Al-Khaymeih
One of the spiffier places on a stretch of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean restaurants in Albany Park, Al-Khaymeih has a large menu with all the Middle Eastern standards plus a few rarities like sumac-dusted fried cauliflower and sarouj, marinated and char-broiled Cornish hen. The food is always fresh and tasty, particularly standout appetizers. The smooth, flavorful hummus goes light on the tahini; the grape leaves are tightly rolled and bursting with lemony rice and vegetables; the lamb, beef, and chicken kebabs are nicely seasoned and generously portioned; and the pita bread, served warm, is made by Sanabel Bakery, which shares its owner. —Laura Levy Shatkin
A pho joint in Koreatown seemed an odd thing to me, but juding from the crowds at lunchtime it’s a sound business plan. The pho here is geared to the Korean customer base, which apparently prefers a less oily broth than the typical Vietnamese pho; the result is simmered for ten hours with beef bones. It seems to lack some of the heady spices that typify the pho on Argyle Street—I wasn’t feeling much star anise—but the broth is clean and fortifying. Among the 12 varieties of soup a full four are seafood based—and include some really pretty green mussels. Much less play is given to organy bits, though you can still get your tripe and tendon flotsam. Considering that Koreans usually don’t go more than a day without some sort of soup, I’m betting Big Pho has staying power in Albany Park. —Mike Sula
This outpost of Jorge and Jeanette Gacharna’s excellent Lakeview churrascaria, El Llano, has one major advantage over the original: pollo rostizado. Every morning the birds start spinning over hot coals in the window of the Albany Park storefront; plump and round, with steadily browning skin, they beg to be tucked under the arm like a football and carried away. In the dining room the Gacharnas have disguised the ghosts of retail past, festooning the dropped ceiling and walls with folkloric gimcracks and posters of South American ranch life. The scent of sizzling flesh precedes the arrival of wooden boards laden with grilled steaks, short ribs, or rabbit, accompanied by a sharp salsa verde and the four starches of the apocalypse—rice, fried yuca, boiled potato, and arepas. Milk- or water-based jugos like blackberry and mango are surpassed by the sweet but oddly peppery passion-fruit variety, and desserts include brevas con arequipe (caramel-filled figs). Doors open at 9 AM for calentado, the traditional Colombian breakfast featuring beans, arepas, potatoes, eggs, carne asada, and cheese-stuffed pastries called buñuelos. There’s a third restaurant coming in May. —Mike Sula
Considering the great number of Koreans that run sushi bars around town, is it really so strange that a kalbi place would be run by a Japanese-Korean couple? Here there are terrific appetizers of oyster pajun—bivalves individually cooked in eggy batter—and a lightly fried, almost tempura-style chicken. But the varieties of panchan are milder and scarcer than those in a typical Korean restaurant, and the barbecue meats are leaner, shaved from higher-quality cuts—the menu even advertises Kobe beef. Of course, the cooking is done over real wood charcoal, but because the delicate cuts have a harder time standing up to the intense heat, you really have to pay attention to what you’re doing. The whole experience is a little more refined and less orgiastic than at most Korean places—it leaves you feeling as if you’ve eaten more like Sailor Moon than Conan the Barbarian. On the other hand it attracts a great number of local and traveling Japanese pro ballplayers, whose posters cover the wall, and a collection of balls autographed by the likes of Hideki Matsui, Tadahito Iguchi, and Ichiro Suzuki are enshrined under the register. Though the place is extremely hospitable, outrageously, there’s a $2 surcharge for extra lettuce and bean paste. Overall it’s less forbidding than a typical kalbi restaurant—our waitress offered to show us the ropes in a flat midwestern accent and the busboy was eastern European. Perhaps as a result there are always lots of white people at the tables. “That’s because it’s not real Korean,” a skeptical Korean told me. —Mike Sula
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I’m never going to say that Kedzie Avenue has too many Middle Eastern restaurants, especially since some of the best are distinctive. But with the familiar menu of shawarma, kebabs, hummus, falafel, fattoush, etc, what does Dawali have that’s going to draw customers from the others? For one thing, every day the alluring aroma of baking bread blasts across the parking lot, issuing like a siren’s call from its next door neighbor, the grocery and bakery Pita House. Ordering at the counter and getting our own drinks, we sat down to an appetizer sampler of pretty basic baba ghanoush, heavily emulsified hummus, grilled vegetables (masaka’a), and crispy though oddly herbaceous and wet falafel. Galaya, a tomato-onion-beef saute, was richly seasoned but tasted like it had been held (and arrived fast enough to indicate it), and lamb shish kebab was fine, tender enough and not overcooked, but nothing spectacular. But the shawarma, with very clearly defined layers of beef and fat-streaked lamb, showed some potential, its exterior bits crispy and nicely charred, though despite the aforementioned fat, it still seemed a bit dry. And yes, the bread comes from Pita House—one of the guys at the counter went over for a couple fresh bags during our meal. —Mike Sula
