten some to go.  I’ll have to make a special trip sometime just for desert.

The menu includes lots of the more standard dishes of Middle Eastern restaurants including schwarma, kofta, kibbeh and the like but in keeping with the focus of this blog I stuck to the cuisine’s special dishes.  There’s a very pleasant patio overlooking Fountainview, sometimes heavily perfumed from all the hookahs.  The restaurant has a couple of times been short on servers.

Dandanah Cafe and Grill

Dumar's Mediterranean Grill

 4518 Hwy 6 South, Sugar Land

The first time I walked into Dumar’s I was taken back many years to my first visit to the original Antone’s on Taft.  Dumar’s is much smaller than that long shuttered store but the feeling is the same - a slightly exotic setting for dining and grocery shopping, with enticing sights and smells.

Dumar’s is a little gem, a small shop lurking in a large strip center back from the highway, behind the seemingly endless rows of chain restaurants, banks, chain pharmacies and auto repair shops that line Highway 6 as it makes its way through Sugar Land and Missouri City.  Are there any chain restaurants known to mankind that don’t have at least one location here?

Most of our Middle Eastern or Mediterranean restaurants just identify themselves generically.   There are, to be sure, many dishes that are common to countries throughout the region but there are also national specialties and recipe variations that we seldom have the opportunity to experience.  That seems to be changing - just in the last year, a couple of Iraqi places have opened, our Persian and Israeli/Kosher places have always set themselves apart and more Lebanese places seem to be identifying as such.  There is our Palestinian jewel, Al Aseel, too, and I was very excited recently to have discovered this place, which is Syrian, and also a restaurant featuring Egyptian dishes.

There are several Syrian specialties on the menu but the one I wanted to try first was the Mujaddara, a dish reputedly derivative of the ‘mess of pottage’ that Esau sold his birthright for in the Bible.  It’s another dish that has several variations throughout the region, the Syrian version as served here is made with brown lentils, cracked wheat, olive oil and long, slow, thoroughly caramelized onions.  As the server approached my table with the bowl, I was tempted to reach out and grab it and dig in, so enticing was the aroma, and it proved to be as tasty as my nose told me it was going to be.  Like the Ful Medammes I just discovered a couple of years ago, this is another ancient dish of really very simple ingredients that is enormously satisfying.  No wonder it’s been around so long.

I’ve also tried a falafel wrap.  We have at least one other restaurant with Syrian roots, Mo’s Knockout Grill on Kirby, and the falafel there is one of my two favorites in town; I wondered if Dumar would offer yet another great iteration.  Alas, the falafel was not as awesome as Mo’s but the sandwich itself was very satisfying - stuffed with at least three large, elongated and somewhat irregular balls of falafel (made with chickpeas and fava beans) with both tahini and hummous, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, pickle and pickled turnips.  A house-made hot sauce is available as a condiment but they tend to be very cautious in the application of it.

The small grocery section in the rear offers teas, some canned goods and spices, dried chickpeas and more.  In the cooler are some cheeses and phyllo dough.  There are Syrian and Armenian meat pies (safiya or sfiya) listed on the menu and in the cooler you can pick some up to take home plus Syrian pomegranate pies.  In addition to the sweets listed on the menu, they sometimes have kunafa, the Arabic cheese and vermicelli pastry soaked in sweet syrup and topped with chopped pistachios.

The owner, Bashar Dumar, is something of a character; he loves to banter with his customers as well as serve them the foods of his homeland, and he makes the visit here all that much more enjoyable.

Dumar's

M & M Grill

6921 Almeda Rd.

I used to like to brag about the unique TexChick, the little Puertorrican restaurant in Montrose. It was, I would tell out-of-towners, probably the only place in the world where you could get a chicken fried steak, and a very good one, with a side of mofongo, or an order of bacalao with a side of crispy, golden onion rings. The couple who took over the neighborhood hamburger joint in the 1980s wisely kept not only the name but the American food menu to hold on to what customer base they had, just in case their Puertorrican fare did not go over well.

The couple has since retired and the restaurant is in the hands of descendants and I haven’t been in several years and I don’t know if the dual menus are still available but I’ve since learned there are many other examples in our city of restaurants that feature dishes from more than one cuisine and do a good job of them. We’re not talking fusion here, we’re talking distinctive dishes from more than one cuisine. There’s Hoagie’s and More on Bissonnet, a shop offering pho, banh mi and pupusas and many a Mexican or Central American panaderia offering donuts and kolaches along side the churros and pan dulces. And there is M & M where the two Ms stand for Mexican and Mediterranean, where the appetizer menu offers chile con queso, chips and salsa and guacamole plus hummus, falafel and foul. You can have tacos, enchiladas, chimichangas and fajitas or shish kabob, kafta, or shawarma brought to your table by servers several of whom must surely be someone’s Lebanese or perhaps Saudi mothers or grandmothers.

My first visit was on the day the Texans made their debut in post season play. The tiny restaurant (with very tiny parking lot) was jammed with people wearing Texans jerseys plus one guy in a # 34 in Columbia Blue and every customer was getting a complimentary slice of Go Texans cake, a Texas sheet cake decorated with Texan’s colors and logo. This seems to be a very popular place to grab a bite before a game. After scarfing down the freebie, I went with an order of foul.

I didn’t even know this dish existed a couple of years ago and now I seem to see it on menus everywhere and I’ve come to treasure it as comfort food, just like the Pharaohs supposedly did. This version was described as a salad on the menu and I’ve had it presented such that it looked just like refritos or like Texas Caviar with fava beans instead of black-eyed peas but this was really a warm soup and so good. The fava beans, mostly still whole, had been dressed with lots of lemon juice, olive oil and tahini with diced tomatoes, and minced, still crisp bits of onion and parsley, accompanied by a very large, warm, thin and pliable pita. On top of the sugar bomb of the thickly iced cake it was all I could handle though I did look longingly at many of the other dishes being brought out and couldn’t help but notice the most often served items seemed to be burgers.

Yes, they ought to add another letter to the name, A to stand for American (or another M to stand for aMerican?), for besides the burgers - there are twelve listed - there are also wings, fries and onion rings and a Philly.

On my second visit I gave into my curiosity and went for a burger, but not the Swiss Mushroom or Mango Habanero, I chose the Kafta Burger, 2 kafta skewers on a bun with mayo, tahini, just a drizzle of mustard, plus lettuce, tomato, pickle and onion. The two kabobs, about 4 oz. each, were grilled with some nice charring, the minced beef mixed with minced onion and herbs retained a lot of its moistness and the burger was very juicy. I worried that it would fall apart and it did, one of the loosely packed kabobs breaking up after a couple of bites. I also worried that the bun would disintegrate from all the juices and condiments but it didn’t. It was a very sturdy though only store-bought bun and held up through out instead of becoming a soggy mess between my fingers.

The fries, of the frozen, crinkle-cut variety, though looking well-seasoned were in need of salt and were undercooked, lacking any crispness on the exterior and mushy on the inside.

I seem to be regularly reminding readers of some of my tried (or trite) and true conclusions in recent reports so here’s another one: if this was in my neighborhood, I’m sure I’d be a regular. I don’t roam all over the city as much as I used to a couple of years ago but I’m happy to keep finding little neighborhood places like this with good food that I wish were more convenient to me. This is a little far away from where I live to be a regular haunt and isn't destination dining, but if you’re in the Med Center/Reliant Park area, needing a nosh and prone to avoid the Usual Suspects, national and local, and particularly if you like friendly, family run places with good, unpretentious food, you should give this place a try. There are many items on the menu to try and I haven't sampled any of the Mexican items.

Most of the parking is out back and requires negotiating a narrow alley frequently lined with cars. A small mosque next door also has a tiny parking lot and when prayers are underway, the shoulders on both sides of Almeda are lined with vehicles.

Try to remember to check out the specials listed on an erasable board sometimes on the counter, sometimes just inside the door. I’ve missed it a couple of times until after I’ve ordered and am sitting down or I’m leaving. I don't remember the exact name they had but on that first visit it was something like a Whoopass Bengalese Burger while on a recent visit I learned on the way out I could have had Kabsa and Chicken. Kabsa is usually considered a Saudi dish though it is served in several Arab countries and is similar to biryiani.

Edit to add:  Since posting this I have learned there is a community of Gulf immigrants including Kuwaiti, Saudi and Yemeni in the area south of the Medical Center, the neighborhood where M & M is located. I understand on weekends it is common for the restaurant to have a daily special of a Saudi dish.

M & M Grill on Facebook

AL/Al's Quick Stop and Grill

2002 Waugh Drive



I’m sure this little corner grocery was in existence umpteen umpteen years ago when I lived near Cherryhurst Park but I never went in. The menu says only since 1991, probably meaning the popular eatery inside the store. I’ve been hearing about the latter for years and wanted to check it out but I seldom get back down to the ‘trose.

It was 8 months ago when I found myself close by and decided to try it out. Though I’d heard most about the gyro when I noted the spit was not turning nor glowing I opted for a falafel plate with tahini and relish.

My first thought on getting a good look at the finished product - uh oh. That’s not the color I like to see when I behold falafel and just as I expected the exterior was too crusty and overcooked, there was even a slight taste of charring. The interior, a beautiful forest green, was mush. I seldom throw food away but I tossed several pieces of this as just not worth eating. The pita bread was dry, too, but the rest of the plate was very good; I particularly liked the pickled vegetables and hummus and would go back to try other plates if I get those things; the bed of parsley and radish underneath the falafel patties was also a nice refreshing note.  (Edit to add:  I have since learned the falafel may have been revithkeftedes, the Greek version of falafel, which is made with cooked, mashed chickpeas instead of ground, dried chickpeas.  This would account for the mushy texture.  I plan to give them another try).

Though I had shied away from the gyro, I had noted there seemed to be some pink on the meat on the spit and I still wanted to give it a try but it was not until earlier this month that I was back in the neighborhood. Though again the spit was not turning I went for a gyro anyway. A large portion of meat was deftly sliced off and warmed up on a flattop. A modest portion of onions and tomatoes were added as well as a pita.

Okay, this one lives up to the hype. Though it’s not apparent in the picture there was a tinge of pink on some of the pieces of meat and this was by far the juiciest gyro meat I’d ever eaten. And probably the biggest gyro - I think the whole sandwich weighed in at 11 oz. Some reviews online have stated it’s only beef, not the typical beef and lamb mix, but I didn’t think so and the menu does say it’s both. The pita in this case was fresh and fluffy, almost like naan. I could have used more of the onions and tomatoes and sadly the quantity of tzatziki which I got (to go) was very inadequate. I must admit the sauce is half the reason I like gyros so I was disappointed but I’m sure if you ate in, you could ask for more, if necessary.

The menu is very varied with Tex-Mex, Mediterranean and American sections; given how infrequently I’m in the neighborhood, it’ll probably be a long time before I try any thing else and I’m probably going to want another gyro next time.

Now, under the heading of Unsolved Mysteries of the Montrose, I'm not sure what the name of this place is. The sign and the take-out menu both say AL Quick Stop. Capital A, capital L, no apostrophe, no s. (The take-out menu makes it even clearer- there are pictures of the menu on Yelp so I’m not going to post it here). But it’s known by everybody as Al’s, listed on every user review site that I know of as Al’s, and there are dishes on the menu such as ‘Al’s Diced Salad,’ and ‘Al’s Chicken Sub.’ Rogue sign maker and rogue printer perhaps? Or perhaps the chef at AL is named Al?

Cedars Bakery

8619 Richmond, previously reported on in my Vegetarian for a Week, Part 1

Ever since I first read Ellie Nassar's post in 2007 about Labib's in Beirut my mouth has been watering for mana'ish, so when I first came across Cedars a month or so ago and saw they called some of their offerings manakeesh (there are many spellings) instead of just Lebanese pizza, I had to rush over to try it.

I had the kafta manakeesh, apparently the same meat that would be formed onto skewers and served as kafta kabobs. There are only a couple of manakeesh on the menu with other offerings labeled pizza and bread and whether they cook them on a saj or not I don't know, but I was wowed by this. Talk about aromatic - I was almost knocked back from the table by the aroma of the sizzling, flavorful and juicy topping. The crust, just their thin pita I think, is thin enough to be flexible a la a New York pizza. They also serve a couple of wraps, including a sojok and manakik, both being sausages, and schawarma on the weekends.

Edit to Add: I have since learned there are two types of manakeesh - those baked in an oven, as here, which are more like pizza, and those baked on a saj which are more like a crepe.

Cedars Bakery

Vegetarian for a Week, Part 1

After reporting on the vegetarian restaurant Quan Yin recently I made the observation that I sometimes think about becoming a vegetarian, not for ethical, health or religious reasons but just because the food at Houston vegetarian restaurants is so good. But I never thought about doing it on a dare.

A couple of weeks later one of the moderators on eGullet announced he was going to try to go vegetarian for a week and challenged other eGulleteers to join him. The response was a little underwhelming at first but I was interested. His thread is really about cooking vegetarian rather than dining out so I'm posting about my dining out adventures here.

Of course I know people, including many of my relatives, who are of the firm belief that they will keel over and die, possibly within mere minutes, if they don't have meat at every meal, but I have long liked my veggies at least as much as meat. I was a vegetarian for about 6 or 8 months back in the 70s and most of my meals at home these days are meatless unless they include take-out or leftovers. Though I keep fish on hand in the freezer and there's probably some pork and chicken somewhere in there too, I bought beef to prepare at home only twice all of last year. I don't think I've gone as long as just 48 hours without meat in a long, long time but I didn't think this would be much of a stretch for me.

After a false start one morning when I absent-mindedly munched on some leftover cha lua from Banh Cuon Tay Ho as part of breakfast, I started in earnest with lunch at Cedars Bakery, 8619 Richmond. I'd been to this Middle Eastern bakery/cafe only once before and enjoyed a kafta manakish and remembered they had a veggie pizza on the menu, specifically the Harhoura Veggie Pizza.

Just what the difference between a manakish and pizza is here I'm not sure; they both appear to be cooked in the same brick-lined, gas-fired oven on the same thin pita bread crust. At least I never saw a saj, the domed cooking surface that a manakish is typically cooked on. But while the manakish was cut in quarters and was thin and flexible enough to be foldable like a New York style pizza, this was cut in thin wedges and wouldn't hold up when picked up. With no cheese on the pizza, the toppings just toppled off. It was just chopped tomato, onion and bell pepper but did have a very nice heat level, which is kind of unusual for Middle Eastern food in my experience. A couple of their other pizzas may be meatless, too. I should have asked first.

I did pick up a package of their beautiful, aromatic, tissue paper thin markouk, the thinnest flat bread I've ever encountered, and it was very useful in the ensuing week in meals I prepared at home.

My friend Ziggy Smogdust has been telling me about Pine Forest Garden, 9108 Bellaire, for at least a couple of years. The chef adheres to strict Buddhist vegetarian cuisine principles and it's one of Ziggy's favorite restaurants. I'd been just once and asked Ziggy to meet me there and help me pick the good stuff for lunch on Day Two.

The best thing on the first plate was the fried tofu skin wrap at 11 o'clock, wonderfully juicy with a crisp and crunchy, fresh tasting filling that I never took the time to examine, thinking I was going to make a second pass at the buffet and get another one. I'm pretty sure it had some sort of sprouts in it and possibly some nuts. I also enjoyed the turnip cake and the long beans and zucchini; the long beans still had a good bite to them. The greens in the middle of the plate were something of a mystery (the buffet is not labeled); Ziggy had always thought they were Chinese broccoli but Samuel, the chef, recognized Ziggy and came over to chat. He told us what they were - the Chinese name - and I cannot recall it. My guess would be Chinese mustard greens. The mock meat at 1 o'clock was even more of a mystery; neither one of use could figure out what it was supposed to be. It had a texture more like pieces of chicken skin than muscle meat which wouldn't have been bad had I not be expecting a fibrous texture like meat.

New things are constantly being brought out for the buffet and on my second pass through either there was no more fried tofu skin or I missed it because there were so many other things I wanted to try. By the way, vegetarian food is very filling and I was getting very full already. The big hits of my second plate were the deep fried mushrooms, the tree fungus, aka wood ear mushroom, at 1 o'clock, and the 'salmon croquette.' The deep fried mushrooms were just a little sweet and a little crispy; I could have eaten a whole plate of them. I've had the tree fungus only minced in banh cuon before and never encountered it like this; I loved it. I'm not really sure what the little fried ball was supposed to be but the texture reminded me very much of a salmon croquette. The disks at the top are mock fish. I've had these before in plates from San San Tofu and liked them just fine but here, braised, the texture became too soft and mushy.

Ziggy also had a second plate, with a big piece of the fungus and some sweets which he wanted me to try including lightly deep fried sweet potato and a Buddhist 'jello' - actually a cross between jello and custard in texture - and mango flavored. I'd noticed them on the buffet and just assumed they were pieces of mango and had passed them over. They were, however, virtually impossible to pick up with chopsticks.

Pine Forest Garden is going to be one of my favorite restaurants, too. I'm looking forward to going back sometime to try their dim sum service, from 3 to 5 as I recall.

I had made a list of all the vegetarian restaurants I've been to in Houston and had scheduled a visit to Georgia's Farm to Market on I-10 for Day Three, but I was still full from the feast at Pine Forest Garden and didn't want to deal with the temptation to over-eat at their large salad bar so I opted instead for something much closer to home, Saba's Kosher Cafe, 9704 Fondren @ South Braeswood, previously reported on on this blog.

Saba's has remodeled, possibly to counter the new competition in the neighborhood, and is a nicer room for dining-in now. The menu has been in flux and my favorite item, which I had decided on in advance, the Moroccan Cigars, is not currently on the menu, although they said it will be coming back. I opted instead for the Sabitch Baguette.

I'd had the Sabitch plate before, grilled eggplant, hard-boiled egg, Israeli salad (diced cucumber, tomato and bell pepper) and hummus, which comes with a pita on the side. You can get this as a pita sandwich, too, but this was excellent. There was some hot sauce, I think the Yemeni skhug is what they use, similar to harissa. The server might have noticed some consternation on my face, though, as initially I thought this was going to be a very dry sandwich, so he offered some tahini sauce too. Turned out it didn't need it, though I added it for flavoring, but there was probably at least a quarter cup of hummus on the sandwich and by the time I got through, the oil in the hummus together with the moisture from the salad was turning the lower part of the sandwich rather soggy.

See the second part of this series here.

Aroma Pizza Cafe

6285 Bissonnet @ Hillcroft

CLOSED - NOW A LOCATION OF PIZZA FINO

This is the newest addition to the small list of Kosher (Dairy) restaurants on the SW side. Located in the same strip center with Sheba Ethiopian Cafe, Hoagie's and More Pupusa, Pho and Banh Mi shop, and El Reyna Tortilleria and Birreria, it's a small, sleekly decorated little cafe. They have a little bigger menu of pizzas than nearby Saba's plus salads, sandwiches, paninis, focaccia, burekas and pastas plus a couple of breakfast dishes. They also serve coffees made with Katz Velvet Espresso.

The Kosher restaurant scene has been active lately with the addition of this one, relocation of Suzie's and remodeling of Saba's that I haven't checked out yet.

There are a number of interesting pizzas. I tried the Sweet Potato Pizza with tomato sauce, mozzarella, thin slices of sweet potato mimicking pepperoni or Canadian bacon in appearance and thin, wispy strips of red onion on a sesame seed crust. This was driving me crazy with the smell on the way home. The menu hadn't emphasized the sesame seed crust and I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box; I've been on a sesame seed kick lately - sesame laddu, sesame crackers, sesame bread sticks - so this was a plus.

There was a time, decades ago, thankfully, when I was of the persuasion that extra cheese made everything better and always got a pizza loaded with toppings and extra cheese. I'm sure if I was still in that mode I would think that stuffed crust or 4 cheese pizzas were the greatest thing since, well, pizza, but my tastes have simplified over the years and I now prefer pizzas with minimal toppings, sometimes just cheese, sauce and fresh tomatoes. This one was very much in line with my tastes with a nice balance of ingredients. The slight sweetness of the sweet potatoes and caramelized onion strips contrasted with the nuttiness and crunchiness of the seeds and the saltiness of the cheese and tomato. I would have liked the crust a little crispier but I liked this one.

Another one that sounded good was the Balkan pizza - sauce, mozzarella, feta, eggplant, zataar and sesame seeds. This one had very strong, competing flavors that didn't work well for me. The zataar overwhelmed pretty much everything else and the combination of mozzarella and feta also was too much. I was mostly interested in the eggplant as Middle Eastern cuisines do interesting things with eggplant but there was a skimpy amount and I could hardly taste it. I'm sure this works for some people but I didn't like it nearly as much as the sweet potato.

They also have a Red Hot Chilli Pepper pizza with jalapenos and black pepper that I haven't tried and several other combinations plus a pretty standard array of toppings to choose from as add-ons but no meats, of course.

The salads I've seen being served in-house have been large and the paninis have looked good.

Being Kosher it's a little pricier. Ten inch pizzas start at $8.50 and go up to $20 for an 18 inch. The only meat available is tuna, as a salad and a sandwich. And of course they're closed for Jewish Holy Days although they do open an hour after Shabbat and stay open until midnight on Saturday.

Aroma Pizza Cafe

Mo's Knockout Grill and Mediterranean Food

7918 Kirby  CLOSED

I've been having to spend some time in the Medical Center lately and have checked this place out and wound up returning several times. It's in the space formerly occupied by DJs Old-Timey Hamburgers which was originally a Toddle House, I think.

I have been trying for years to like falafel. Conceptually I should like it but the execution is frequently poor; there must be something about frying little round thingies - hush puppies, oysters, popcorn shrimp, falafel - that stymies the skill set of the average fry cook. Such items too often come out over-cooked. In the case of falafel, this means too hard and thick a crust, dried out interior, or, sometimes, they're grease-soaked. My first bite of a falafel gyro at Mo's was a pleasant surprise and so far they have not let me down. The fry cook, by some accounts, Mo's Dad, has a light touch and the falafel comes out about as perfect as any I've ever had. The picture is of a falafel appetizer plate I had on a subsequent visit and I'm surprised the camera didn't catch the steam rising from the piece I just broke open. Actually, the interior was a little mushy but after resting and cooling off a few minutes, it was wonderfully light, spongy and cake-like, almost. The falafel is not as spicy here as at Zabak's I'll have to admit but since the spices aren't incinerated or charcoalized by over-cooking, it is possible to appreciate the savory bites every bit as much as the ones I've had at Zabak's, which has disappointed me on occasion by serving overcooked falafel with hardened crust.

Another revelation was the pita at Mo's which is steamed, guaranteeing you don't get dried out, leathery bread requiring tearing rather than biting. The piece in the picture was a toasted a bit better than other samples I've had; it was so beautifully toasted on both sides, I was tempted to ask for some butter and syrup and improvise a Middle Eastern pancake.

The kibbeh is also excellent. It's juicy and flavorful lamb with pine nuts and onions. What I particularly liked was the bulgur wheat shell was thinner than what you often get, making for a very favorable meat per kibbeh ratio. These may well be the best kibbeh I've ever had.

The gyro was huge, too big for me at one sitting. I took home about half of that one and calculated the original had about 8 ounces of the beef-lamb mixture.

I've eaten at off-hours and haven't had a chance to look over the shoulder of any other diners so haven't seen any other foods than the ones I've had. I have seen the sharwarma rotisserie in the kitchen and it looks promising.

The fries, which accompany every sandwich, have been disappointing; it's a small serving, which is okay by me, but I wish there was an alternative choice. The biggest disappointment however has been the tzatziki which is thick and creamy, almost a study in congealment, and lacking in garlicky punch and lemony zest.

Mo Abdin was a professional boxer, hence the name of the place. Virtually every available space on the wall is occupied by his boxing memorabilia including his trunks and gloves, WBC Title Belt, and dozens of pictures. The food comes out fast but it's fun taking a few minutes to check some of it out.

I'm glad to know about this place. It joins a very short list of good eateries convenient to the Medical Center.

Al-Nile Restaurant and Bakery, Grocery and Halal Meat

6502 Bellaire @ Rookin


This is new signage identifying this place as a restaurant. I’ve driven by this place dozens of times, usually heading east on Bellaire on the far side of the street. I’ve noticed it before but never realized it was a restaurant until I was stopped at the light heading west a couple of months ago and could see the signs in the windows advertising Shawarma and Desayunos for $2.99. Hola and selam and welcome to the United Nations of Sharpstown. I could also see that there were tables and chairs in the windows facing the side street.

I wasn’t able to find out much about it online other than it had changed hands recently and was allowed to serve food on reusable plates and with reusable utensils. I hypothesized that a restaurant serving schawarma with Nile in the name might be Egyptian so I read up on Egyptian cuisine before stopping in only to be confounded when I first confronted the menu board. Though I recognized a couple of listings - I guessed Beans and Egg was a reference to Ful Medammes (confirmed a few minutes later) and Falafel - both of which are Egyptian in origin - none of the other dishes looked like the Egyptian dishes I’d read about online, nor did they look like Ethiopian dishes.

There was no schawarma or desayunos but there was a line at the bottom of the board that said Gracias Por Su Visitar. I think the change of ownership is probably a factor here.

It took about 10 minutes before anyone came out from the back. In the meantime I browsed the shelves of the small grocery store where I saw products from Syria, Spain and California, rows of Goya products, mulberry syrup, pickled turnips, and bagala, cumin chickpeas, from Lebanon, bags of masaseca and loaves of both the white and brown injera from nearby Maru Ethiopian Grocery. In the freezer were packages of okra and jute leaves and frozen pita and in the cooler, lassis, Karoun’s yogurt drinks, Bulgarian Feta Cheese and tubs of Abali yogurt, plus non-alcoholic malt drinks from Lebanon and Holland and Arizona Tea.

Two young men sat at a table drinking from glass mugs what I assumed to be coffee; the dishes on their table were devoid of food and piled on the side. At another table 3 people, soon joined by a fourth, talked but they had no food. I’ve since learned they don’t serve coffee here; the beverage was hot tea.

Finally a young man came out from the back and apologized he had not known there was a customer. I immediately began asking about the dishes but his explanations didn’t help much so I just decided to order the falafel and head for home to hit the internet to try to identify some of these dishes. But he said he couldn’t serve the falafel because he was all alone in the kitchen and didn’t have time to make it so I went for the Beans and Egg instead. He said he could have that ready in a few minutes and he would give me a salad, some pita and a hot sauce on the side. At this point I was going to consider my visit a success just to get out with something identifiable and edible but this was sounding pretty good.

He came back out in just a few minutes carrying a tray of food for the table of four. I saw something that looked very much like fufu in a bowl of a red sauce, a small salad and some pita bread - that was all I could get a glimpse of. The food all seemed to be for one man and he immediately started pinching some of the substance in the middle of the bowl off and popping it in his mouth. I thought fufu was a West African thing; does the Nile extend all the way to West Africa? Which of the dishes on the menu board was fufu?

As the man went back into the kitchen I spotted a display case in the corner I had not noticed before with some t-shirts for sale so I went over to take a look and at last got a clue - I saw t-shirts promoting a free and independent state of South Sudan and proclaiming ‘I am a Free Citizen of South Sudan.’ In the clutter on a counter nearby there were several business card holders including one with cards for Dar4 Auto Sales, a car lot in San Antonio, and one for this business itself: Al-Nile Grocery & Halal Meat was the name at that time, with a sub-heading for the restaurant - House of Delicious - Sudanese, African and Middle East.

Okay, so my knowledge of the geography of Africa is a little rusty. Sudan is the largest country in Africa and more of the Nile flows through Sudan that either Egypt or Ethiopia with the White and Blue Niles meeting at Khartoum, the capital. This was before the recent referendum on separating the south from the north had even gotten underway and I’ve never seen any of the t-shirts since.

It was about 10 minutes before my food came out. In the meantime I had selected a powdered sugar cookie from a table of baked goods on display (I’ve since learned the baked goods are produced elsewhere). The food smelled great on the way home. I only recently discovered the dish Ful Medammes but it has quickly become a favorite and I’ve taken to keeping canned fava beans at home because the dish is so easy to prepare and so satisfying; it’s no wonder it’s been around since the days of the Pharaohs. I’ve been experimenting with seasonings and condiments to add when I make it at home and I’ve only had it one time at a restaurant up until this place but now that I look for it I have encountered it on many menus of Middle Eastern and African Restaurants.

This was the best version I’ve had, pungent with cumin, with a nice kick from chile pepper plus lemon juice, piping hot, topped with chopped, ,hard boiled egg and a small amount of cheese that I couldn’t identify but might have been feta. My salad had suffered a bit from being closed up with the steaming hot beans and the greens had darked a bit, the pita bread, beautifully golden on both sides, was thinner than any I’ve ever had before and the hot sauce was a real plus - the color of wasabi paste but spreadable, grainy like a mustard, packing a wallop of garlic, chile pepper and lemon juice. The large powdered sugar cookie had a date filling. This turned out to be a very satisfying first visit after all.

I hit the internet and immediately began finidng the dishes I remembered from the menu - Molokhiya, Aseeda, Tagalia, Tamia (these are the internet spellings).

On another visit a couple of weeks later I hoped to find Tamaaya and Shorba on the menu, two dishes I had read about online that intrigued me the most, but neither were available (the former is ‘Sudanese Green Hamburger,’ the latter a lamb stew from Khartoum with vegetables and spices, seasoned with peanut butter and lime). The falafel was not available again nor was my second choice so I settled for the Mo Khia (the spelling on the menu board). This is actually another dish of Egyptian origin, some say created by the Jews during their stay in Egypt. Molokhiya or jute leaves or Jew’s Mallow is a plant in the same family with okra and it has the same properties as okra, adding a thick mucilaginous texture to dishes. The stew included chunks of lamb. The sliminess didn’t bother me at all but jute doesn’t have much taste, less than spinach, no where near as much as collards or mustard greens.

I was given a choice of accompaniments, injera, pita or rice and went with the injera. Kissra is the staple bread of Sudan, made of corn or wheat, typically, but I was told it’s the same thing as injera and they don’t make their own here, they just serve the injera from Maru. I got three pieces of the white injera and proved to be a bad choice - it didn’t hold up to the thick stew at all, dissolving almost immediately when I tried to use it to pick up the pieces of lamb. It is common in Sudan to eat with the bare fingers of the right hand and it was quite messy; fortunately plastic utensils are provided. The very fresh injera didn’t even hold up to the simple salad of lettuce, chopped tomato and cucumber, sans dressing of any sort, nor the hot sauce (Shata it’s called) which accompanies everything here.

The stew got a little boring. I’ve read one reason people don’t find African food very interesting is they use a lot less salt than we are used to in the West so I looked around for a salt shaker but saw none, nor was there a pepper shaker. Then I realized I probably was supposed to add the Shata to the stew but by that time the Shata was all gone - I had polished it off like it was a side dish (I’ve got to do something about my garlic addiction, I guess). I was subsequently to learn I was using the injera wrong, too.

Continue reading the report here.

Kosher Bite - formerly My Pita Bakery and Deli

9804 Hillcroft

ANOTHER CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT (in late 2019 or early 2020).  NOW KNOWN AS KOSHER BITE.

NEW WEBSITE:  KOSHER BITE

This place used to be Super Pita before a change of ownership in May. I thought they were out of business once when I drove by because the windows were so barren but lately there's almost always a crowd. A young waiter told me they spruced the place up a bit and the food is much better. I only went to Super Pita twice and tried something on the steam table. It wasn't too bad but not memorable either. Now the steam table appears to be gone, at least at lunch, and food is freshly prepared. That's a plus. I got the impression from the take-out menu that the emphasis is on sandwiches although it's still possible to get most of the dishes that were available before off the menu and about half the dine-in customers have been having plates.


Sandwiches come on baguettes, pitas or laffas, all baked in-house, with typical Middle Eastern fillings such as falafel, schawarma, kabobs, etc., plus schnitzel. There are also some 'Gold' sandwiches with typical Western deli fillings like roast beef, smoked turkey, salami, etc. I tried a falafel pita on my first visit. When the falafel had been cooked (5 pieces) I was called up to the counter to pick my toppings. There are about 15 to choose from, none labeled. The edge of the pita is cut and folded back and the fillings stuffed inside. The man said 'Hummus?' and I said yes. 'Anything else - Israeli salad?' I said yes. 'Anything else?' 'Tabouli' I said. 'Anything else?' I saw a green sauce that I guessed might be spicy and pointed at that. Spicy? he said. Yes. 'Anything else?' Then there was the red sauce. 'Spicy?' I said yes. I was beginning to feel a little guilty about loading up so much but he kept saying 'anything else?' I think I stopped at that point, I'm not sure, maybe I got one or two other things. I think the red and green sauces were the Yemeni condiment schug. Those were listed by name on the Super Pita menu and though they're not listed on this one there have been so few changes in the menu I'm guessing that's what they are.

He squirted a couple of other things on the sandwich out of squeeze bottles and wrapped it up with a side order of fries which came with the sandwich ($4.95) and weighed in at about 2 ozs, a perfect size order of fries as far as I'm concerned.

Well the truth is I'm not very fond of pitas or falafel to begin with but I had just been to Zabak's a few days earlier and I thought it would be good to do a comparison. The pitas are thick and hearty and a bit dry for my taste; the falafel was, well, falafel, and no, not as interesting as Zabak's. With all the added condiments, though, it was not bad as a sandwich and I was pretty confident they had offerings I would like better. I had got too many condiments and couldn't sort them all out, taste-wise.

Looking over the menu I became fascinated by the laffa sandwiches. They had been on the Super Pita menu but I'd never noticed them and I resolved to try one on my next visit to see if I like laffa better than pita. Laffa is an Iraqi flatbread that is more like a thin naan or thick chapati rather than a pita; too thin to be used as a pocket bread it's used as a wrap.


I also wanted to try the shawarma so on another visit I got a shawarma laffa; this time I added just the hummus, Israeli salad and some grilled eggplant. Laffa are about 10" in diameter and weigh from 3 to 5 ozs (hand-made and irregular); the filled sandwich weighed in at 15.5 oz on my kitchen scale and I loved it. The laffa is like a soft, pliable naan and is just what I need - another type of bread I like. I could gritch that the shawarma was a little too dried out and the eggplant added a bitterness than was unwelcome but this was a very good sandwich - actually, big enough for two sandwiches ($10.95) - and a new favorite sandwich. The fries this time were a little underdone.

Okay, so the resemblance of a laffa to a large flour tortilla and the sandwich to a burrito can't be overlooked but there's no lard, obviously, and where else in Houston can you get a Kosher falafel or schnitzel burrito?

Like other Israeli restaurants, Super Pita at this location before and Saba's on Fondren, the menu includes dishes brought to Israel from other countries. Besides the laffa there is sabich from Iraq, a Morrocan style fish dish, a Tunisian style tuna sandwich on the breakfast menu, a Bukharian pilaf, a goulash and a couscous. I was fascinated by the Egyptian dish Foul Mudammas which dates back to the Pharaohs. It's served here as mashed fava beans on top of a bed of hummus in a bowl, topped with the green spicy sauce and accompanied by a couple of pitas. Though it's offered as a side ($4.95) it's enough for a meal in itself, though I prefer it a little spicier, with some cumin or chili powder and a hard boiled egg.

The grocery shelves and bakery display cases are less impressively full than when it was Super Pita but sitting in bakery section, waiting for my Foul Mudammas, the aroma of the fresh challah and pastries being brought out was driving me crazy. I picked up some laffa - three loaves are $2.50. Heated up in every home-maker's modern home substitute for a tandoor, a toaster oven (or in my case, a pop-up toaster) it crisps up a bit and makes a great accompaniment to many dishes.

This little neighborhood in Meyerland has a collection of some good eateries - New York Coffee Shop and New York Bagel Shop just a block away, The Russian General Store a couple of blocks away and Fioza, which is highly recommended by Ziggy Smogdust, just across Brays Bayou.

My Pita is kosher and closes for all Jewish holy days.

UPDATE:  MY PITA HAS UNDERGONE SEVERAL CHANGES OF OWNERSHIP I THINK.  

THEIR BAKED GOODS, INCLUDING PITA AND LAFFA, ARE AVAILABLE NEARBY AT THE RUSSIAN GENERAL STORE AND BELDEN'S SUPERMARKET; I'VE SEEN THEM AT CENTRAL MARKET AND AT AL NIMER SUPERMARKET AND ROASTERY AND AT JERUSALEM HALAL MEATS ON HILLCROFT.

My Pita