Sahara Kabob

I’ve eaten in and taken out from Sahara Kabob 4 times in the last month. Each time has been great. Tonight, my girlfriend needed soft food because she got her wisdom teeth taken out. For $ 3 I got a delicious, «small» plate of hummus with pita included — cheaper than hummus alone is in the supermarket! I also got their warm, soothing lentil soup.
Eating in, I love that the restaurant is relaxed, BYOB, and extremely affordable. When I’ve gotten chicken shwarma, as others may have mentioned, I feel it could be a bit bolder in flavor, but overall I love this place.

Gone are the days when the only culinary fare you could find in Rogers Park was Mexican food. Having tried an Iranian restaurant on N. Clark Street that blew my mind such that I went back twice, I noticed another Middle Eastern restaurant next door to it. Since the Iranian restaurant had sent me to the moon twice, I wanted to see if I would get the same effect at the other restaurant — Sahara Kabob.
House salad. Potato boorek with cucumber yogurt. Vegetarian combo. Tea.
The service is outstanding. The food, albeit tastier than just average, was a bit suspect. I don’t mean that in a bad way. The restaurant has a bit of an open floor plan, so you can see that there isn’t much of a kitchen. What appears to be the case is food is phoned in and then prepared on location. With that being the case, then Sahara Kabob is the equivalent of a Dunkin Donut — a clearing house for selling another merchant’s or other merchants’ Middle Eastern fare.
One thing that I should add is that I went as soon as the doors opened for business. Sahara Kabob may not be one of those establishments that keep items in stock for fear of something spoiling onsite and then there being problems. I will give them that. The meal I had was enjoyable, but you become aware of things when you are accustomed to going to holes in the wall and are able to see your food being prepared from scratch, especially if the establishment has an open floor plan like Sahara Kabob.

What happened?! I loved this place’s food.
It’s just awful now.
My heart has broken.

I’ve only ordered from there once, so perhaps this review is a bit premature. However, I was that impressed. I ordered pick up and our food was cold by the time we got it home. This was completely our fault, not theirs. In fact, they called to check on us and let us know that the food was getting cold. Our cold food was delicious and very well priced. I look forward to actually eating there and enjoying their cheap, yet excellent food in person.

Worst food ever! My husband and I would order from here a lot but just recently we ordered and the woman on the phone stated she didn’t have what we normally order which was the shrimp briany, and states they hadn’t had it for months which was a lie.
Instead we ordered something else and she had ran out of part of the combo meal so I had to get something in place.
We got our order and it was missing things I ordered! The soup was disgusting, the beef kabob was overlooked skirt steak, and the falafels were dry and nasty. When I called them to let them know that we were missing things, the woman over the phone preceded to argue with me and practically call me a liar. I wanted to let them know things were missing, no intention of getting free food.
Not sure if there is new management but they need to change their act and improve their overall customer service.
We will NEVER return here. Yuck!

I do not know what happened to Sahara Kabob. It seems as if they change ownership because the signs written in Arabic are no longer in the window, the décor has been slightly updated, and I no longer see the older lady that used to cook the food in the kitchen.
I did not catch on really until I ate the hummus I ordered. That was some of the worse hummus I have had! It was grainy like the chickpeas were not fully blended and extremely bitter (maybe too much tahini, I don’t know). I used to come here to buy hummus to bring to parties because it was so good. I also ordered a gyro, definitely different from the gyro they used to serve.
I am extremely disappointed that the food is so awful, and a great neighborhood restaurant has taken a turn for the worse. Sahara Kabob was my go to middle eastern restaurant in the neighborhood, It is too bad, I am not going back to find out how aweful the other itms are.

I will not be back :(I’m bummed, because I was hoping for a good experience.
Even if the food WAS good, I still wouldn’t go back.
Both women were on their cell phones talking, the majority of the time!!!
Not a single customer in there. I did see a few deliveries & a couple take out’s. Maybe that’s why the service was so horrible. They aren’t used to people dining in.
Hummus: 2 stars
Shiskabob:5 stars
Service:1 star
Atmosphere:2.5 stars
Rice:3 stars
Couscous:1 star
The food wasn’t good & neither was the service. Prices are good though. Nice people mostly, but won’t be back for sure.

We used to order from here all the time. It was the best middle eastern food that was available for delivery in Rogers Park. It’s fallen far in terms of quality of food and also service. Delivery is always late, they forget items. Falafel the last time I ordered was soggy and dry (I don’t know how the hell they pulled that one off.) and they didn’t deliver any sauce. Blech…
Ugh it’s horrible. We have given it quite a few chances to redeem itself and it gets worse every time.

My partner and I had a taste for Mediterranean food, so we decided to give Sahara Kitchen a try. As soon as we walked into the restaurant, we noticed a large couch against one wall with several of the owner’s family members sitting and lounging on it (grandparents, kids, etc.). It was pretty uncomfortable because the couch faces the dining tables so they just sit and stare while the patrons are eating.
Despite the awkwardness, we still sat and ordered some food. We started with the Boorek which was very tasty. It looks like an egg roll but is filled with seasoned beef. Delicious. We then both had the Shawirma and were disappointed. The meat was lacking flavor and needed more seasoning. I have had Shawirma at a few other places before and was surprised at how bland this was.
The awkward family moments continued when a teenage boy walked in with his bicycle and joined the others on the couch. For a moment I thought I was on a hidden camera show. It felt like we were imposing in someone’s house instead of eating at a restaurant.
I will not be back due to the uncomfortable eating environment and the lack of flavor in the food.

Undercooked beef, 2 and ½ hour wait for delivery, the food is rotten, this is serious indelible and grossssssssss fatoosh salad is even made wrong, with black olives?
INEDIBLE… and I eat most things, but this is just inedible what they delivered, you can refer to the pictures I took to prove my point. From the raw beef to the burnt, soggy pita chips in the fatoosh.

I came to Sahara Kabob with friends for lunch. I ordered the business lunch and was impressed with the freshness, and flavor the food. This dish is like a sampler of the meats available here. The chicken was especially delicious and the service is friendly.
I will be back to sample more of these Middle Eastern treats!

Stay away – the place has been sold and the food sucks now. Nothing is the same anymore.
The new management has kept the name but changed the food preparation. The same formerly from-​scratch menu items are now made with catering-​service products. The BF and I ate there tonight and our hummus, falafel, and gyros were all obviously pre-​made somewhere else, and really awful. The hummus was actually kind of disgusting – so was the Jerusalem salad we ordered that came swimming in tahini like soup. (There’s another recent review from someone who ordered take-​out noting this new, lower food quality.)
This used to be our go-​to middle eastern place for about a year, and we loved – and were really familiar with – the food. The tip-​off is that the entire former staff (the old guy and his family) are gone. The interior has also been «modernized” – there are fewer tables, the tableware is all new (and from Dollar Tree, which made us chuckle). There’s also a recliner sitting in the corner now where the delivery kid sits between deliveries. It’s kind of creepy actually.
we also couldn’t figure out where the kitchen staff was. It appeared that that our food was put together by the delivery kid and the waitress. Besides them and their mother (the new owner), there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the restaurant.
The menu is also much, much smaller. Though I believe they’re still delivering off the old take-​out menu, which may explain the unexpected ingredient substitutions others have mentioned, like pickled assorted vegetables instead of the former, much remarked-​upon pickled beets.
We always used to see this place busy on a weeknight. Tonight (a Thursday) around 5:30 it was empty and stayed that way. I’m assuming all their regulars bailed because of what the new management did with the food. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. Forget all those accolades this place had won since 2005. The amazing food is now a memory. If you go anyway, don’t say you weren’t warned.
The whole experience was like eating in a restaurant reality show where someone with no experience bought a restaurant and wondered why all the customers left. Really that bad. Total bummer for us, we used to love this place :-(

At a house party recently where Mediterranean food was discussed so much that an order was placed for delivery and this is the restaurant they had chosen. Took about forty five minutes on this lazy weekend afternoon for the delivery guy to finally arrive. (I will note that the house party was relatively close to the restaurant.) A bit too long of a wait for a few sandwiches, a salad and hummus. Everything was mediocre like imitation and lacking flavor. The shawarma was plain and the hummus tasted like it came from a mix! A chalky taste to it which was odd. If it weren’t for the hot sauce they provided much of the food would have been chucked out in the trash and a pizza from Pizza hut would’ve replaced it all.
If only the food were as good as the pricing.

I think this is hit or miss — you have to know what to order.
Happy times: beef combo with cous cous, lentil soup
sad times: hummus, fattoush sald
I know, I know — how did they screw up HUMMUS? oh well, I don’t know, but it was a reluctant hummus.

We have taken out food twice in the last month. They are back to their old standard. Everything is very tasty, the portions are large, and the orders are as requested. We will continue to use them as one of our favorite takeout places.
Highly recommended are chicken kabob, lamb kabob and Assyrian Beef Briyani.
The lentil soup is usually quite good.

I just realized that I had not written a review of this place, which was a sad discovery, as it is not only my favorite Mediterranean restaurant but it may be my favorite restaurant, at least in Rogers Park.
It’s amazing. I crave it almost constantly. I usually get the falafel plate which always lasts me at least two meals. I’d also highly recommend the lentil soup.

I really liked this food. Fresh, hot, tasty. The price isnt too high and the people who work there, friendly and welcoming. Its a perfect place to take out from, we didnt eat in.
I got the chicken kabobs and cous cous.
He got something beef and rice.
The lentil soup is delish, like one other Unilocaler had said.
Huge portions. We saved half and had it for breakfast.
Will return.

If anyone actually browses through the reviews then you should know:
* lentil soup is great! Everyone was on par with that
* rice had carrots and raisins, yano to count for our other daily food groups!
* food was piping hot in my togo order and was even hot when I brought it home yay!
— chicken shawrma sandwhich was messy but maybe I am just an idiot when it comes to eating sandwhiches
— I don’t like a mixture of dark chicken with white chicken, yes I am picky and only like white meat :)

My review was removed due to «hearsay» I wonder if CBS is a good enough source instead of my «hearsay».
I think it’s important for Unilocalers to know when I place has been shut down due to sanitation issues. I won’t repeat my previous review suffice to say that I will NEVER, EVER eat at this joint again.

I like this place more and more every time. All we wanted was some cheap Middle Eastern takeout to watch Clerks and poor Conan’s last Tonight Show. Taste of Lebanon closed at 8pm on a Friday? Their loss is Sahara Khabob’s gain. Their lentil soup is not the divinity that ToL’s is, but still way above average, and their pita bread is soft and fresh. The hummus with beef shawarma was great both warm that night and cold the next morning for breakfast. My favorite item this time around was the fattoush salad, a huge portion. They are generous with the seasoning so it is a very flavorful salad.
And what’s this – they have rice pudding here!?! Oh… but not that day. BIG sad face. I have to go back soon to try it. We settled for baklava which was unfortunately very bland. Usually I don’t care for the stuff because it’s too sweet, but theirs needed more honey in a bad way.