Dandanah Cafe-HOUSTON

If you have been to Dandanah Cafe, do you know if they serve regular Levantine style pita-type bread or if they serve Cairene 'aish baladi? How’s the food overall? Any exceptional dishes?

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It will be 9 years next month since I was there. I’ve been out of circulation several of those years but I imagine some things are different.

I was always there middays; it is probably much more active at night or would have closed. On a Saturday midday, the patio was busy with hookah customers. I had only one server each time; she was running the whole front of the house.

Generally I was underwhelmed by Egyptian food. I particularly wasn’t impressed with Koshary. My favorite dishes were the Kebda Eskandarany, the fried liver dish from Alexandria, and the Hawawshy, which was referred to as ‘Egyptian pizza’ back then. The liver was just an appetizer. I see both are on the Specials menu (as is the Koshary). I got both of those spicy and might have enjoyed more of what I had had I ordered spicy, too. The liver dish was unquestionably the best liver dish I’ve ever had.

I did love the Sahlab, the only time I’ve had it.

As to the bread - I don’t know the difference between the Levantine style pita bread and the baladi but I think what I had would be classified as the Levantine variety. I don’t remember any thing special about it except that the first time I had it it was still puffed up from the brick oven.

Here’s a link to my blog post back then with some pictures but as I say, that was 9 years ago.

I came across some bread labeled Aish Baladi at a small Pakistani store on Hillcroft in that same general time frame. It was baked by a place out on Richmond that, as I recall, was named Sahara. I’d have to try to look that up if you’re interested.

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The Pakistani place where I found the aish was Gulshan E Iqbal. They several years ago took over the Dilpasand Mithai place next door and I see now they’ve turned it into a restaurant instead of just a sweets shop. Looks like I need to get over there for some biryani.

A recent post on one of Jay Francis’ blogs mentions Alrawshe on Mason Rd in Katy which he says was Egyptian but recently changed to Lebanese, retaining a few Egyptian dishes. I’d never heard of this one before.

No website apparently, but here’s Yelp:

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Gosh…now that I’m not there, so many new places!

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