A lost treasure in plain sight. Arabian food at Ali Baba restaurant :p
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Hi, foodies in the Hive!
Have you visited a food fair recently?
We ate delicious Arabian food yesterday at Centro Traki's food fair, specifically at Ali Baba.
This Arabian food restaurant revealed itself to me as if it had just appeared. I'm sure it's been there for a long time, but since I don't really eat out, I always overlooked it.
Their food looked good: well presented and freshly made.
Since you can watch videos on your cell phone, civility is over; with so many people around you, close to your ears, watching videos on their cell phones or listening to their own music while talking--so no earphones--, in a place where music I don't usually like is already playing, I just get indigested. Ironically, the loud sound coming from the TVs, as they showed yesterday's Copa America soccer match, allowed me to enjoy my lunch while there was only one source of noise.
I was coming home from work at 1:30 p.m. when my husband told me that we hadn't had electricity in the house for the last hour, and that he didn't know how much longer this would last, since there were two Corpoelec units working on repairs near our house. That was decisive: we would eat outside, somewhere with air conditioning and where we would not spend a lot of money. It's just about #lifestyle. I was tired, thirsty and hungry. I was also a bit sleepy, hehe, but that was probably because I was hungry. I had been awake since 5 a.m., so I had eaten breakfast very early. It was almost 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We decided to go to Centro Traki. Nice because we found great food at the fair.
Menu & Prices
Their prices seemed really good. After being tempted, as usually happens to me at an Arabian restaurant, by their yabrak ($5 a ten unit serving) and kibbeh, I immediately wondered if those falafel sandwiches ($2 each) were any good--oh, they were/are!--, so I told my husband we should order something, anything there. I was salivating! 🙈 He agreed; he's as much of a falafel sandwich lover as I am, and this is something I seldom prepare at home.
My falafel sandwich 👇
Most of the information about the menu was on this poster 👇
We couldn't learn much from the menu board which costumers usually browse as they wait in line. Our eyes went back to the big poster.
They also had menus on the counter. I took some photos as I read.
Skewers, tabbouleh, and falafel were there. But in these times of artificial economy, one should try to get the best for the least amount of money, so ordering several dishes separately was not such a good deal.
They had combos, which makes things easier and less expensive for both the restaurant and us costumers.
I was a little mortified when I read "shawarpapas" (something like shawarpotatoes 😂, a mixture of shawarma meats and our Venezuelan version of poutine), hehe. I was like what?! I am that out of date, my friends; I need to go out more. Unbelievable. Anyway, I don't think I want to eat so many fried things in a single meal any time soon.
Potatoes, potatoes... French fries seemed to have earned their place! I never saw French fries as part of the menu at an Arabian food restaurant so far. Never too late, huh.
Finally, we made up our minds. We ordered falafel sandwiches. And when we were about to pay, I saw this "promo" on a little poster I had missed 😵
Our order
The "promo" dish came with tenderloin and chicken skewers, one of each, tabbouleh, pita bread, and cream of your choice: I chose hummus. It was a good dish, enough for a delicious and satisfying meal. We realized it was a little bit too much when we saw the complete order: a promo dish plus two falafel sandwiches. We ate it all anyway 🙊 because we were so hungry.
Our order ☝️
Backfire. Dishes that will make you starve
This promo dish was the one which made our order take longer than expected, I'm sure.
The place has become one of the favorites at the food fair because of their delicious and unexpensive falafel sandwiches. If we had asked only that, our order would've been ready in 10 minutes instead of half an hour. I could tell becuase of the many falafel orders that came out before ours for costumers that had ordered after we did. This is something that happens when you aim for a dish that doesn't have much of an outlet: you must waaaaait... It was a 35 minute wait, and I'm sure I was beginning tu turn pale and bitter.
When we got to finally eat our food, OMG, we knew it was totally worth the wait. Flavors from the past; I recognized them all.
At this point, I hadn't even noticed the name of the place we had chosen.
I had recognized the taste of the food, mostly the creaminess of their hummus and the distinctive flavor of their tabbouleh, which taste strongly enough of parsley and spearmint and had that peculiar soft juice with lemon salt aroma that soaked the couscous.
It's been about 30 years since I last tried their food. If they are not the same owners of the restaurant where I used to eat downtown when I was in highschool, their cooks must be the same, or they must've learned from them. It's the same food. I finally got to know this when I saw the name on the ticket.
It was a serendipity! We're coming back no doubt.
All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY for all them.
Thank you so much for your visit :)
Banner by @andresromero 🖤
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