Address: (Edit Info)
1818 W Bethany Home Rd, Phoenix, AZ, US
Page Views: 297
1 positive - 1 negative = Net Rating (0)
Positive (1)
Negative (1)
Posted on: 2008-01-16
EDIT: This place is now closed. According to the signs on the door, the business has been abandoned.
I indulge once in a while and smoke hookahs, and my girlfriend told me about a hookah lounge near her house. I decided to stop in and try it out, and to my surprise found out they had food.
I have been here twice now, and I have to agree with the previous review, the chicken kebab is great. My girlfriend had the beef kebab which was also very good.
The shisha was smooth and smoked very well. We had Double Apple, which is a pretty common shisha around these parts.
We sat in the back of the restaurant in the pillow laden hookah nook. If you sit toward the front of the restaurant, they play a DVD with Middle Eastern music and dancing. Normally this would be fine, but there were a few tracks that were poorly recorded, and the static hurt my ears.
Going here again tonight with friends to share a hookah and have some food. Will be going as often as I can.
One evening I was spacing out all zombie-style on my way home from work and somehow ended up going further down 19th Ave then I had planned on. I snapped out of my stupor once I got to Bethany Home Road and decided to turned left. And then there, on the left hand side, was the crude signage of Al Sahir Market.
"GYROS RESTAURANT!"
Of course. "Al Sahir" just screams gyros to me. I thought about this some more. Why does it proclaim this when they are obviously not Greek? Just look at the Arabic script. I don't get it. Will people be scared off by "SHAWARMA RESTAURANT!" ? Who knows.
Anyway, if these guys are Arabs and they proclaim they make gyros I knew they also had to be making shawarma and it was shawarma that I was suddenly craving and so I decided to go in and check the place out....
A simple Middle Eastern market with tables for eating in the front section. A mini-me of an Iraqi flag placed on the counter. Foodstuffs in the back. A shelf of early 90's Arab pop CDs to the right. I walked up to the counter.
"Hi," I said.
Just then, a bunch of boisterous men came in and walked up straight to the counter. I understood their greeting and that was about it. They weren't speaking Arabic. The men continued talking and I continued waiting. This went on for several minutes as the guy took their order in Cyrillic script which added to my confusion and then the men sat down.
He then looked at me with a sheepish face. "Friends," he shrugged, winced, and explained simultaneously. That's nice and all, I understand this whole Middle Eastern thing, but yo. I was still standing here first.
"I want a shawarma."
"No shawarma. We run out. You have gyros?"
"No. No gyros. Uh, give me the chicken kebab instead."
So I waited for quite some time for my kebabs to be ready since they were preparing a full on meal for "friends". Which was ok, since I explored the market side's offerings, but still it was a just a tad annoying.
I eventually got my meal and brought it home. Opening the box, I was immediately disappointed in the from-a-package pitas instead of lavash or some other bread, but I was ok with it because I was starving. The plus side was that the chicken was good. Not just good. Really excellent. I savored each morsel and was pretty satisfied.
I'm tempted to go back again to try out their other dishes (especially if "shawarma" makes it back on their menu), but if "friends" are constantly popping in and cutting in front me while I stand there, all pathetic-looking and hungry, then I'd rather take my post-work dazed cravings elsewhere.
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