A few days after celebrating TORC's bday at Tapas Picassa and meeting Darlene and Paul Horn at M-Theory last month, TC and I went out to lunch with MFH. We were both on Fall break and I wanted to take her out for a belated bday lunch.
Speaking of Paul Horn, as we parked in the Ralph's parking lot in Hillcrest, I saw a guy that looked A LOT like him (t-shirt, shorts, spiky hair) crossing the street. I took a risk and yelled out, "Is that you Paul Horn?", probably freaking him out in the process. Turns out, it WAS Paul Horn! He looked up and saw me and I introduced myself again and expressed how I much I was enjoying his compilations It was kind of funny seeing him again so soon after meeting him. I ended up texted Darlene about running into him...Small world eh and so random too! I swear, I'm not a stalker! Ha ha!
MFH chose Aladdin Mediterranean Restaurant which is just down the street from Terra and next to the Ralphs/Trader Joe's shopping center. I'd never been there before...
It was crowded since it was around 12:30'ish/lunch time.
Ooh, I liked this light fixture. Their decor was really cool here too.
I was curious about what they had to offer...
I had my eye on their Passion Fruit Shrimp salad...
While TC wanted the Aladdin's Pizza...
For appetizers, we ordered the stuffed grape leaves (dolmas)...these had a nice sheen of olive oil.
Cross section...
MFH's salad - they put a lot of pepper and spice on it, as you can see.
Here's TC's pizza which had 10 herbs on it, French Feta, and sliced Roma tomatoes...This was pretty good considering I don't really like Feta cheese. On this pizza, the strong flavor wasn't as pronounced.
This was my salad - I asked for the French Feta to be on the side and gave it to MFH and TC to share. The dressing was really good, kind of sweet and not too vinegary. Faithful readers know that I usually eat my salads plain or if I do have it with dressing, it's usually a fruity and sweet type. There were lots of big grilled shrimp in here along with three types of sliced bell pepper, carrots, and Greek olives.
MFH got the beef kabob with rice and hummus. I had a bit of the kabob and it was pretty tasty.
I also got a side order of one shrimp kabob which included grilled bell peppers and onions. See the creamy dip? That was pure garlic with a tiny bit of olive oil! Man was it good, but it was also strong!!!
During our lunch, it rained on and off. Earlier that week we had a heatwave but despite the rain, the air still felt muggy. Saw this magazine while walking back to our car. How come I don't see a lot of cowboys that wear this outfit? Nice! Ride 'em Cowboy! Hey, if he was really a cowboy, his butt must really get chafed and all. I keep thinking of David Lee Roth's assless chaps (early Van Halen).
Onward to dessert...
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.
