While scanning through my daily news, aka my RSS feed, I stumbled upon an interesting article from UNCUS. This particular article was about a new restaurant on 29 and Rio. The place is a Middle Eastern Kabob place. This could be some interesting and exciting news. If you happen to be up 29 and want a healthy snack - you now have one.
We undoubtedly review this new place called, Zam Zam Kabob. It is scheduled to open next week. Surely we will not judge it in anyway based on the fact that we have heard nothing about it and its stellar name. All jokes aside, it sounds pretty good and I look forward to eating there and/or hearing about it.
The real reason for my concern is the lack of attention the UNCUS gave to its article. UNCUS quotes the owner,
We realized there was no kabob shop like this in town, says the Iranian-born Hovaizi, who emigrated to the U.S. 30 years ago and has lived in Charlottesville with his wife and family for the last decade. There are many places like this in Northern Virginia, but nothing like it here.
Health conscious, Middle Eastern, meat on stick restaurant? Hmmm now why does that sound so familiar? Oh wait! STICKS! I am thinking a little editing from UNCUS could have cleared that little blip right up.
This will probably be great for those that venture up 29, but from the little we have heard this sounds strangely familiar.
Popularity: 40% [?]
Tagged as: kabob, middle eastern, Restaurant, UNCUS
Two points:
One, you can’t really edit the owner’s quote, he said what he said.
Two, he said “no kabob shop like this,” not “no kabob shop.”
why would you eat at sticks when you could eat at aromas?
Orchid…. please enlighten me on the whole Aromas deal… I had lunch there last week and thought it was dry and bland beyond belief. I shared a Moroccan chicken wrap and a wrap whose name escapes me(with eggplant and chicken) and what was purported to be a ’spicy dressing’. WTF? Tell me what you eat there, and I may try it again because you are such a fan but I really found it to be a gargantuan disappointment.
chicken schwarma almost always. or falafel. or the one that’s ground beef. i was actually really disappointed with the eggplant-chicken thing too. (though i’d still rather have it than sticks.) my friend always gets the vegetarian wrap thing.
Psst, Lu: I think your blockquote formatting is wonky.
whoa! what a [b] BOLD [/b] post.
/tartare on a stick
why is every comment on this post in bold? or is my computer just fucked up?
Can you explain these keys. I need white out.
/tartare on a stick=groovy box around your post?
I think you format is wonking.
russian soviets, eat donkeys.
appologies to the internet…
giaps. please. try to make sense.
parlie, you pot. Try not to call the kettles black.
WHY IS ALL THE TYPING SO LOUD IN HERE?
shhhhhhhhh!
weird… the internet broke.
Sorry about the quotes guys. I went out of town and while I was gone the internets were misbehaving!
/more to come on its punishment later.
Sticks is gud but it’s like a theme-park kabob place. It doesn’t have an authentic feel like these KEBAB places you see overseas that have the wheel of meat in the window that they’re carving off of or the little mediterranean pastries.
Well, before there was Zam Zam Kabob, there was Zandi’s. I thought that Zandi’s was a kabob place, too? It was mediterranean, anyway!
Zam Zam has actually been around for a bit. New owners took over the little place a few months ago, I believe. I’ve had take-out from there several times in the past month or so. Awesome sandwich bread: sort of a cross between croissant and a egg bun, which is great when fresh but not so good late in the afternoon. The chicken salad is an interesting Middle Eastern version: half chicken salad, half potato salad. They serve green or fruit salad with the sandwiches, the former usually with fresh strawberries or dried cranberries or something equally interesting. Try the pulled chicken sandwich - yum.
Not that great. Exactly like Zandi’s, which blew.
Still love Sticks
My husband and I recently moved to Charlottesville from two respective cities that use the term “ethnic cuisine” in travel brochures to attract tourists. Unfortunately, as two Iranian-Americans we understood that authentic Persian cuisine would cease to exist right along the Washington D.C/Northern Virginia state line. Until we spotted Zam Zam Kabob on 29. I think I even saw a twinge of sparkle in my husband’s eyes as we drove by it. The excitement overwhelmed us. We had to have a bite of Charlottesville kabob.
Well, we definitely had high hopes. We ordered the chicken and kubideh combo and took our seats. Definitely a very clean and neat atmosphere. (Although, I did have to clean off the table myself before taking a seat.) The food arrived promptly and we excitedly took the long awaited bite into our food. Unfortunately the kabob and chicken were both dry, and tasteless. The kubideh could be compared to a cheap replica of Afghan kabob. Definitely not Iranian. The chicken had no additional flavoring to it. Just a regular piece of chicken on a skewer. Given the cheap menu prices, the portions were still too small to suffice. The only decent tasting part of the meal was the rice, sans the traditional and much needed aroma of safforn. Much to our dismay, Zam Zam Kabob is not the place for two authentic persian cuisine cravers. When the owner decides to train the chef the art of kubideh making, Charlottesville won’t know what hit them.
damn, i was trying to respond to blogs before 12 M. can’t read that fast people, and still honor the memory…