Ali Baba of West Side

I was disappointed in Ali Baba.
I went to the counter and there was no menu posted and there were no paper menus either. I thought this was odd. The counterman said he had just falafel and shawarma and recommended I order a platter rather than a sandwich.
I said OK and ordered a shawarma platter with a can of soda. He kept asking me if I wanted a pita bread on the side and I said OK.
In retrospect the pita was probably an additional cost.
When I paid the bill I handed him a $ 20 bill and I expected change back. In fact, I owed him an extra $ 3.
I thought this was outrageously expensive, even considering a premium for kosher food. Ali Baba is not exactly a fancy restaurant and you’re not paying for atmosphere. Furthermore, the shawarma was turkey which is much cheaper than lamb (which is usually what shawarma is made from).
Had I seen the prices posted beforehand I wouldn’t have ordered anything.
Having said all this the shawarma and the salad were OK but I will never again order at a restaurant that does not post a menu and prices.

You will receive a welcoming smile, and likely to share a few laughts. Make sure to clarify how spicy you want your falafel, and what salads you want in it.

Rabbi Moshe Harizy makes the best middle eastern food I’ve ever tasted so far. I’ve eaten a range of foods from his restaurant from soup to french fries to salads to falafel and more. I have to admit there all amazing. I love eating the tasty shawarma in his very his flavorful handmade lafah. He uses great healthy ingredients and I’m no longer hungry when I leave as I’m a satisfied customer. You get so much food for such a reasonable price and he takes credit cards too. I love the atmosphere here and I’m always looking forward to coming to dine at his very happy and very friendly restaurant and eat his deliciously mouthwatering wholesome food.

On the recommendation of my Yemenite ex-​boyfriend, I first visited maybe a decade ago and really enjoyed the beef Yemenite soup, and I visited once or twice in between and always liked the food.
On Sunday, my husband and I visited, and they were out of most dishes. We ordered shwarma plates, and there was very little flavor in either the chicken shwarma (not turkey anymore) or the salads. The salads were a little vinegary and salty, but otherwise had little flavor.
My husband ordered the Yemenite chicken soup (it’s not beef anymore), which came super hot in a partially melted plastic take-​out container like he had microwaved a container of soup (seriously??), and my husband said that it didn’t have much flavor. So disappointing that they didn’t offer schug (hot sauce) or amba (mango pickle) or anything else that would bring flavor to the food. I will stick to making my own Yemenite soup. The total was $ 38, which is a lot, considering.
For those looking for gluten-​free food: they have a noodle dish among the salads, and they use the same set of tongs in all the salads, so all the salads end up contaminated by gluten. I didn’t notice the noodles until after we ordered, and we asked him to use clean tongs, but if I’d known about the noodles, we would have gone elsewhere.

Great kosher spot on the upper west side with authentic middle eastern food. I’ve had the shwarma, falafel and grilled chicken in both lafas and platters, and it’s all very tasty. The shwarma is chicken and not-​fatty. Soups are hot and delicious as well.
The owner is very nice and interesting. If you are a picky eater, I recommend being very specific with your order because he likes to toss in veggies/​rice/​couscous/​beets etc. If not picky, let him do his thing, he’s usually spot on.
The place is very small, so unless you want to sit at a small communal table, you should pick up. Additionally, his hours are hit/​miss due to Jewish holidays (and I think random vacation days). I recommend calling ahead to make sure it’s open.
Overall, really tasty food and interesting experience.

Great Shwarma, for a great price. Got everything inside the pita to make for a really satisfying dinner for only $ 11. Will definitely come back for more!

Great food plain and simple. Came in for a sandwich and it was made fresh with plenty of toppings. Tasted great!

The best chicken cutlet I have ever ate! Very crispy and made with a lot of love. Had it in a pita bread, with some well marinated salads, hummus and a level 5 spice. Next time will try the shawarma and other things on the Manu, it feels like you can not go wrong with any pick.

Dry laffa, old vegetables, average shwarma, very small restaurant. Don’t get what reviewers are raving about. There are much better shwarma places in the city.

Nice little surprise gem found in the upper west side. I’m not sure when it is open, but it typically looks to be open for dinner and late night. I can’t be too sure of what we ordered, we just asked the man to serve us up something and ended up with a chicken pita with some spicy sauces and lettuce. Whatever it was, it was very tasty and spicy, which we love! I believe you can ask for a milder dish. If you are out late night in the UWS and have had a few drinks, stop by here before heading home for a late night snack!

Fantastic local shop. I got the schwarma with the laffa option which came out to abut $ 15. This seemed like a lot for a sandwich, but I said «what the hey, you only live once». The sandwich was the biggest schwarma I had ever seen! It was nearly a foot long and stuffed with all sorts of vegetables including beets.
And I love the owner. He is very friendly, and always says «may you be happy and proud in everything you do»
It feels like New York doesn’t have enough local places, nor enough interesting restaurants. In this day when everything is a froyo joint, a local shop thats been there serving Yemen falafel for 32 years is something special. It makes me happy to eat here.

The owner is amazing; the store has a cozy little feel to it, with Jewish decorations marking the hours of Shabbat. He let me try a falafel before I bought the sandwich, and the falafel is crisp, and very light. He does life coaching as well, and was in the middle of a session when I walked in. The food is made fresh to order, and comes in a pita or a lafah which is just the bigger version of it. I ordered my favorite classic falafel sandwich, and it beats Maoz for sure. Still on my falafel journey!

Quality falafel at a great price. Pitas come straight from Israel. The owner is a super nice guy as well.

Great authentic tasty good from Yemen. Try the babaganoush, best I’ve had. Tiny friendly place with delicious food.

Hole in the wall with outstanding food. Lots of great vegan options. Really cool owner who sat with us and philosophized. Highly recommended!

I visited last night while on the West Side. I ordered mujaddara and a falafel. The falafel was tasty, with ample salads and sauces stuffed into the soft whole wheat pita. The main disappointment was the mujaddara. This dish is supposed to be dark, with a rich flavor, and accompanied by copious amounts of fried, sweet onions. It was probably my fault for ordering a Levantine dish in a place owned by an Israeli Yemenite. The dish was loaded with carrots and was very scant on lentils, and a small container was over six dollars; there was about 35 cents worth of food in that container, if that. It wasn’t well-​seasoned at all, and was bland, without any of the flavor one associated with mujaddara. No flavor of allspice, cumin, turmeric, or anything in this disappointment of a dish. The owner is involved in Jewish educational and religious outreach, and I ended up sitting with a table of strangers family-​style, and we talked politics, torah, and Israel at the table, similar to the way any Jewish family would. This reminded me that in this hole-​in-​the-​wall, all of us are family, eternally bound to one another. I’d return and order just the falafel sandwich, as the mujaddara was bland and overpriced. In addition, my Prigat was also pricey. However, the work the owner does to bring Jews together and to expose non-​Orthodox Jews to the beauty of the Jewish religion is amazing, and I’d support this establishment for that reason.

Falafel good!!!

Just like the shawarma I used to get in Israel! Love this place. Fast, cheap and good food.
Cash only and it’s tiny, so don’t come with a big group if you plan on sitting.

1 star for food, 1 star for experience…
FOOD: The shakshouka was basically scrambled eggs with onions. if you’ve ever been to the middle east, you know that this isn’t even close to what the real thing is all about. Basically its a $ 11 mediocre scrambled eggs with cabbage at this place.
The vegetable couscous platter was actually a soup, and had cardamom in it. Cardamom is awesome, and even the worst food rocks with this stuff, so that was nice, but otherwise there were only potatoes and a scarce carrot to cover the «vegetable» aspect of «couscous vegetables». Also, the guy refused to give us the hummus that his menu specifically says comes with an order of a shakshouka platter.
EXPERIENCE: The dude at Ali Baba is a terrible business person. I wanted to love this place for its neighborhoody go-​to potential and its menu (middle eastern food is generally amazing), but sorry dude, you lost more than a few customers after how you handled this situation… (read on if you’d like, or leverage Unilocal to find someplace better if you’re hungry!)
Google Offers ran a $ 10 for $ 20 at Ali Baba deal today, so I purchased it and took a friend over to have lunch. First, he refused to accept the coupon from my phone display, and said it needed to be printed. (this was not specified on the rules of the coupon). After deliberation, I printed it out for $ 1 next door at the print shop. I came back, handed him the paper, and he said if 2 people are eating I could only use the coupon for one person’s order. Seriously? who orders $ 20 worth of hummus for themselves to make that worth it?
I’ll spare more details, but eventually I had to ‘convince’ him to honor the coupon on his terms, which was that he’d take the coupon, but I absolutely could not eat the food in his restaurant. Are you kidding me?
Never going back.

I should have trusted my gut. When i said ‘hello’ and the lady snarled back at me, I should have known. But I was hungry. Maybe i look like an ex. Maybe I am wearing all black and it reminds her of a bad dream she must have had last night. Perhaps, my essential oil gives her daddy issues. Whatever the cause, giving me the worse food imaginable is not justifiable. The kibbeh was a soft spongy dust bunny of edible fiber. The lamb inside, if it was lamb, is not ground. Oh goodness, this empty joint decided, as a last minute attempt at bolstering business, to skim through the Sweeny Todd Meat Pie Cookbook. Sorry! The «meat» inside is still unflavored and chewy. You cannot use Mets fans because we are still hungry for a winner!
This kufta sandwich is inedible. The ground beef was frozen! I watched this wicked lady place the lump of disappointment onto the grill. The outside pastry was warm. If I would have broken a tooth, she would have lost a storefront window.
I guess she did not put a fork in it to see if it was done. Well ‘fork you’ Ali Baba! You are so done that the coat check is in another state. Get to steppin’!