Category: Middle Eastern

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Middle Eastern

Kabab Al Hojat – Merrylands NSW Restaurant Review

The mixed kebab ($20) from Merrylands’ Kabab Al Hojat is pretty well known both within and outside of the Western Sydney Afghan community. Essentially what your $20 gets you is a skewer of chicken, a skewer of lamb tikka, and a skewer of shami (mince) with a grilled green pepper, half a tomato, some fresh salads, and an unreasonably large quantity of bread. The meats were juicy, well flavoured, and tender, but I thought that the fresh salads didn’t really complement the meats in the way that I ate it. I assume that one of the intended ways to eat this would be to wrap everything up in bread and eat it as a roll, in which case it would’ve made more sense.

Pretty good/10. Well known locally. Some guy in scrubs came to pick up his order whilst I was there, and given it’s around a half hour round trip during the day from the nearest tertiary referral hospital I thought that was a bit brave.

Kabab Al Hojat
2/254 Pitt St, Merrylands NSW 2160
(02) 8677 9423

Categories
Middle Eastern

CK’s Canterbury Kebabs & Burgers – Canterbury NSW Restaurant Review

Probably unrelated to CK Kebab in Westmead, CK’s Canterbury Kebabs & Burgers provides a high-mid tier mixed kebab for a hefty $12. The salad is fresh without any hint of weirdness, the meat used is good, and the service is fast.

There is no additional charge for tabouli or multiple sauces, though I would’ve preferred a 50 cent surcharge or something to get an actual quantity of tabouli worth mentioning. I will ask for this the next time I go.

UPDATE
We’ve had probably ten kebabs over the course of the year since I first drafted this post, and they have been repeatedly high quality. The bouli to bab ratio has improved without us asking for anything in particular, and the kebabs have remained plump, juicy, and tasty. Unfortunately I don’t have any recent cross-sectional imagery to prove this.

Other things we have eaten from CK’s Canterbury include burgers, snack packs, and chips. See below.

This beef burger with egg was probably $9-10. It was really only OK, with the patty too soft and untextured for my liking.

I don’t know how expensive these chips with chicken salt were, but they were pretty good, fresh, and sogged only by tomato sauce.

The snack packs were also good, I’ve had a few, uncaptured, that I shouldn’t have. CK’s is just so convenient on the way home from the city after an expensive meal that we often find ourselves topping up on it.

VERDICT

Not gourmet, but not everything needs to be.

CK’s Canterbury Kebabs & Burgers
280 Canterbury Rd, Canterbury NSW 2193

Categories
Café Italian Middle Eastern

Bar Biscotti – North Strathfield NSW Restaurant Review

The main take-home message from this review is really that the food was good, but we spent 40 minutes waiting.

This mango smoothie ($9) was $9 expensive, but pretty good, and came soon after ordering, which was more than we could say about the rest of our meal.

The Mediterranean Potato & Eggs ($21) featuring spiced (mostly vinegary) potato, egg, and zaatar was pretty good. The potatoes were a bit more sour than my partner would’ve liked, and though she wasn’t particularly keen on them I felt the eggs were quite good, as was the surprise zaatar which I think was just mentioned in the menu as “coriander… and a side of pita bread”.

The Italian Meatballs ($22) were pretty good. The Turkish bread was probably the best part – light and airy, a bit oily, a bit crispy, and nice and warm. The beef meatball was a bit weird, a brown exterior with an unexpectedly pink interior displaying a gobstopper like quality that the waiter PROMISED was normal and intentional (but why?) We did eat it and did not get sick. The Napoletana sauce was fine, and the rocket was plenty, but I do feel like a bit of extra bread to soak up all that extra sauce wouldn’t have gone astray. I don’t know why there’s a separate option on the menu for a meatball sub which seems essentially the same dish with different bread and cheese but vaguely the same deal. It was a difficult choice, but I think with this delicious Turkish bread we probably made the right one.

OTHER THOUGHTS We didn’t really complain about our meal taking an extremely long time to come, but the couple next to us who ordered after us and got their food fractionally before us did, and I think they were offered something free out of it. The food was reasonably good, but I’m just glad we had nowhere else to be that morning, because 40 minutes is too much.

Bar Biscotti
24 George St, North Strathfield NSW 2137
0424 195 732

Categories
Middle Eastern

CK Kebab – Westmead NSW Restaurant Review

Service is fast and friendly. Kebabs are well priced, well flavoured, and sauced – much better than other local alternatives.

Their spinach and cheese gozleme ($13.50) is also good.

COMMENTS
The opening hours (essentially Monday-Sunday 0900-2030/2100) could be a bit better. I think they must open so early because they also serve coffee, but I wish they would close a bit later so that we could get their kebabs delivered to work on a night shift rather than settle for inferior alternatives. As it stands, CK Kebab is a good option for the nocturnist who occasionally visits the adjacent Coles to buy snacks for his nursing colleagues before his shift.

CK Kebab
29-33 Darcy Rd, Westmead NSW 2145
(02) 8677 7708

Categories
Middle Eastern

Armani – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

Our Egyptian colleague recommended Armani Restaurant as the victim of a recent work lunch. We each had a Chicken Shawarma Roll ($9). These rolls were miniature in size, but large in taste – reminiscent of the rolls at Fatima’s in Surry Hills. They were tightly packed pita rolls, with a filling of chicken, lettuce, pickles, and toum. The dominant ingredient was the chicken, with the roll containing significantly less greenery than your regular kebab. The strong garlic and pickle flavours were quite good, though the roll did lack a strong sense of freshness which is normally brought to the table by tomato, onion, or tabouli – three elements which are not authentic to Levantine Arabic shawarma but still delicious.

This is a strong roll and I would like to eat it again some day.

EDIT 2022: And did! Many times!

Armani Restaurant
5/354 Church St, Parramatta NSW 2150
(02) 8840 9453