Pita Café
T

wo surprises awaited me
when I last visited Pita Café,
my favorite restaurant in
Oak Park.
Since 1991,
Lebanese immigrant
Ali Chahine has
offered a menu of
reliably delicious and
authentic Middle
Eastern food and
raw juices at his
Pita Café restau-
rant on Greenfield Road, between
I-696 and 10 Mile Road. Downtown
Birmingham, north of Maple Road, is
his second location.
So, Surprise 1: Oak Park’
s Pita Café
has a Jewish manager. The young man
is Adam Tabak, who graduated from
the former Andover High School in
Bloomfield Hills and earned his busi-
ness management degree at Central
Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant.
His family belongs to Temple Israel in
West Bloomfield.
Tabak has worked nearly a year
at Pita Café. He agreed with me that
it has some of Metro
Detroit’
s best Middle
Eastern food. Which
leads me to Surprise 2:
I’
m crazy about ghalla-
ba, a stir-fry entree he
praised but I’
d never
tried before.
Like most with a favor-
ite restaurant, I stick with
tried-and-true items.
According to Tabak,
these are also the most
popular: lemony crushed
lentil soup, juicy deboned chicken and
chicken shwarma sandwich lined with
whipped garlic sauce.
More recently, I discovered majdra,
browned lentils and cracked wheat
topped with sautéed onions and
served with plain yogurt. So yummy!
I also recommend the cauliflower
sandwich.
But I was missing out on ghallaba, a
slow-cooked dish unique to Lebanon.
I first had a garden salad, comple-
mented by its vegetable oil-based herb
dressing. I chose rice for my side.
Then: ghallaba — seasoned pieces of
chicken, fresh mushrooms, green pep-

per, onions, tomatoes and carrots. The
dish was aromatic and slightly pep-
pery. I brought half of the large por-
tion home. Lamb, beef, salmon and
shrimp are other proteins available, or
order all-vegetable ghallaba.
A Starter Combo offers three classic
appetizers: hummus, baba ganoush
(spelled ghanooj here) and the afore-
mentioned garlic sauce. Spread them
on thick, slightly sweet pita bread
pouches, delivered hot from the oven.
The comprehensive menu ranges
from lamb chops to salads to rolled-
up sandwiches to the shish combo.
Many meal combinations simply
consist of adding flavorful
humus or smoky baba to
something else.
Pita Café’
s high-pow-
ered juicer presses ripe
fruit and vegetables into
healthy drinks. “The
carrot, orange, apple and
beet combo is our most
popular,
” Tabak said.
The Middle Eastern
ambience at Pita Café
starts with appropriate
instrumental music.
Chahine created a sense
of old Lebanon with cracked sand-
beige walls, stone floors, wooden
inlaid furniture and large brass
antique pitchers and coffee pots.
Dramatic chandeliers feature metal
bell caps with descending strings of
colored beads. The back dining room
is entered through an archway framed
in stone, repeated in “window” room
dividers.
Busy Pita Café is open daily in Oak
Park, but not Sundays in Birmingham.
Groups are easily accommodated.
Servers are attentive, helpful and
friendly. ■

dining around the d
nosh

COURTESY OF PITA CAFE

Pita Café
25282 Greenfield,
Oak Park
(248) 968-2225
AND
239 N. Old Woodward,
Birmingham
(248) 645-6999
pitacafe.com
$$ out of $$$$

Fresh Juice

Chicken Ghallaba

Esther Allweiss
Ingber
Contributing Writer

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May 2 • 2019 43
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