LTHForum.com

Lady G-
Nice Rant.

Guess if ya want "good" Middle Eastern- ya gotta back to Albany Park and check out Dawali (4911 N. Kedzie)

Frankly- I was more happy that "Abdul"/Albert our waiter buddy from Salaam was still "around", than I was
with the tired Strip mall-looking/fluorescent light/funky not-so-clean banos vibe of this place on Cumberland Rd.
Sorry that you had to "take-one-for-the-team" to discover this for yourself.
Kinda like when ya see a "bad" movie- it's 90 minutes of your life- lost- that you can never reclaim.....at least w/
a crappy meal- in 24 hr.s or less- it's all flushed away- leaving only the bad taste in your memory banks.

Onwards to Albany Park!

That syncs up with what I've been told as well. It's been a while since I've been there, but I recently ran into Abdul (Albert) the waiter (who now ironically works at Salam again). He told me the owner went back to the old country and there are new people running the place. He couldn't handle working there anymore, so he left. That pretty much said it all for me.

_________________
Steve Z.
Photographer/Pseudojournalist

"The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook." - Julia Child

Ditto. I'd heard the same from a co-worker who used to eat there frequently and has stopped. He said it had gone way downhill.

=R=

_________________
I just wanna live until I gotta die. I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try. --Todd Snider

Spit out the gum, sister!

Twitter: ronniesuburban

I ate here not that long ago, less than a month ago, because I know it was shortly after my last trip to Las Vegas. The dinner I had was OK, not as good as others I've had, but we also ordered pretty mundanely. It was nothing that would cause me to instantly change my opinion on the place, although the totality of other comments do give me pause on returning.

That said, the comment quoted above, I know is not meant to be disparaging to me generally, but generally it does get my goat (because in the plain text of what's written it's highly disparaging, although I think there's some tongue-in-cheek here). Still, it's not so much this one as the general spirit in several recent threads (you all know the ones) where it seems people feel the need tell each other how bad their opinions were.

There's all sorts of reasons that people have different experiences at restaurants. That's not also taking into account how people value different things and what excites someone vs. turning them off. There's no reason we should all like the same place, and there's no reason to expect we all have the same experiences. Trying to enforce some other standards, to me, seems fruitless and leads to an off-tone. Cannot you say what you think without other comments? I'd happy to read different opinions than mine; I'd just like to read a bit less commentary of my opinions themselves.

_________________
Think Yiddish, Dress British - Advice of Evil Ronnie to me.

The Local Beet's very big list of 2013 Farmer's Markets

VI you are hardly the only person to have posted positively about this restaurant. I'm as guilty or perhaps even moreso than you. Don't rake things personally. Things change at restaurants...especially small ethnic ones all the time.

_________________
Steve Z.
Photographer/Pseudojournalist

"The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook." - Julia Child

Rob & Steve, you both know I hold you & you opinions in high esteem. You were among the main reasons I thought, after my first visit to Bab al Salam a long time ago [maybe 18 months?], that maybe I was missing something & should give the place another chance. Maybe they were having a bad night when I went before.

But I really needed a good meal last night, and they really let me down.

I know who to blame, and it's the people who burn the shawarma, not the people who produce pixels.

I just wanted to enjoy my sandwich.

_________________
=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=

"Enjoy every sandwich."

-Warren Zevon

I returned for lunch, thinking it's worth giving the place another try. Bad move! Falafel under-seasoned, lukewarm and dry. Hummus very thick (not enough tahini I suspect), too much lemon but little in the way of other flavor, and poor quality olive oil. I am now officially done - very sad because this place was fantastic when it opened.

On the plus side, I noticed a new middle eastern spot that just opened in the strip mall on the north side of Lawrence, just west of Harlem (same strip mall as Thai Pastry).