Albert T.
Yelp
We stopped by during Dearborn Restaurant Week for a weekend dinner. The restaurant only had two parties other than us and I didn't see any takeout orders during our entire time there. Kind of surprised they don't get more business given how good the food is here. We got the restaurant week $40 special which basically came with a $40 Combo for Two + a $6 Spicy Potatoes. The combo comes with a variety of items.
Pita - Their bake their pita for longer than most other places, resulting in a permanent puff that doesn't flatten. It almost resembles a crusty bread roll. The exterior has a somewhat hard crust but the inside still is moist from steam and retains some of the signature soft and tender pita texture.
Toum - Some of the best toum I've had. Very strong garlic flavor, doesn't seem to have much, if any, filler. More of a paste rather than a gel/mayo consistency. A very slight green color like they didn't take out the garlic shoots. It looked like there was maybe a touch of black pepper, but I couldn't taste it.
Hummus - Not much I can say except that this is a very good hummus. I think they use a little more tahini than other places.
Salad - Very lightly dressed mix of crisp romaine lettuce, red cabbage, cucumbers, onion, and tomato. It's a pretty standard salad you get at most Dearborn Middle Eastern restaurants. Similar to a fattoush but without the fried pita.
Main Platter with Rice and Fries, 2x Kafta, 1x Chicken Kabob, 1x Shish Kabob, Deboned/Boneless Chicken, Chicken and Meat Shawarma, various Grilled Veggies - The rice didn't have any almonds or vermicelli but was fluffy and well seasoned. The kabobs were grilled to perfection. The boneless chicken was actually some of the best chicken I have ever had - inside was moist and juicy, outside had the perfect grilled crisp. Kafta was pretty standard. The only real weakness of this platter was the shawarma. Alnawras does not specialize in shawarma and you can tell - both were quite dry and the taste wasn't there. You can get much better shawarma at many other places in Dearborn. The veggies were standard-grilled carrot slices, bell pepper and zucchini.
Spicy Potatoes - Lightly fried potatoes with parsley and red pepper flakes and doused with a vinegary hot sauce (Tabasco?). The addition of hot sauce is kind of strange to be honest and really dampens the crispy edge of the fried potato. The potatoes were chopped into all sorts of different sizes, resulting in uneven cooking. I'm not sure if this was special for restaurant week as the menu has a photo of this dish and it looks totally different.
Tap water is available at no charge (I only mention this because a lot of the mom and pop restaurants around here only offer bottled water).