by Iggy C » Tue May 28, 2019 5:07 pm
I went yesterday and liked it a lot. A Middle Eastern buffet is kind of a novelty, and they did a good job with it, particularly on the unexpectedly wide selection, as well as the quality. Frankly there was too much for me to try or remember.
Here are my scattered impressions:
I often am annoyed at Middle Eastern places because of their arbitrary restrictions on side dishes, like, you can have hummus but not taboulleh with your platter, this kind of salad but not that, or they nickel-and-dime you for toppings on your shawarma sandwich. Al Hamra solves this problem.
The selection was great: fresh salads, like tabbouleh, tomato cucumber salad, beets, grape leaves, pink pickled turnips and other pickles.
-Meats included chicken breast kebabs, ground beef kebabs, chicken pieces in a balsamic onion sauce, and meatballs in tahini sauce. They also had grilled chicken pieces with peppers, kibbe, and some kind of baked fish.
-At least three rice dishes, including mujadarah. I especially liked the roasted spiced cauliflower and stuffed zucchini.
-Dips: two kinds of hummus, a baba ganoush plus a second smoked eggplant dish, and a dark tomato-onion oily sauce.
-There were tons of things I didn’t try, like some kind of cheesy spinach casserole, a fried pita bread salad, and what appeared to be home fries. There was lentil soup and a tomato soup, too.
-For dessert there were two kinds of baklava, dates, and fresh fruit like sliced watermelon and grapes.
-My only quibble was with the pita, which did not strike me as looking especially enticing compared to the best bread served in our area at places like Al Watan, Dino’s, or Al Farat. It didn’t appeal to me, so I didn’t try it. On the plus side, though, they do provide one of those conveyor toasters, so maybe it’s great after you toast it, I don’t know.
-No gyro meat, no tzatziki/yogurt sauce, no toum, no zhoug, no harissa. Except for the zhoug and the toum, I can’t say I really missed any of these things, but maybe you will. And who knows, maybe they’ll show up at some point. Or maybe they were there and I overlooked them.
-Kleenex on the table instead of napkins – I give them a pass here because they just opened.
-It keeps the exact same layout as the old Chinese buffet, and mostly the same décor.
-It’s a buffet, and I was judging it right on opening day 10 minutes after it opened, when the food was hot, the kebabs were clearly right off the grill, and things were clean.
-The price per head is $14, which is a lot higher than the Chinese buffet it replaced, and somewhat more than the typical Indian buffets, but which I found to be a reasonable amount given the selection and quality. Indian places never give you such a variety of fresh salads, so it’s a nice contrast to them in that respect.
-You can also get takeout for $9/lb, which seems like a good deal, too.
-It’s in a part of town that is relatively underserved in terms of buffets that I want to go to. So for me, the location is a plus.
-Hours are weird: Sunday and Monday: 1-10 pm; every other day 10 am-10 pm. I meant to ask if that was actually correct, or if the sign just hadn’t been flipped for every day yet, but I forgot in my post-buffet stupor.
-A website with the hours and the menu would be nice. I assume that is forthcoming.
Anyway, I hope the place does well; it clearly fills an underserved niche, and there seemed to be a lot of customers. Definitely a big improvement from the buffet it replaced.
Last edited by
Iggy C on Tue May 28, 2019 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
