North Park Produce's deli section opened a take out food section a couple of weeks ago. There were door hangers sent in the local newspapers as well as flyers heralding the opening of this new food option...North Park Produce is our local international grocery store, just a few minutes away by car, or 20 minutes away if we walked (like we would). The market is the former site of The Good Guys, which went out of business a few years back and was reincarnated at NPP in Fall of 2007, the same time that Fresh and Easy opened. Lastly, NPP is right next to Costco (just down the hill) and shares walls with K-Mart.
They offer several kabab combo plates as well as shawsarmas and other Mediterranean food items like Gyros, Manakeesh (a type of flatbread with zataar herbs and sesame), falafel sandwiches, and pies (spinach, meat, feta). The appetizers offered are hummus, baba banouj, tabouli salad, lebne, grape leaves, and because this is totally Mediterranean, FRENCH FRIES. Maybe that's to appeal to the non-adventurous or something. As Kirk from Mmm-Yoso would say, they are probably "Sysco-fied". 
That's TC playing Vortex on my iPod...There's a small dining section right by the Mexican style bakery. It's located near the front corner of the store...Not pictured, but present, are the Hookahs and flavored tobacco items...Hmmm...Bongs anyone?
What we love about NPP is that they have a diverse selection of food items from everywhere. All kinds of people shop here - you name it, they're here. Just last week I saw a lady in a beautiful sari doing her grocery shopping. Another time, I saw two women in burqas - they were fully covered in head to toe black. The only thing showing were their eyes. The store stocks so many things such as Russian chocolates, Filipino ice cream, Indian spices, Mexican sweets and much much more. So, when this new food place opened, we wanted to give it a shot...
Aaagh - you can see the dirt on my Tokidoki Concerto Punk rocker character! We wondered if the food would be as good as the other Middle Eastern type places we've been to...
TC and I shared the beef Kabob Plate ($6.99) with basmati rice, salad, pita (on the side) and hummus. The cucumber was the Persian variety, smaller than your normal cucumber with less seedlike filling. The hummus was pretty good but I thought the pita a bit dry. The beef kababs looked pretty substantial. The flavoring didn't seem to be as deep or pronounced as the ones I've had at Parsian Market, Sadaf and Bandar. One thing that kind of worried me was that the meat looked a little undercooked when sliced open. Another thing was the rice portion was quite small. The rice seemed "broken" and not long and fluffy like other types of rice I've had at similar places. It was a small portion and was a bit too dry.
This was Bert's plate - The Gyros with salad, pickles, parsley, hummus, and tatziki (in the cup). We all really liked the tatziki - cool and refreshing. Bert thought the gyros was "okay" and didn't think it was too bad.
View from our table...Check out all the video cameras!
So would we go here again? Most likely yes since they're still fairly new and probably still working out a few kinks. It's definitely an option if none of us feel like cooking that night, but for better Mediterranean, we'd make the drive to El Cajon or Convoy or something.
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