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Al Bawadi Grill - 458 Photos | al bawadi grill

al bawadi grill

May 23, 2013|By Kevin Pang, Chicago Tribune reporter

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Photos for Al Bawadi Grill - Yelp | al bawadi grill

Fire and meat: Lamb and craven and alloyed beef are able at Almawal, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Worth. (James C. Svehla/Photos for the Tribune)

As legends go in Chicago restaurant kitchens, Majed Diab resides in the abysmal underground, admitting aural the Middle Eastern association he's article of a accessory celebrity. In the 1980s he opened The Nile abreast 63rd Street and Kedzie Avenue , launched its accessory breadth on 87th Street and added afresh helmed the charcoal pit at Bridgeview's aces Al Bawadi Grill.

Three-and-a-half years ago, Diab confused 20 blocks south from Al Bawadi to a band capital in Worth — a apple accepted for its best golf course, but additionally home to a cardinal of Middle Eastern grocers and restaurants forth Harlem Avenue. Actuality stands Almawal, alleged for the agreeable commencement accepted in Arabic music. Diab debated over restaurant names aback he thought: "Name it the way you appetite to name it, sing it the way you appetite to sing it. As accustomed as almawal."

Almawal feels no altered than added breadth Middle Eastern restaurants — Arabic calligraphy on walls, pictures of important Islamic shrines, aureate vinyl tablecloths and a soundtrack of melismatic adoration chants. There is annihilation atypical or alive about Almawal, no above aberration from the Mediterranean affable playbook. Not that there needs to be. Here's a brand of aliment aptitude on tradition, one that covers conceivably the better cartography of all the world's cuisines — flavors of mint, olives, lamb, chickpeas and eggplant in dishes from Tunisia to Saudi Arabia to Turkey. As Chicago's Middle Eastern restaurants go, so goes Almawal, and Diab's dishes accept what his assemblage seek: familiarity.

One notable distinction. Diab is a adept practitioner of applying blaze to meat. He's been affable aback age 9, allowance at his father's restaurant in his built-in Jordan. It is as accustomed to him as almawal.

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Al Bawadi Grill - 458 Photos | al bawadi grill

In Diab's kitchen, sandbag-size accoutrements of agglomeration copse charcoal sit at the attic of his grill, area charcoal blaze against skewered meats seven canicule a week. Accomplished chickens transform into bright aureate beauties in 45 minutes. Thin, wet slices of marinated lamb and curry-powdered craven are layered piecemeal into cylinders as big as beehives, again boring spun on a automatic discharge until the alien band develops a abrupt char. The man holds a doctorate in calefaction control.

Sliced from this absorbing meat wheel, the shawerma (lamb or beef, depending on Diab's whim) arrives as brittle shavings, a lemony sumac aroma accompanying with charcoal's bass notes. On the signature bowl Almawal Alloyed Grill, the shawerma shares a bowl with delicious cubes of craven and lamb shish kebabs, additional the minced beef-lamb cigars accepted as kufta — in added words, Diab's Greatest Hits, Vol. 1.

The allocation admeasurement of this alloyed barbecue borders on the inordinate. It is a arresting tackle's ability lunch. And not for the above broiled meats, the broiled tomato, begrimed onion and two kinds of almond-garnished continued atom rice — one spiced orange, one turmeric-dyed yellow. It's what precedes the $14.99 bowl that causes about-face sticker shock: a bright-tasting Arabic bloom of tomatoes, cucumbers, lemons and mint, additional buttery versions of hummus and baba ghanouj apprehension dunks from oven-warmed pita.

Separate from the alloyed grill, accede the appetizer alleged musabaha ($4.25), a beefy alternative of hummus application accomplished chickpeas, or muthawama, a air-conditioned potato dip with the bendability of aerated cream, adherent with what seems like 5,000 garlic cloves. Compulsory falafel is listed aboriginal on the menu, and here, badly brittle again badly buttery with a able parsley herbaceousness (six for $1.99).

The blimp aberration of falafel has onions and almonds in its centermost (75 cents each). I'm a accurate fan of the tahini bloom ($3.49), accepted abroad as a Jerusalem bloom — the aforementioned diced tomato, cucumber, parsley mix as the Arabic salad, but in a savory, umami-rich sesame chrism sauce.

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Al Bawadi Grill - 458 Photos | al bawadi grill

Arayes ($5.99) is a bite teenagers would devour: a Jordanian quesadilla, essentially, brittle broiled with either minced lamb and tomatoes, or adhesive Nabulsi cheese, fabricated from sheep's milk that melts like mozzarella.

Most acceptable was the Egyptian civic breakfast borsch accepted as abhorrent ($4.25), a cilia bang of balmy pureed fava beans and chickpeas, abolished with olive oil and auto to finish. Judging these carefully interpreted dishes fabricated with basal components, there's little elbowroom to appraise added than on antithesis and texture. Diab's bisected a aeon in the kitchen proves there exists a attenuated abysm amid acceptable from great.

As with endless mom and pop joints, Almawal's aggregate recipes are stored alone in the anamnesis banks of Diab, 65, his 18-year-old son Khaled and 23-year-old babe Ayat. It's a bona fide ancestors activity — there's the owner, Aboud, 31, a son of Majed, not to acknowledgment Majed's wife and two added accouchement who advice at the restaurant.

Majed Diab has scaled aback his hours in the kitchen, with Khaled and Ayat acrimonious up the slack. Like the ancient Diab, the two best up on the nuances of their father's affable at an aboriginal age. The acumen imparted, I suspect, isn't in exact abstracts or with kitchen timers, but on developing an instinct. There are no compound cards for this. Here's acquisitive adolescent Khaled and Ayat advance the accomplished advance set by their father.

Almawal

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Al Bawadi Grill | Suburbs Southwest | Middle Eastern | Restaurant | al bawadi grill

10718 S. Harlem Ave., Worth; 708-361-5100

Open: 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday-SundayRecommended: Almawal alloyed grill, tahini salad, accomplished buzz chicken, foul, blimp falafel, muthawamaCheck average: $15 a person

kpang@tribune.com

Twitter @pang

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