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I've only had one meal so far at Larsa, which took over the space that used to be La Rosa pizzeria on dempster, but at this early point I'd have to nominate it over both Pita Inn and Basha on this strip.

Like Pita Inn, they make their own pita, though the sandwiches are wrapped in the thinner bread whose name I usually forget. Not nearly as fast and busy as Pita Inn, no free pickles like at basha (sold as a side order), but the food I sampled had quite a bit more flavor especially the lentil soup (which I usually find dead weight at most middle eastern places - as I compare it it indian dal and find it lacking), the chicken kabob (they do not offer chicken shawerma), and the Kifta. The menu claims that their kabobs as well as the Friday special of catfish are charbroiled over an open fire

They don't have anywhere near the breadth of offerings as say City Noor, just the fairly standard menu items, the falafel are from chickpeas, however for vegetarians there are a couple of other sandwich options other than falafel including a veggie pita of cauliflower, Potatoes and an Eggplant pita

Next Door is a small market owned by the same folks which has a surprising amount of interesting stuff stuffed into a small space, including Mashti Malone Ice cream from LA

Larsa's
3724 Dempster, Skokie
847-679-3663
Tue-Th 11am-10 pm
Fri-Sat 11am-11pm
Sunday 1pm - 9pm

Based on this recommendation, I got take-out from Larsa last night. I, too, thought the food excellent.

Two appetizers stood out. Both were mini-"pizzas" baked on cracker thin crusts. One had a thin topping of chopped meat, tomato and herbs that was more of a spread. The other was topped with sesame seeds, olive oil and herbs. Both were quite tasty, and would have been even better fresh out of the oven. They use a pizza oven from the prior owner to bake these. I also loved by kibbeh sandwich, which was a submarine shaped creature that featured the kibbeh, tomato, pickle and other ingredients wrapped in an excellent bread. My kids had the combo platter, which they couldn't finish, but really liked (providing more food than my twin 16 year old boys can finish is a rare feat).

I hope these folks stick around.

Hi,

I have been to Larsa several times since this initial post. Larsa is an Iraqi restaurant and the (unrelated?) shop next door is Iranian/Persian. [On Larsa's business card, there is the flag of Lebanon. When you talk to them, the food/people are from Iraq. I don't know if maybe the waitress is from Iraq, though I was sure I was told the owner is from Iraq, also. I'm not confused, but I think they prefer a Lebanese profile over one from Iraq.]

As we sat down, I ordered Manna Eash, which is a pita crust with Zaatar (herb mixture typically composed of savory, thyme, sumac and sesame seeds). I also ordered a very likely non-Iraqi

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Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

Thursday I was meeting someone at Pita Inn at 12:30.The place was packed so we went to Larsa'a and were the only ones there the whole meal IIRC.Too bad.Great falafel and I loved the lentil soup.Larsa's could benefit from some Check Please publicity.

I will be checking this place out! I'm only about a 5-minute drive away.

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"You should eat!"

Fran,

You may also want to consult this thread before trotting out the door.

I haven't been there for dinner, though it is certainly under patronized at lunch.

Regards,

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Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

Except Pita Inn was packed well before Check, Please ever got on the air -
and has continued to be ever since. I dont even think the airing of the program
changed the number of patrons all that much - the crowds seem just as
much. I remember stupidly going for lunch at 12:05 once, to the Skokie
location, a good 4/5 years ago - an eat-in rather than pickup, and this was
before their expansion. Took me a good 30+ minutes in line just to place
my order! They are *so* busy for lunch it isnt even funny - and theyre very
busy at the Wheeling location for lunch too, have been there at lunchtime
more than a few times (there used to be a huge crowd of office-workers
from Motorola who patronized that spot for lunch in the old dsays IIRC).
One learns to always go to Pita Inn after calling ahead, and picking up
most of the time for lunch.

The big difference is that Pita Inn has faster service than Larsa's, and
is cheaper - and those are the most important things to most people
I think. Its also good, of course Their lunch special is very good, and
might be the best deal in town - they didnt change its price even when
they raised the price of everything else on the menu a year or two ago.
Its still like 4.30 with tax or some such - and its basically a combination
meal, and probably too much food to finish if you eat it all (including
the salad). And again, its good.

Larsa's doesnt have anything like a true combo lunch special, and so suffers
in comparison IMHO. Ive been to Larsa's and I like the food - I had *their*
lunch combo, which was 1-kabab-and-1-shawarma deal for 6.50 or
some such IIRC. The kababs were good, too. But even without any
rush, it took me longer to get my meal than it would at Pita Inn usually -
and it wasnt a "combo meal" as such, so it didnt include the falafel,
the 3 types of kabab that Pita Inn does etc. I liked how it tasted,
though, so I will go back - but I'll also go back to Pita Inn for their
lunch special often enough (partly because, after so many years, Ive
gotten addicted to Pita Inn's "hot and white" sauces too, and no other
sauce tastes quite as good And you cant really beat a big, good,
4 buck lunch

I do like Larsa, though - and go there too, sometimes. There is also Basha
in the area - but I think Larsa is better. Hadnt bothered to ever try the pizza
at Larsa despite a few trips, but maybe I'll give that a go sometime since
it seems to be recd' here.

c8w

Larsa is slow, can be very slow, maybe too slow. I usually try to warn about that when i reccomend the place, as I have seen folks in there trying to do a quick pick-up getting mad about the pace of food arrival. I usually order ahead and pick-up to avoid that situation. Which I think is worth it, becuae I find the food significantly better than pita inn.

I do like pita inn though, for what it is - one of the best fast food options in the city

btw, c8w, you mentioned la baraka, the newish moroccan spot in skokie in another post - have you tried it? verdict?

Ms. EC and I had a nice meal at Larsa's on Friday night.

The Manna Eash, mentioned by C2, is a delightful appetizer and gave me plenty of ideas for constructing similar herb-paste-flatbread combos at home.

The baba ganouj indeed has a very smokey flavor which seemed to completely eclipse any real eggplant flavor. Still, a very enjoyable spread with their fresh bread.

We ordered the combo plate (photographed by Erik M in the other Larsa's thread) and the kibbe as entrees. The highlight of the combo plate was the beef shwarema, which put Pita Inn's to shame. It's crispy edges and full flavor lifed the whole plate. My only complaint was that the kefta did not taste fresh from the grill, but rather grilled earlier and re-heated.

The kibbe was the most interesting dish, served in the less-common pancacke style. The bulghur in the pancake had a very deep flavor that threatened to overpower the mild meat paste inside. Overall, very enjoyable, but perhaps too much of one thing to be offered as an entree.

The owner (female-half of the couple, name escapes me) was an excellent hostess. She was very eager to talk about their heritage, their restaurant, and their homemade bread.

The one troubling aspect is that we were there just before 8pm on a Friday night and there was only one other table occupied (and they seemed to know the owners). Two people came in to carry-out while we were there, but overall it seemed like a very thin showing, and the owner seemed very intent on making me promise to return (which I will). I hope that they're getting enough business. As a BYO with extremely reasonable prices and very good food, there's no reason why they shouldn't be.

Best,
Michael / EC

I agree. I've eaten at Larsa's a few times and carried out a bunch of times and the one common note is that the place has always been nearly empty when I've been there. Their food is very good and I dread the thought of the place disappearing. Hopefully they can catch a wave of support and make it, over the long haul. I'm not asserting that the place is in jeopardy, only that it feels like it sometimes when I am there.

=R=

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Hi,

I've largely gone for lunch where if I wasn't the only table occupied, there might have been one more. About a month ago, I did go on a Sunday evening where maybe half the tables were full. A bonus for the Sunday evening visit was to see an older woman making pita bread in the pizza oven.

Regards,

_________________
Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

La Baraka is Lebanese, not Moroccan. I spoke with the owner when I ate there about six months ago.

The menu is pretty standard - kabobs, grilled meats and fish, salads, appetizers.

On a whim, my husband and I decided to get the meze plate. $20 a piece, which seems like a lot, but damn it was A LOT OF FOOD! Some stuff we haven't seen ever, like lamb liver (not that I was crazy about that - not a liver fan myself). About 20 small cold plates (olives of many kinds, salads, hummus, baba ganoush, eggplant and on and on) and 20 small hot plates. Truly a feast fit for, well, us!

We couldn't come close to finsihing it. The owner told us it was an authentic meze plate, which is just not seen around here at all. I'd have to tkae his word for that - I've certainly not had anything quite like it.

The proper way to eat is you take about 2 hours with a lot of drinking to make your way through the plates! With our 5-year-old in tow we weren't ready to do it the traditional way, so we packed everything up into take-out containers and enjoyed the leftovers for several days.

Highly recommended - I hope the meze is still on the menu!

_________________
"You should eat!"

I believe what you're describing is better known (in Armenian circles, at least) as lamachun/lamajoun/lamacun/any number of similar spellings, also aka Turkish pizza. I know that Sayat Nova has it, although they've admitted (in the past, at least - not sure if this is still the case) that they get their lamachun frozen from a distributor. I became familiar with this dish through an Armenian Orthodox Church festival, where the 90 year old grandmothers were selling it. If you ever get the chance to attend such a gathering, I'd highly recommend going, if for nothing else than the food.

Sayat Nova
157 E. Ohio St.
Chicago, IL
312-644-9159
11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 3-10 p.m. Sunday

If you haven't seen it, there's a discussion of Larsa's lahma ajeen and a picture in this thread.

For contrast, here's my pic of lahmacun at Turkish Cuisine:

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We went to Larsa's for dinner tonight, and I must admit some disappointment. A nice place, nice service, but the food certainly didn't offer enough to draw me again from our Albany Park home, or even dissuade me from venturing down the street to Kabul House if in the neighborhood.

The lentil soup and the laham ajeen, with a pretty pronounced mint flavor, were both pretty good. But as Al Ehrhardt noted in the other Larsa's thread, the entrees were pretty weak.

I got a sheesh kebab plate--one lamb, one beef--both fine but neither memorable. Better, I thought, were Kate's kifta kebab and chicken kebab. In my case, I was served 8-10 pieces of meat served around an enormous mound of rice, with two half-tomato slices on one side and pile of sliced raw onions on the other. The onions and the rice were dusted with what I imagine to be sumac. The rice I thought was not so good, a bit dry and with a funny taste. And the fresh-made pita, also--for which I had very high hopes--seemed to me mostly like a not so good flour tortilla. Hot and fresh, yes, but also too flour-y for my taste.

I was surprised that there was no gratis plate of pickled stuff served here. I always find that a particularly enjoyable feature of Middle Eastern restaurants.

Really nothing too bad here, but with all the other options around, nothing that will draw me back either.

Aaron, though I'm not sure I'd call the other entree's weak (compare for example to nearby pita inn) , I will say that by far my favorite entree at Larsa's is the catfish - any others tried the fish there? It's fairly simply but expertly done, nice grill flavor on the outside, moist and tender on the inside.

I finally emerged from my Basha's rut and tried Larsa's tonight. Anticipating an empty room based on previous posts, I was delighted to find that the joint was jumpin'. All but two tables full, that is. Remembering also from previous posts that the wait after ordering could be long, I brought my Sunday NYTimes. No need. Service was cheerful and prompt, appetizers appeared instantaneously, and the rest of the meal continued apace.

I really enjoyed the smokiness of the babaghanouj -- the last time I had it that smoky was in Bucharest in 1973, and I have yearned for smoky eggplant since then, though never come close. (Come to think of it, the sensory rationale for the BBQ obsession of the modal LTH-er now becomes clear to me.) But I digress. . .

I'll second zim's endorsement of the soup. A more interesting version of the usual lentil, with rice, dill, and a spicy heat that builds slowly.
My lamb kebab had nicely charred edges yet was juicy, flavorful, and slightly pink inside. I also enjoyed the thin pita, which had a nice, slightly chewy texture, rather than the crumbly one I've come to anticipate in most places. The fun quotient increased notably when I spotted a woman baking the pitas in the front window.

All in all, though I like the owners at Basha's and will continue to go there for their veggie combo-- a heckuva deal, I concur with zim that Larsa's has the edge. To me Larsa's offers several things that Basha's does not: a pleasantly lighted space, table service and superior pitas. Overall, a more restful experience, and a comfortable place for a solo diner. As to whether I prefer it over Kabul House, I'd say we're talking apples and oranges, in spite of the similarities in the menu. When I go to Kabul House, I'm craving mantoo or pumpkin. . .

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Finally had a chance to try Larsa's a couple of weeks ago. We stopped in at 4:30pm on a Friday and were the only folks there and service was fine.

Unfortunately we weren't starving, so we couldn't order a lot--we tried the veggie pita sandwich, the eggplant pita and an order of stufffed grape leaves. Now, I don't usually get too excited about pita sandwiches, but these were great--very fresh bread filled with interesting, flavorful veggies. And cheap (less than $4 each), though they come with no sides of anything, not even a scrap of parsley. (We asked for some hot sauce--it was great and VERY zippy.) The grape leaves were nice and tangy and held together well. I definitely look forward to returning to try the soup, baba g, etc.

This is one of those places I would never have found without mention on this board--thanks for the tip!

next time make sure you get an order of their soups, the vegetarain in our household crave these on a fairly regular basis, and its one item I think larsa's makes better than most of the of the places from the generalarea that I've tried