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Kabab House Halal (Middle Eastern cuisine)  $

 7.25
JaT Rating

2521 Newhall Street, Santa Clara, 95050  (Directions)


408-984-2204


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Kabobs, Falafel, sandwiches, and various stews in this homestyle place.


Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 998
Reviewed: 10/18/2007
Rating: 7.5
My photo gallery 		I'm surprised we've never heard about Kabab House Halal. It's been in business for over 2 years and anything with kabab/kabob/kebab/kebob in the title will sure to grab my attention. We pull up and walk up to a friendly family behind the counter. We're informed of the buffet and quickly take pursuit to the goodies hidden under the steel trays.

The selection was quite small with 4 things to choose from; tomato okra something, chicken kebabs, koobideh, and rice. I took a couple scoops of each and returned to the table. I immediately start with the tomato/okra thing and I couldn't get into it. It was too acidic for my stomach even tried bribing Terry into eating my portion. He wouldn't go for it.

The rice was ok with a heavy butter flavor to it. It had the golden saffron rice but lacked that flowery bitter taste. It didn't stop me from getting seconds of rice.

Chicken Kababs were tender and had charred grill marks to them. In my experience, chicken kababs are normally white meat but today's buffet batch were thigh meat. Thighs is juicy and everything, and honestly, I just prefer large breasts O-O.

Koobideh is a mixture of seasoned beef and lamb(depends on culture, I don't think there was any lamb in my mix?). Think of it as a juicy hamburger with middle eastern spices that resembles a malformed hot dog. Like the chicken, the koobideh had burnt edges which had me grinning with each bite. Be sure to pick some seasoned onions sitting in the beef grease. Good stuff.

The best thing to arrive at the table was the fresh bread. HUGE!! I think he said it was just lavash bread. Piping hot and had a heavy yeast flavor. You can make awesome pizzas with it.

Overall the buffet food was decent but I think most people might be put off with the small selection. I'm with capnhank on this one, if it's your 1st visit, try the Falafels or order a sandwich off the menu, maybe a kabab sandwich.

As Terry was paying at the counter, I thought no one was watching and took 2 pictures. The owner/cook saw me and asked me if I was a student. If you remember a couple of months back, I had a run in with the crazy guy at Hungry Hound. Sooooo, instinctively I said why yes, I am a student. He invited me into his kitchen. This GUY WAS super nice and I can't believe he allowed me into the cooking area. We talked for a bit and I took a couple more pictures of the grilling kababs.

Sorry for the white lie, I'm not a student but I am a jatbar food whore.

I promised I would email pictures to the owner but the web address is down. If they owner is reading this, if you want the pictures, send me an email and I'll give you the originals.
 


Reviewer: Terry
Total Reviews: 730
Reviewed: 10/18/2007
Rating: 7
My photo gallery 		This is the kind of place that Jatbar is about. Its completely out of the way, hidden in a rundown complex, family-run, honest-to-goodness food with super-nice owners. And to be 100% honest, for what it was, it was a good experience. I think I needed to order better.

The buffet was a bit above average in price, but the one veggie item they had was pretty good - the tomato soup with okra was something I powered down with ease. The flavor, while not as spicy as I might have hoped, was still rich with flavor and quite refreshing. The rice was also quite good. But after eating that, I was starving. The rest of the items in the buffet were meat, so I broke the rules and went non-veggie. I tried the koobideh. To be honest, I don't have a lot to compare it to as I don't believe I have eaten it before, but it was ok. A bit greasy, but thoroughly flavorful.

Yeah its all my fault. I should have inspected the buffet before jumping in. Next time I will go off the menu, and I hope to return as the menu had a lot of intriguing items on it.

And the owners were super nice. As you can see from Jason's pictures, they let him back into the kitchen (a jatbar first) to take pictures. With the successful okra, I am sure they can pull other good veggie items out of that kitchen. I'll be back soon with an update.
 
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capnhank ate...

Falafel

“Falafel was quite good and the guy behind the counter was very nice. ”

10/25/2007 3:58:59 PM