Wild Pita Mediterranean Grill - Glenview

I have been to Wild Pita about 3x since it opened a month ago. This estableshment looks to be persian owned and food quality and autheticity seems to be very good in my opinion. I think the food quality is better than Pita Inn and seems to be more flavorful. Last night I tried the combination special which includes 1 Kefta Kabob, Beef Shawarma, and a choice of Shish Kabob or Chicken Kabob on top of a mound of yellow rice and 1 side of salad and a side of pickled vegetables. They offer 3x of sauces to go with your meal (tahini, hot sauce, and a garlic sauce) which were good. I also tried the baba ghannouj which had a nice smoky flavor and is head and shoulders above the pita inn version.

On my previous 2 visits I had the falafel and the chicken shawarma wrap which were both very good. The chicken Shawarma tasted similar to NAf Nafs version.

Wild Pita Mediterranean Grill
1938 Waukegan Rd,
Glenview, IL 60025
http://www.wildpitagrill.com/index.htm

YELP:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/wild-pita-medit ... l-glenview

I drove by here and noticed it for the first time a few days ago. I didn't know if it was new or if I just hadn't noticed it before. Honestly, my first thought was how stupid the name was (are wild pitas superior to farm raised? ) so, I'm glad to hear the food shows some promise. I'm going to try to check it out for lunch soon, hopefully this week.

=R=

This thread came in very handy today as I was joining a friend on a voyage from the city to Abt today. We shared the baba ghannouj - I thought it was very good and the charred, smoky flavor was appreciated. My friend was less of a fan, but only because it had a chunky texture, which didn't bother me at all. It was also nicely seasoned.

I had the falafel sandwich which I enjoyed. I thought the falafel themselves could have been perhaps a little more aggressively seasoned, but they were still flavorful and were hot and crisp. The sandwich also contained some lettuce and tomato, but also just a little too much mint for my liking. I still preferred it to Naf Naf's, which I found to be a big pile of mush, both pita and falafel (though admittedly my only visit). I do prefer a thinner pita, and Wild Pita offers the thinnest you will find (I tend to find three types of pita, the ultra thin type that has the thickness of a tortilla, the medium thick type I typically find on Kedzie (Dawali, Salaam) and the very fluffy pita which I just don't care for (Naf Naf).

My friend had the chicken shawarma and it tasted okay, but nothing special and a little lacking in seasoning I thought. Even more concerning was that there was a big, raw chicken chunk mixed in. I checked out the spit when refilling my soda and noticed the problem - raw chicken pieces near the top of the spit, so if you're not careful and cut from the top down, you will get raw chicken mixed in. Now they griddled the meat before serving but in my friend's case, there was still a pretty good raw chunk mixed in.

I also noticed the beef shawarma spit and it was a beauty. It seemed to have some crisp edges, a nice fat cap and was just dripping beautiful juices. I had a tough time not pulling the trigger on that one.

I live very close to Lawrence and Kedzie so I usually don't find a need to leave the area for middle eastern food. And I don't work near Glenview or have family in the area anymore, so I'm not so sure I'll be returning. But I enjoyed what I had enough to recommend giving the place a try if you're in the area. And I really wish I had tried the beef shawarma - okay, I might stop by again to give that a try.

I had lunch here recently and, echoing some of the thoughts of others above, I thought it was ok, with some good and some not as good. In general, I thought the meats were the strongest items . . .


Wild Pita - 1938 Waukegan Rd, Glenview



Menu Board



Spits - Chicken and Beef Shawarma
Both spits were looking good at lunchtime. However, it seemed that the SOP here was to griddle the meat after slicing it, regardless of its doneness. So, the full benefit of the rotisseried char was not necessarily in play.



Trio of Sauces
Tahina, Hot (sambal-like) and Herbed Yogurt (from left to right, iirc)



Hummus
I didn't care for this version. It was runny and had way too much tahini for my liking. I'm guessing my companions didn't like it too much either, as it went uneaten.



Combination
By default, the cominbination contains Kefta kabob, Beef Shawarma and choice of Chicken or Shish Kabob. Here, my friend chose the chicken, which he thought was tasty.



Combination
On this combo, the house was kind enough to substitute a second shawarma in place of the kabob. I thought the meats were tasty and well-cooked across the board. The rice was also excellent, with nice flavor, a bit of fluff, good grain identity and no mushiness at all.



Falafel
Cooked very well but I just didn't like the style very much. They were underseasoned for my palate, and there were some bigger grains in the balls that provided a fairly pronounced textural element I found unappealing. I prefer a more homogenous falafel. The 3 of us split but did not finish 1 falafel ball. The other 2 sat uneaten.

I have no pictures of the (elusive, wild) pitas but they were as BR described, a thin variety that are baked locally and available in shops and markets all over town. I generally like this thinner style, especially when used in a sandwich or wrap. Unfortunately, we were served sliced wedges of these pitas and they were pretty lifeless; somewhat hard and seeming like they'd been sitting around for a while. For a place with "pita" in its name, I expected a bit more specialness to the pitas.

So, all in all it was a mixed bag. I thought the meats were the definite highlight by a wide margin. Nothing else really wowed me as much as they did. Wild Pita is farther from the office than Pita Inn and Naf Naf, both of which serve items I prefer over Wild Pita's versions. Still, the meats here were good enough to warrant a return and when I do return, I'll be sure to try a few other items about which I'm curious, like the lentil soup, the kubba and the salmon.

=R=

I was in Glenview today and attempted to go a place 1/2 mile north of Wild Pita that serves Banh Mi but sadly they are closed, I guess the nearby Panera was just too good

So as I was driving south, spied Wild Pita, the restaurant, the wild pitas themselves still remain elusive.

I was VERY pleased with the baba ghannouj and will go back just for a meal of that, the chicken shawarma wrap lacked the seasoning/spicing that BR mentions.

BR wrote: We shared the baba ghannouj - I thought it was very good and the charred, smoky flavor was appreciated. My friend was less of a fan, but only because it had a chunky texture, which didn't bother me at all. It was also nicely seasoned.

My friend had the chicken shawarma and it tasted okay, but nothing special and a little lacking in seasoning I thought...

I was disappointed to find that Wild Pita did not serve lamb shawarma but seeing the local demographics, I can understand why.

Hmmm, don't think I'm swayed from the favorite- Pita Inn. One slight correction on the picture of the trio of sauces: that's the tahina on the left and "herbed yogurt" on the right, not the other way.

sandman wrote:One slight correction on the picture of the trio of sauces: that's the tahina on the left and "herbed yogurt" on the right, not the other way.

Got it, thanks.

I also agree on Pita Inn. As much as I've thought about returning to Wild Pita since my first and only visit, I've probably had 4 or 5 lunches from Pita Inn since then.

=R=

Sweet Willie wrote:I was in Glenview today and attempted to go a place 1/2 mile north of Wild Pita that serves Banh Mi but sadly they are closed, I guess the nearby Panera was just too good

Do you mean Noodles "Pho" U? If so, I'm not surprised. Much as I desperately wanted a Vietnamese place in the northern suburbs to succeed, their noodles were slimy and inedible. Seriously, if you can't get the noodles right, what else matters?

edb60035 wrote:

Sweet Willie wrote:I was in Glenview today and attempted to go a place 1/2 mile north of Wild Pita that serves Banh Mi but sadly they are closed, I guess the nearby Panera was just too good

Do you mean Noodles "Pho" U? If so, I'm not surprised. Much as I desperately wanted a Vietnamese place in the northern suburbs to succeed, their noodles were slimy and inedible. Seriously, if you can't get the noodles right, what else matters?

my guess is that was the place, I normally prefer a banh mi to pho as I'm usually in a grab n go situation for lunch so I had never tried their noodles. I would say their banh mi were not 'traditional' but very good.