Data Points in Albany Park - Al Amira

One meal can't claim to be a substantive sample, but on the basis of our dinner at Al Amira, the new place that replaced 24hr Mataam al Mataam at the corner of Lawrence and Kedzie, it's a welcome addition to the neighborhood. The menu seems to be a replay of the menu at the former Iraqi Kebab house, if memory serves. "Iraqi" kufta, half-chicken with malakhan, mosul kubbe, grilled pomfret. It wouldn't surprise me if it was the same owner/chef, although the waitress maintained that the restaurant was new. They bring in lavash from Tannourine next door, and have seriously improved the interior of that space. Less cabbie dispatch waiting room, more upscale cafe.

I stuck to the basics last night - decent lemony baba ghnouz, passable hummus, very tasty kufta kebab, with pleasant crispy brown bits and an unbelievable mound of buttery saffron rice. K got a felafel sandwich the texture of which which suffered from sitting on the table too long, but was very "tasty". White bean soup was under-salted but good once corrected. Pickles were a special highlight - serious garlic tang and chunks of carrot and cuke to compliment the usual turnips (or are they radishes????)

Service is friendly: our waitress seemed never to have tried the special (malakhan) and enlisted help from the kitchen to explain what it was (apparently a sumac condiment served atop rotisserie chicken). This is another link to the Iraqi Kebab House, which on my one visit featured exclusively non-knowledgeable waitstaff.

I'll be back to try the rest soon enough.

Al-Amira
3200 W Lawrence Ave.
Chicago, IL 60625

Sounds great - what's the price point over there look like? Been spending a lot of time in Albany Park these days, and I'd like to stop for dinner next time I'm at Al-Khayem for pitas.

Dinner for two with more food than we could consume was $23.00 + tip. I'd put the price point between Salam and Semiramis.

Despite the economic downturn the Lawrence/Kedzie ME scene is booming - something I welcome wholeheartedly. Zahrat el Madaen opened a bit north near Montrose (across from Feyrous pastries), Baladna opened in the former Iraqi Kabab place (it's owned by some owners who jumped ship from Salaam and is quite good based on the meals I have had there), Mataam al Mataam thankfully reopened, and George Kabob is bumping at 2am on a Saturday night. All in all, things are good for the north-side ME scene.

An observation - I can't verify, but I imagine the thriving Iraqi/Assyrian restaurant scene might have to do with the massive influx of refugees that were slated to come to Chicago in late 2008 going forward.

And a question - any recon on Zahrat al Madaen or Baladna??? Someone wanna chime in?? I will try to get over to them ASAP.

I tried Zahrat, and then ran into Sula on my way out and some of what he reports (about the owner leaving things to the Mexican guy who didn't know what baba-ghanoush was) is what I mentioned to him then and, to judge by his evident multiple visits, remains a systemic problem. I think the place has promise, but it needs to be run like someone's life depends on it, not like a hobby in between cell phone calls.

Seth Zurer wrote:One meal can't claim to be a substantive sample, but on the basis of our dinner at Al Amira, the new place that replaced 24hr Mataam al Mataam at the corner of Lawrence and Kedzie, it's a welcome addition to the neighborhood.

Welcome addition to the neighborhood indeed, in particular for the fact Al Amira is 24/7.

We were there at 1am and Al Amira, which as Seth mentions is more comfortable cafe than rough and ready cabbie joint, and service/environment was smooth as if mid afternoon. Friendly knowledgeable waitress, owner, at least I suspect it was the owner, happy to chat.

Kubba, dense potato dough w/ground beef interior in a rich tomato based sauce and unidentified green leafy vegetable, was the daily special. Firm starchy dough, dense, tasty, gnocchi on steroids. Served with Kubba Mosul (Fried), similar to Sahara Kabob.

Lentil soup, light puree, full flavor, needed a bit of salt. White Bean, rich full mouth coating, white beans tough chewy outer skin with empty interior, as if older beans were simmered and simmered in an effort to tenderize resulting in the interior cooking out. I very much enjoyed the soup and the interior starch from the beans may have contributed to the encompassing effect of the broth.

Chicken looked a star spinning and glistening on a rotisserie, has-been on the table, slightly dry, lacking in flavor. Accompanying mound of rice almost made up for the chickie, fluffy, buttery, delicious, even my carb avoiding dining companion could not resist its charms.

Baba ganush was satisfactory, appreciated the olives ringing the plate, found the flavor slightly washed out. Liked the hummus, also ringed with olives, though could have used more tahini for my taste, and purists may be off-put by the sight grittiness. Pita is of the flat Lebanese type.

Open 24-hours a day, 7-days a week Al Amira, along with Tabaq, are solid contenders in the reasonable option for lunch, lifesaver at 2am Chicago landscape.

Enjoy,
Gary

Al-Amira
3200 W Lawrence Ave.
Chicago, IL 60625
773-267-0333

Tabaq
1245 N. Clybourn
Chicago, IL 60610
312-944-1245

In a post on SSyal Ginseng House, the formidable GWiv refers back to an RST prose poem on that site which shall not be named about the braised lamb head at George's Kebab on W. Lawrence.

Last night, Kerensa and I worked to balance our tiredness with the urge to celebrate the news of the maleness of our progeny. Consensus: walk to the bank and deposit a check, then walk to a random place in the nabe to which we had not eaten, before settling in for the night in front Joaquin Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon walking the line in hdmi-upsampled splendor. George's fit the bill.

Strange place, I think. Not my favorite meal ever, but the joint has a certain rhythm; a certain feel that, in retrospect, was very comforting.

Like so many other of the middle-eastern places in our neighborhood, George's sports a buxom Russian waitress (I shall call her Svetlana), tasty pickles and a cone of shawarma spinning placidly, tanning on its electric-powered spit. No pacha on a Friday, but Svetlana zaftigly insisted that the lambs-neck special was the next best thing. "It's the only thing I eat here," she told me, "It takes no time to prepare - it's always ready. I love it".

So lambs-neck is what I had. It was ... fine. Underseasoned but very tender. Served with a generous mound of rice, a tasty tomato/potato soup and a bowl of limp salad. I liked it well enough, but I kept having a nagging sense of deja vu; a memory of a meal that was not middle-eastern. It hit me as a I teased apart the vertebrae on my plate: this tasted almost exactly like the pork neck at Edna's.

Kerensa's chicken sandwich came on a puffy loaf (not pita) and was topped with gently pickled torshi. She seemed more excited about the yoghurt salad than the sammy.

Chai came of its own accord. Svetlana beamed when I reported that I liked my necks. George came by to wish us well before giving an a-salaam-aleikhum to the toddler at the next table. A regular of Svetlana's from another restaurant who had recently lost a lot of weight stopped in for a meal after spying her decolletage through the window. She seemed genuinely happy to see him; they caught up on all the friends that they used to eat lunch with. An addled fellow came in and couldn't understand why the olives on his sandwich weren't pitted. Al Jazeera hummed on the big screen TV; iranian puppets entertained bored-looking children; the two guys at the counter talked politics or TIFs in Arabic with George.

And the cone kept spinning, round and round. It seemed like it'd been spinning forever. And perhaps it always will be.

Congratulations, Seth!

Zahrat el Madaen looked dead when I passed by Thursday around 1 pm and 7:30 pm well as this afternoon. All signs have been removed from the windows, which previously had a lot of them. Signs promoting fajitas probably indicated things were not going too well although perhaps not too surprising with a Hispanic cook. However, after the bits Mike G linked to upthread, failure is not surprising. This place seemed ill-conceived from the start.