Madina Halal Sweets & Restaurant

Don’t be fooled by the small size of this restaurant. The food is great! The chicken over rice was my fave and so was the philly cheese steak. Makes you feel a little bit like in NYC. Although I live close to Amherst, the 20 minutes drive is worthwhile if you want delicious halal food!

There used to be a halal restaurant/​small convenience store on Broadway that sold amazing middle eastern food, but they closed down some time ago. I was impeccably happy to find Madina Halal Sweets & Restaurant while searching for local middle eastern food at great prices.
Walking in on a Friday afternoon be sure to offer the Muslim greeting assalamualaikum (peace be with you). For its the holiest day of the week, and having a Masjed only a block away there is surely going to be customers waiting/​eating a quick bite before rushing to complete their salat (prayers).
If by chance you hold a grudge for Muslims, please do me a favor and don’t visit this establishment.
The restaurant is small, and dim, do not expect a perfect 5 star setting, the place is pretty close to appearing as a hole in the wall dive, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying some of the most authentic middle eastern/​Bangladeshi/​Pakistani appetizers and entrees. You order your food from the cook just behind the counter and you can either pull up a stool to wait for take out, or have a quick bite, or you can have a seat at one of the dining tables in the back room.
My husband and I ordered vegetable samosas, chicken samosas, chicken biryani, and tandoori chicken. Although we choose takeout the food does take a little while. Everything is cooked fresh to order, and it smells amazing! We wanted to tear right into the food, but we had some running around to do, so we impatiently put off consuming our meals until we reached back home in Niagara Falls NY.
The samosas were absolutely delicious! The vegetable samosa was on the spicy side, generously filled with potatoes, onions, tomatoes with middle eastern spices and wrapped in a deep fried crisp almost egg rolls wrapper type of dough. The chicken was generously filled as well with chunks of sauteed chicken with aromatic vegetables and mouth watering middle eastern spices.
The chicken biryani included two pieces of tender roast chicken over fluffy well seasoned basmati rice. A nice side salad of crisp iceberg lettuce and tomato was along side.
The tandoori chicken was delectable! Two nicely seasoned, but not too spicy chicken leg quarters with a smokey flavor from the grill flame they were cooked over. The chicken was finished off with a sauce, similar to tzatiki sauce, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It too had the side salad.
We immensely enjoyed all of the food, and we even fought over the last of the biryani rice.
I can’t wait to go again, the food really is THAT GOOD!

This is one of the best places to eat in all of buffalo. I signed up on Unilocal just to let everybody know about this place. Everything I’ve had from here is amazing: chicken tikka kabobs, beef kabobs, Chapli kabobs (a type of meat patty), homemade naan, vegetable and meat samosa, phylo dough chicken pattis, or even just the chicken over rice. So get on over to the east side for some bengaladeshi /​Indian food. Call ahead with plenty of time if you don’t want to wait, everything is made to order.