Tara K.
Yelp
This restaurant is one that I frequent much less in recent years. My family has been coming here for 30+ years, my Dad would often talk to Khalil, the owner way back when. Last I heard, his son is running the restaurant, but I'm not sure. Anyway, the quality of food has gone down over the years. We took a few friends today for them to try Al-Ameer for their first time.
We ordered a few things to give them a sampling of the menu. We ordered a whole boneless chicken with rice and fattoush, also the Al-Ameer Platter with rice and spinach cabbage salad. Plus, we ordered hummus and 2 skewers of shish kabob.
Our favorite dishes here were always the boneless chicken and the fattoush, both were underwhelming today. The chicken was cut so thin and seemed dry, the sauce wasn't as flavorful as it used to be. The fattoush was pretty bland and I'm not sure it even had the pita chips in it. Another thing I noticed was how small the salads were, the salad size seemed like something for 1 person, not shareable really. We enjoyed the meat shawarma, kafta, and kabob. The chicken Shawarma and shish tawook were also dry. We were happy to see that they are still making fresh pita. The hummus was very good.
I forgot to find out our servers name, she was very sweet and attentive. The restaurant ambiance used to have such character back in the day, there were personal pieces/ travel souvenirs decorating the walls. They have remodeled the place, which looks nice, clean and modern, but lacking in charm.
I'd like to give this 3.5 stars, as the food doesn't live up to what it used to be. I would use Al-Ameer as the standard I would measure other Arabic restaurants against.