Planet Kebob & Cafe

My friend and I had been wanting to try PKC for a while, so we finally did.
We walked in at about 5:40pm and were the only customers there. Since we wanted to take our food with us and meet someone at 6:00pm, we were pleased but a little bit worried. We both got the Special #3, the Gyros Wrap.
We waited for about 30 minutes to get our food. In that time, only one other customer came in and he just got some tea and left. We could also see that the chef was in the back on his phone for a lot of the time, while we were waiting for our food.
Finally, we got our food at around 6:10. We quickly said our thank yous and rushed over to our meeting. The walk took us about 2 minutes, and we discovered that all our food was cold when we opened it. There were probably about 5 – 7 pieces of penne pasta that had clearly been mixed with store-​bought pasta sauce. The «saffron» rice was just plain white basmati rice. The chicken kebob was not terrible, but the lamb gyros was really underwhelming with almost no flavors.
I really would not recommend this place to anyone. There are plenty of better kebob places in the area, such as D’Yar.

awesome staff and the food couldnt be better, I came here with friends late night a year or more ago and had to come hunt it down with my brother… one of my favorite places to eat! yummy baklava too but messy so eat it there: D

First, I would like to mention that this place is HALAL which is great. There are not too many restaurants in any given area with the halal option (of course, we’re luckier in the Bay in this aspect). Although, the hamburger uses non-​halal meat but you can request for them to use halal meat for the hamburger (they default to packaged meat usually). I am happy there is a Persian café that is well-​priced and delicious around the area. Coming from SoCal, I really missed that. I usually get the chicken wrap which is delicious and pretty cheap. I pay less than $ 7 for that. They also have hummus and other vegetarian options like dulma and veggie wraps. All in all, great place. I hope they stick around!

Disappointing. I got one of those lunch specials because it seemed like such a good deal, but… it was pretty terrible. The hummus tasted like gritty salad dressing. It was very bland, slightly sweet and not like any hummus I’ve ever had before. Plus, it didn’t have any bread for dipping… yeah, I know, it’s a cheap lunch deal, but it just doesn’t make any sense.
The man who made my falafel wrap wasn’t wearing gloves and he rolled his hands all over it. He gave it a good pat-​down before he was done and that’s just not cool. Hygiene, guys. Food Safety 101. Seriously. Didn’t eat the bread because of that, but the inside was nice, with a generous portion of falafel.
Penne was bland, exactly like cafeteria pasta.
The buttery rice was great. I’ll give Planet Kebob that. But when the rice is the highlight of your meal, something has gone a bit wrong.
Great prices, but I won’t be back.
EDIT: Well, they closed for good a few days later, so maybe that explains why the food was horrible.

I got the falafel wrap, and my boyfriend got the koobideh plate. For me, the falafel was a miss. It was very dry, seemed stale. But the koobideh was another story. It was juicy and savory. I would happily eat the koobideh for years.

i’m sorry, i hate to be the negative one but all things have a balance. I REALLY did not have an enjoyable experience here. I got one of their specials the chicken sandwich platter special.
First of all don’t be deceived you don’t get everything that is listed you will get. For example the platter description says it would come with basmati rice and penne pasta. The penne pasta was missing. The owner just seemed to act confused when i tried to explain i should have both .It was a waste of time and was really tiresome and i didn’t want to continue my argument.
The owner of the place does not know anything about customer service. The place was completely empty when back in the day when it was sufficient grounds it was filled with people. I was the only customer that initially came in to order. It was my mistake but case in point, lesson learned, i will never step into an empty restaurant again. He cooks in front of you and you can see him chatting merrily away on the phone while working on your food. That’s slowing up the process a whole lot.
I was put to wait for my food for 20 minutes (where something of similar caliber at gyros or d’yarr could of been ready in ½ the time) only to find out the owner went ahead and decided to do the order for the guest behind me that came in and ordered later than i did. I’m sure there is an unspoken rule to serve first come first served. I was on a time crunch to get to class. I wanted to then cancel my order but he pretended not to understand all he could repeat to me was the food is very fresh.
yes indeed the food is fresh but that doesn’t compensate for blandness. Everything but the rice was lacking in flavor. That tells you how good it was, i loved the rice, the blandest thing out of my whole selection the most. my chicken sandwich wrap was so soggy that it fell to pieces when i tried to pick it up. it had a terrible texture. The beef sausage thing was really dry as well.
I was really disappointed especially since i picked this place over the other med food places to give greek food another shot. This experience has scarred me a bit and i’ll probably be more cautious to venture out towards that branch of cuisine for a while .
i won’t be coming back here.

Pretty mediocre as far as medi food goes. Spicing wasn’t very good, food was blah. We went late in the day, so maybe the kitchen is better at lunchtime.
There are a lot of great reviews here… it isn’t clear if they are mostly stoked on the food or the killer deals they offered when the restaurant first opened.

I love this place. The staff is freindly, the restaurant is clean and the food is good. I got the grilled chicken wrap. The chicken tasted delicous and was cooked perfectly. The vegetables were all fresh and the bread and sauce tasted delicous as well. Everything blended together really well. I had a wrap and fries, but I felt that I could have easily of eaten two (except that I had stopped at Blondies prior for bad pizza). I highly recommend giving this place a try.

I stopped in for a takeout lunch after reading about the delicious lamb. I asked for the lamb and found out that it is actually the beef that everyone is raving about.
I got the koobedeh plate to go, and sure enough, it is tender and very delicious.
I plan to come back and try the pomegranate chicken and some of the other dishes.
Even though I like D’Yar, the meat is much more tender and flavorful at Planet Kebob.

Good Persian/​Kabob place near campus — probly the best in the campus area for the price! The wraps are good — the chicken and beef kabob are solid! Haven’t tried the plates but their meat is better quality then the other nearby kabob places. It doesn’t get much traffic but I hope this place survives!

Pomegranate chicken was good, grilled lamb was excellent!

Service was extremely fast, probably because everything was premade. However, it seems like everytime I eat here, the portions get smaller and smaller. A friend who got the koobideh plate used to get two racks only got one. I had 1 full koobideh rack in my Special #2 last time and this time I only got half a rack.
The koobideh is really good though, try it!

I went to this place for lunch before a meeting. I got the Tilapia wrap, on a friend’s suggestion.
They took a really long time, and it was slightly expensive (but then again I noticed almost all Mediterranean places usually are).
But overall it was pretty good. If it weren’t for the fact that I was in a rush, I’d give it a five (10/​18/​2012).

Delicious food, great service, very nice people! I really wish they had more business, but their location is unfortunate.

Fairly decent food considering this is in Berkeley (especially when you compare it with Asian ghetto stuff) so this place really deserves more attention. The sandwiches taste very fresh, and the kebab meat is tender, unlike some Berkeley restaurants that make you chew on meat-​like pebbles. Definitely drop by here especially with their buy one get one free promotion still up!

This is really good. Came here on a free meal day. Delicious, tender beef and tasty chicken, with some interesting pasta and some rice. Don’t know why people don’t know about this place. More people should come!

The grilled Veggie Plate was outstanding! The Koobideh on a plate or in a rap is delicious and authentic Persian.
The service is very friendly. Stop in the next time you’re in Berkeley.

update:
they gave the interior a new paint job and it’s much more inviting now. check them out.

This is a new place that opened where sufficient grounds used to be, and the space is redecorated and very open. I felt like the decorations were kind of tacky, but the seating was nice, and the owners were super friendly and attentive!
We tried the BBQ chicken sandwich and tilapia sandwich. They were more like wraps than sandwiches, although instead of tortillas they used a thin sheet of bread to wrap around the ingredients. All the vegetables were very fresh, and the bread was freshly made and really yummy! The tilapia was very healthy-​tasting, but lacked flavor, but the chicken was pretty tasty, and I really liked the pesto sauce (you can choose between different sauces for the sandwich).

Planet Kabob doesn’t have all their signs up. nevertheless the most important one was up:. «GRAND OPENING SPECIAL
$ 5 all menu items»
menu: bbq greek burger/​ground beef, bbq chicken, tilipia, grilled veggies, grilled lamb sandwiches (5.95), plates (7.95)-basmatic rice, salad, and meat.
drink: L. coffee (lappert’s, 1.25)
–very smooth, almost silky, not harsh at all, hawaiian? close to ethiopian. 4 stars
eats: grilled lamb plate (5)-grand opening special
–2 strips of tender lamb (demi glance sauce), had a bit of lamb taste
–meat looks like sparerib strip but boneless, tender like meatloaf.
–basmatic rice fluffy, cooked right
–salad has Tzatzina sauce, some cheese too, vinegary, tartness of olves. very nice
–4.5 stars
leftovers:
–all ingredients tasted fresh. dave, the owner, says everything is.
–dave has 2 other eateries in contra costa
–planet across from yogurt park.
–haven’t tasted much greek food, this is da best so far!
–dining room not cheap furnishings, upscale wood.
–grand opening special great value!
–not sure of wi-​fi.