Café Cabaret
3737 Adams Ave. (Normal Heights)
619-284-1819
Prices: Appetizers, $2.49 to $5.49; salads, $6.99; wraps and entrees, $5.99 to $11.99
By Frank Sabatini Jr. | Restaurant Review
I’ve probably driven by Café Cabaret while hungry dozens of times, failing to recognize that behind the coffeehouse façade is a little kitchen cranking out decent Lebanese meals for exceptionally relaxed prices.
For under $10, you can quash a considerable appetite with a paste of herbs (manaeesh) spread over warm pita bread before redirecting your choppers to a variety of $5.99 wraps stuffed generously with beef shawarma, gyros, fried eggplant or garlic chicken. We ordered the latter, which included an unexpected salad of mixed greens sprinkled with non-salty feta cheese and raspberry vinaigrette.
So informal is this eclectically decorated café that what you see stated on the menu might not always show up on your plate — or visa versa. The manaeesh “supreme” we ordered, for example, was supposed to come with the addition of lebneh, a creamy admixture of strained yogurt and cucumbers. But supplies had run out, so the kitchen substituted it unannounced with feta cheese.
For an order of smoothly pureed hummus topped with olive oil, we somehow ended up with a bonus dish of brawny garlic dip alongside. No complaints there. Yet the “mixed pickles” listed on the menu as a fitting sidekick to an appetizer of falafel and pita were teasingly missing in action. They, too, weren’t available on this particular day, along with an entire category of savory Lebanese pies (lahmajun) made with meat, cheese or spinach.
But the food that you do get delivers the fresh, lively flavors inherent to Middle Eastern cooking. The falafel balls are crispy on the outside, flavorful inside. And the above-mentioned garlic chicken wrap, all breast meat, goes the extra mile with the some type of cayenne pepper sauce coating the chicken that turns creamy with the same garlic dip we enjoyed with our hummus.
The most expensive item on the menu is a mixed kebab plate for $11.99. It yields several large cuts each of marinated sirloin and chicken breast, along with a strand of adequately spiced ground beef (kafta) that is spiked also with onions. Rice, pita and salad greens contribute weight to the plate. All other full entrees dip below the $10 mark, such as “meat over hummus,” the veggie combo plate, chicken or beef shawarma and salmon.
The café refers to itself as a “Lebanese bakery,” although the only items baked in-house are baklava and scone-like Arabic cookies. According to our server, the pita bread is outsourced and there is no sajj grill on the premises, as the menu might lead you to assume with its mention of “off the sajj wraps.”
Coffee drinks are in abundance, ranging from Mexican mochas and vanilla frappes to traditional cappuccinos and flavored lattes. My companion vouched for the grande orange cream latte infused with three shots of espresso.
“This is the best coffee drink I’ve had in a long time,” he said after drowning himself for the past month in Starbucks’ pumpkin spice lattes. Indeed, the flavoring wasn’t as cloying and the level of creaminess was primo. One sip led to four when I sampled from his cup.
The drink list also comprises fresh-squeezed fruit juices. I ordered green cantaloupe and watched the juice maker pluck the melon straight off a produce shelf that sits beneath the café’s interior brick archway. My only beef was that the liquid goodness was served room temperature, without ice. I should’ve asked for it in advance.
Domestic and craft beers stocked in a deli case with hummus, grape leaves and desserts are a recent addition. Nestled in the mix are a couple of Lebanese labels that include the country’s lauded Almaza Malt brew.
Whether you arrive hungry or caffeine-depleted or simply want to shoot the breeze with a friend over booze, Café Cabaret provides all the creature comforts for doing so, and without leaving a bare spot in your wallet.
