Ladies and gentlemen, finally a restaurant that exceeds expectations! Baba's Kabab House is a brand new halal restaurant located at 3309 N. Central Expy in Plano. Make sure you circle around to the side of the strip mall to find this hidden gem.
The interior looks like it has been converted from some sort of Asian restaurant. Other than that, I would call it a work in progress. The restaurant itself is pretty clean. There are TVs on the wall, but they were on CNN the whole time so not too bad for the little ones. Bathrooms are clean with newly installed hand sprayers instead of those cheap, plastic lottas that cut into your hand that other restaurants want to subject us to. No changing station fyi.
The owner of the restaurant, Saif Mamoor, is a very nice man. His parents are from Uzbekistan, but moved to India where he was born. Therefore, he is an interesting mix of nationalities that is reflected in his cooking,
On to the food! The menu at Baba's is very simple, yet so satisfying. Their specialty is their kabab and boy is it special! It has been a long time since I've tasted kababs that are so tender, juicy, and fresh. Mr. Mamoor has his own technique for how he gets the kababs to be so soft without using tenderizer (a plus for those of you that are expecting). All of the items are cooked on a natural wood charcoal grill. They offer Beef, lamb, chicken, and kofta kabab (which is a mixture of ground beef and lamb). If you get the platter, they are all served with Uzbek Palao (fragrant rice mix with lamb meat). I was a bit skeptical at first about the palao as I've never really had positive experiences with palaos, but this was delicious! It was a perfect complement to the kababs because, though it had some lamb meat in it, it did not overpower the flavor of the main course. The kids really enjoyed it as well.
Service wasn't too bad. There weren't any waiters the night we went so Mr. Mamoor, himself, was serving us. Food didn't take too long to arrive which was great, but then again, we were the only customers.
The prices are very reasonable, nothing that would break the bank at all and totally worth it for the quality of the food. Mr. Mamoor is in the process of upgrading the menu so currently there isn't a mixed platter. We ended up just getting the kababs and the palao a la carte which worked out well for our family.
The night turned out to be a pleasant turn of events for us since we didn't have high hopes upon arriving at the restaurant. This blogger will definitely be visiting again and if you plan on going, don't forget to mention where you heard it first: The Spice Card :)
Spice Card
Atmosphere: C+
Staff/Waiter: B
This was a difficult place to find off of 75, and it had only been 1 week since grand opening. It's kind of nice to have the entire restaurant to yourself sometimes right? Unfortunately, there was no one else in the restaurant and so naturally we were skeptical as to the quality of food and service.
We tried to order a little of everything (beef kabob, lamb kabob, chicken kabob, kofta kabob, and lamb palao. The taste is amazing. The texture is the right consistency of meat to spices. If you've had bad kabob, you know the last thing you want to do is bite into a piece of amazing looking kabob to find a piece of cardamom has just uppercut the roof of your mouth. His kabobs are nice and juicy, with almost melt in your mouth consistency.
I love the spice, so had to ask for hot sauce, but for once, never felt like it was a must. In fact, I used the hot sauce (which was not home made and store bought but extremely good; he didn't remember where I could add it to my own personal collection) with the lamb palao and not with the kabobs.
Mr. Mamoor seems like a guy who really has passion for the art of food prep. He will share his experiences with you and open up with just a little bit of curiosity from your side. As a fellow griller, I applaud you for your amazing ability to take meat and grill it into the most succulent and tender kabob I've had, all without the use of meat tenderizer.
Spice Card
Atmosphere: A
Staff/Waiter: B
Food: A+
Dallas Edition! So now that we've settled well into the Big D, it's time to fire up the flame and throw on the spices. Let the organic and unadulterated reviews begin.
Our first restaurant of review is the Old Town Food Factory. Old Town Creamery you say? No, almost; let me explain. Old Town Creamery is the ice cream parlor which we've visited numerous times (will find some time to review that hopefully!), Old Town Food Factory is the unholy union of the amazing ice cream with less than savory food.
I ordered the Murgh Chana and the Mrs. ordered the gyro wrap. Since I'm mostly obsessed with the food, let's get to it. Imagine someone dumps a dollop of ice cream on an already melted bed of ice cream. That was my Murgh Chana. At the counter, I always ask them to advise me to order their house specialty. Being desi, they say "Everything is amazing sir". Right... but since I can't eat every single menu item, please tell me 1. The order taker suggested the "...Murgh Chana, and be careful it's spicy". Can't wait, got the food, dug right in. First bite... where's the food? I could have sworn I put something in my mouth. Ok, maybe second bite? Third? Last bite? At least it was tasteless all the way through, consistency right? Tried the gyro wrap from the Mrs.... It was only slightly better.
You may be thinking that's overly harsh. Perhaps, but I tried to look for flavor with my magnifying tongue; never could find it. What I really think is they should have stuck to their falooda and paan ice cream. Sorry OTFF, try remodeling your food recipes the way you remodeled your location and I'll return.
Spice Card
Atmosphere: A
Staff/Waiter: B
Food: D
We're baaaaaack!
Welcome back to The Spice Card. After a very long hiatus, we have returned to bring you all (or should I say "y'all" now?) honest and unfiltered reviews about local zabihah (and sometimes non-zabihah) restaurants.
Let's jump right into it shall we? Today's entry is on a relatively new restaurant, Old Town Food Factory. I believe it is owned by the same management that runs Old Town Creamery over in Plano (which has superb ice-cream btw). It is located right off of 75 in Plano. We were attracted to it because it was being compared to The Halal Guys of New York, namely for its gyros.
We visited after recent construction/remodeling, so thankfully, the restaurant was clean. Ambience was very family friendly with bright lighting, big booths, and plenty of space to move around. Though it was recently renovated, I'm not sure what style the owners were going for. There were, what I hope, temporary mirrors lining the walls that didn't go with any color scheme. There were some pretty nice tiles around the restaurant for the backsplash and decorative purposes, but didn't really tie everything together. It looked like someone just picked some things that looked nice individually and slapped them together, not caring about any sort of vibe or cohesiveness. I'm confident that with such a large space, a decorator can do wonders.
Unfortunately (or rather fortunately), none of the kids had to use the bathroom so I wasn't able to check that out. However, here at The Spice Card, we try to give a complete review including condition of bathrooms and whether or not they have all the facilities like changing tables. As a family that believes that family-time means enjoying each other's company and not engrossed in electronics, we were pleasantly surprised to see that there weren't any big screen T.V.'s, playing God knows what, to ruin the experience.
Ordering procedure was informal- order at the counter, waiter brings it to your table. Despite that, the delivery of food was prompt which is essential when dining with kids. We went when there were no other customers dining so we were attended to pretty well for the rest of the dinner.
On to the food! Don't let the exclamation fool you, the food was all right. I ordered the New York gyro wrap in a pita for myself and chicken nuggets with fries for the kids. One downside was that the kids menu was pitiful. They should have changed it to say "Kid's Item" as there was only one option on there. Darling Hubby (DH) ordered the Murgh Channa most likely because it was one of the only items on the menu that was described as"spicy" lol.
My wrap was not bad. The lamb chunks were huge, but well-marinated. The wrap was overstuffed with other things like pickled peppers and lettuce and quickly fell apart. If anyone has a trick on how to hold a wrap together until the last bite, please share! The kids' chicken nuggets tasted like the usual "Restaurant Depot"-style, nothing creative, but adequate. They came with fries which were supposed to be seasoned, however, they had no salt on/in them which was disappointing. DH's food was probably the most tasteless thing I've ever eaten at a restaurant. I could feel that there was something in my mouth, but weirdly, I couldn't taste a single thing. Major fail.
Pricing was pretty decent for the amount of food, but at the end of the day, I probably wouldn't visit here again unless they revamped their menu. Though the ambience was well-suited for our purpose, food is essentially what keeps people coming back and that part was lacking.
Spice Card
Atmosphere: A
Staff/Waiter: A
Food: D-
http://www.oldtownfoodfactory.com/
