Dined this evening with bseller and ElmhurstNick at Al-Khayameih.

TONS of GREAT TASTING food for $56 bucks total (not including tip)

Starters:

Baba Ghanouj had a great smokey flavor

Kibbie was the only so-so dish IMO

Entrees:

We split the Shawarma Combo and the Shish Kabab Combo

The Shish Kabob Combo consisted of beef & chicken kababs as well as kofta (ground lamb). The beef was OUTSTANDING!!

The Shawarma Combo consisted of beef & chicken shwarma, I preferred the beef.

Two condiments, Tahini sauce and a crushed garlic paste were served along with the meats. The crushed garlic sauce rocked ^ ^

As kind of a palate cleanser, the yogurt salad was ordered consisting of chopped cucumber, yogurt, w/a touch of mint.

This was great tasting food!!

Al Khayameih Restaurant
4748 N Kedzie (just south of Lawrence)
Chicago
77.583.0999

You forgot the falafal... :)

Excellent choice, as usual. The Kabobs were good, but I thought the beef Shawarma was tremendous. The chicken dishes were a little dry, but I actually prefer my chicken dry so that was ok with me, the garlic sauce helped a lot.

I also had red lentil soup. I'm a sucker for lentil or split pea soups. This one was different than what I'm used to, but very good. A bowl of that an a beef shawarma would have been enough for me most days.

The combos came with an insane amount of tossed salad and rice. I forget that the Lebanese are big on parsley in their salad, of which I am not a fan.

We could have easily fed four on this, I have a full dinner's worth of meat in my refrigerator from the leftovers!

While I still prefer Al Khayameih as my choice of Lebanese/middle Eastern restaurants in the Kedzie/Lawrence area, this evening Mrs Sweet Willie and I dined at Semiramis which is two doors south of the Brown Line Kedzie stop.

It is BYOB and there is a booze store right across the street.^

Semiramis is the type of restaurant that you take the city phobic in-laws to as the servers are all caucasian as well as all the patrons (at least this evening they were). Nice clean with that slightly bohemian touch.

Started out with the baba ghannouj - the classic smoked eggplant spread. Excellent smooth and smoky. Served with both wheat and white pita bread.

Mrs Sweet Willie had the Beef & Lamb Shwarma (here spelled Chawarma) in the center of some hummus. Very good.

I dined on the roastisserie chicken which is served on lavosh bread (very very thin). One plucks the marinated chicken off the bone, lays it is the lavosh and then slathers on some garlic sauce. Excellent.^

Semiramis
4639 N Kedzie
Chicago 60625
773.279.8900
Open M-Sat 11am-10pm (till 11pm on Fri/Sat)
Closed Sunday


edited to add: Semiramis was just mentioned in Chicago Magazine's recent article "The 124 Best Dishes". The dish mentioned was the rotisserie chicken !!

--

Just tried some chow at Noon O Kabab today, Noon O Kabab is south of Lawrence on Kedzie.

Hummus - just ok, not near as good as other places

Caspian Eggplant - mix of sweet eggplant, tomato, onion and garlic, topped with Persian shallots and yogurt - this was good

Baba Ghannouj - not near as smokey as I like

Also had the ground beef and ground chicken kababs over rice that had lentils, raisins, carmalized onions, saffron and Persian boisen berry. The rice mixture was excellent, the ground meat kababs were very so-so.

Overall the two places restaurants listed above have far more flavor than Noon O Kabab

Noon O Kabab
4651 N Kedzie
Chicago
773.279.8899