I was debating whether or not we should even drive to the East County where it would be ten degrees hotter than our hometown of Chula Vista. It was Labor Day weekend and I sorely wanted to avoid the beach areas, tourist hot spots, and places where we'd been before...
Another criteria was that the place had to have air conditioning (that took Asia Cafe off the list). When D gave me carte blanche to pick, I narrowed our choices down to this place...
because none of them have ever had Iraqi food before...
I noticed some of the fancy decor (from what I remember from my first visit last year) was still there...
However, it looked a bit more plain this time around.
It seemed so...bare. I could have sworn there were draped panels of fabric.
In fact, I felt a bit disappointed that we didn't see thisArabian Night treatment which enchanted us so much last year (see below).
(photo from January 2012)
What happened? Maybe all the extra cloth was a pain in the ass to clean? Who knows. I thought the decor really added to the ambience. It was literally like walking into an exotic tent.
Anyways, lack of draperies and tassels aside, I thought it would be a good idea to get "The Feast" option. Since there were four of us, I asked if they could modify their feast portion (comes in 3, then 5 and up to 10) for four people, which our server gladly obliged. The feast has a little bit of everything and I'd always been curious about it.
The first items to come out were four GINORMOUS flatbreads, along with salad and beautifully plated hummus.
Nice 'n hot!
We only managed to finish ONE (and brought the rest home to divvy up amongst ourselves)...
It was good to have some sort of refreshing greenery on such a hot day.
A very good and basic salad.
I really liked how they spread the hummus on this plate.
If the shape within were more pointy at the ends, it would have resembled, "The Eye of Sauron"...
When this was finally brought out, we all murmured, "oooh" when the lady set this behemoth platter down on our hastily cleared table.
As you can see, this was quite a lot of food! Included in the feast were four chicken kebabs, four beef kebabs, chicken tekka, beef shawarma (our least favorite because it was so dry), sliced chicken cream chop (breaded chicken), white rice, saffron rice, burghul (what we thought was red rice, but was really wheat grains with raisins), sliced onions, tomatoes, pickles tinted with beet juice, and Italian parsley. This was very daunting to look at!
Our favorite was the beef kebab, followed by the chicken tekka. Both were quite flavorful and juicy. I liked the cream chop too. Our least favorite was the chopped up beef shawarma. It was so dry and I couldn't bring myself to eat more than one small piece. I liked the burghul as well because there were sweet raisins mixed within. I think we probably could have gotten away with ordering a Feast for Three, given the amount of food we got.
Previous visit to Ali Baba:
January 2012 - You will notice that their prices went up dramatically since last year. The feast for 3 WAS $40; it is now $55. The feast for 5 was $60; it is now $75. The price for their Pacha went up $2 (it is now $16) but their whole lamb is still $250.
Our past birthday outings for D:
2012 - E & Drink
2011 - Brunch at Extraordinary Desserts
2010 - Pho Convoy Noodle House - Chula Vista
2009 - Royal India and Extraordinary Desserts
2008 - Ruths Chris Steak House (I went solo with D)
2007 - I couldn't find a post but I'm sure we went somewhere!
2006 - Vagabond (back when it was brand new)
My rationale for dessert was also the same. I wanted to pick a place where the majority of them hadn't gone to before. My first pick was Up2You Cafe, but D had already been there (and ironically KD's daughter sans KD during this visit) and I was also afraid we wouldn't be able to get seating (it's always crowded there) AND then I remembered their painfully slow service...
So, we went somewhere else...with plenty of seating, AC, and decent bathrooms. Dessert coming up next!
4 comments:
What a great introduction to Iraqi food! The Feast pretty much has everything anyone could want. I think they changed the decor for cleaning/health code reasons (dust seems to show up everywhere in East County, especially in summer; I never had the chore of dusting the oven when I was a child).
hi cathy - my only gripe is that they really raised up the prices of the feast. a year ago, the feast for 3 was $40 and now it's $55. for us 3 gals (excluding the bday celebrant), we paid $29 each (including tip). more than what i expected.
now that you mentiond dust, i could see why they took out the draperies, but gosh, it looked so nice!
Haha the first thing I thought when I saw the hummus was the eye of sauron, too! Funny! I had a similar type "feast" at another place in El Cajon and it was okay - too much food for three people though, like a serious freakin' platter. Crazy. Looks good though!
hi Mary, great minds think alike, haha! that feast was a lot of food man. i didn't like the chicken kebab too much though.
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