Tayyibaat Meat & Grill

Quality business managed by a great guy. Meat is the highest quality you’ll find anywhere and it is seasoned to perfection (I dare say this location is a little better than even their Milpitas one). Also a great place to buy high quality fresh meat to grill yourself.

Stopped by for lunch during jury duty. I got the lamb chili kabob and I thought it was pretty good. You get two skewers on a bed of rice. It’s a little expensive for an everyday lunch ($ 11) but at least it was good.

Love this place — the meat is cooked well, tasty, not dry, fresh veggies, clean place and new décor.
Would recommend it. Service is great as well.

Dropped by for dinner before the Opera. It’s not a typical «go there before an opera» kind of place, but I’m not typical and neither are you.
Tayyibaat is definitely busier for lunch than dinner. The Tenderloin rolls up the sidewalks after business hours, so if you come here after 630, you can expect to have the place almost to yourself.
My standards for Afghan food are extremely high, because of how amazing Ariana Kabob House in San Diego is. But I try to grade on a curve, and I am comfortable giving this place 4 stars. My one complaint is that there are very few options if you aren’t in a meat-​centric mood. We tried the Beef Chili Kabob which was excellent. The owner came and offered a special spicy sauce for it that I happily accepted. It was a good slow burn sauce and complemented the meat very well. Also tried the Lamb Tikka Kabob. Flavor was a bit mild but good. Rice was fluffy and tasty. To be honest I would have tried an eggplant option if they had one, as I wasn’t in the mood for a heavy meal right before the show. But it’s meat or go home, here.
Will definitely be back. Four stars.

Tayyibatt focuses on delivering very tasty meat, Afghan style. The meat is halal. In addition to 6 kinds of kabobs, they also have rotisserie chicken marinated in Afghani spices (very popular) and burgers. The kabobs are in a case in the dining room and cooked to order.
The décor is simple. Grab your own utensils and your own soda while you wait for your order.
* Lamb chili kabob ($ 10.99): The ground lamb with spices, chilies, onions and peppers are packed with flavor, really good. The meal comes with a long grain rice (plain), chewy nan afghani flatbread, a thin yogurt sauce and chopped tomato and onion salad. The salad was too sour. It would have been better with cucumber too. The yogurt sauce was too thin and the rice was plain. Also the hot sauce is not homemade. The meat was excellent but the sides were just okay.
Looking at customers dig into that rotisserie chicken makes me really want to try it next time.

Went here for lunch with my family and we were very pleased with everything. The food and service were great! The owner Rameen was very helpful and went out of his way to make sure we were accommodated. The restaurant is very clean and well maintained, you can tell the owners care about their establishment. We ordered wings, a jalapeño burger, and a chicken wrap and they were all very tasty and flavorful. The portions were very generous and ended up being our lunch and dinner and we’re a family of 4. If your looking for a great place to eat with amazing service this is the place to go! It’s also Halal which makes it even better. :) Overall wonderful experience, we will be returning!

we couldn’t decide what to eat and i came across TMG while searching for countless places to eat for dinner. what sold me was the picture of the rotisserie chicken and that it was afghan, two things i like.
the kebab murgh was ok and if we didn’t have a killer afghan place in SD this would be more than ok but we do. arianas kabob murghs are the best and there’s very few places that even come close and that goes for their basmati rice and spicy green chutney as well. TMG kabobs would be comparable to Luna Grill in socal eventhough its a persian kabob chain. it just wasn’t as juicy and moist as were used to having. the rotisserie though was killer and flavorful. moist and juicy whether it was dark or white even if it did look a little well done when it arrived. plus i’m a sucker for killer rotisserie chicken. the rice was good but again we’ve had better. afghan basmati is unlike basmati you find in persian or indian restaurants, the way they prepare it is way-​way better. TMG is better than persian basmati but just ok for afghan.
would i go back if i lived in SF?, sure… for their rotiserrie chicken.

I’m sad the $ 4.99 lunch plate deal is gone. They have stopped doing it.
It was really worth the money.
¼ of a chicken, big scoop of rice, and some salsa looking type thing on the side.
Chicken was grilled real nicely. Juicy and tender, even the white meat. I don’t even like chicken!
Going to have to come back and check out the lamb skewers

We dropped by this place for lunch because we were going to see SF ballet and this restaurant is within walking distance (about 5 min from the war memorial opera house). I got the grilled eggplants and my bf got a chicken dish. I would say the flavor is mild and the eggplant is on the greasy side. The chicken is on the dry side. On the way to use their bathroom I saw that they pre-​grilled their meat and just left them on the grill while waiting for orders (that probably explains the dryness). Price is decent though.

I have to admit I’ve had Afghan food only three times in my life, and every meal coincidentally happened this year. Lemme see… the Helmand Palace on Van Ness was quite good, and so was Kamdesh Afghan Kabab House over in downtown Oakland. But the third time was not quite the charm since Tayyibaat didn’t quite do it for me. It feels like they’re trying hard, even offering a $ 4.99 Lunch Special, and I give them a lot of credit for eliciting Unilocal reviews no matter what a customer may write. Jamie W. and I decided to give it a go when Ananda Fuara was closed, so we were sliding perilously from veggie ideals to carnivorous impulses by braving the Tenderloin to come here.
There is limited variety in what they serve and no veggie options. In fact, they have a card on the table advertising some steeply priced monstrosity called the Meat Lover’s Party Platter. Jamie and I both went for the lamb. He went for the $ 12.99 Lamb Tikka Kabob plate, which offered grilled lamb cubes over rice accompanied by their special Afghani bread and a salsa-​like mix of tomatoes, onions, garlic, chilies, and spices (see photo). It was pretty good if a tad dry and frankly way too much rice compared to the quantity of meat. Mine was nearly identical, the $ 10.99 Lamb Chili Kabob plate except my lamb was ground and placed on a skewer with the rest the same as the tikka (see photo).
The meat was more moist, but I was also overwhelmed by the rice. Given how much starch we had, I’m sure you’ll be dumbfounded by the fact that we shared a $ 3.99 order of Curly Fries (see photo). Now I’m not sure how native to Kabul curly fries are, but I suppose they must represent a global exchange program where we get kabobs and they get curly fries. Despite its origins, they were tasty and probably an indulgence we should have bypassed on our bumpy journey toward a more plant-​based existence. Anyhow, I wish the owners of Tayyibaat well, and Jamie and I may come back just to see how they’re addressing all the feedback.
FOOD — 3 stars… pretty decent lamb dishes in need of a bit more pizazz
AMBIANCE — 3 stars… a lot of formica but clean with a big mural on the side wall (see photo)
SERVICE — 3 stars… serviceable
TOTAL — 3 stars… nothing too exciting yet but give them time

$ 4.99 for quarter chicken rice plate, We hit this up about once a week for lunch. Been meaning to try the lamb chops, but could never resists the $ 4.99 deal.
My buddy Brian V. is a dumb ass,. He got a hamburger. I’m sure it was tasty, but who does that at a Mediterranean place!

CLEAN, large portions on entrees, friendly, and the food is TASTY! I got the chicken tikka and it was juicy and tender. Going back again!!!

The lamb tikka is super flavorful and comes on a HUGE portion of rice with a cup of yogurt sauce. The salad is perfect and refreshing against the spices of the meat and rice.

They have a nice lunch special for $ 4.99, which you get a leg quarter of chicken with rice and the tomato salad & cilantro sauce.
They season & score the chicken that makes it crispy & tasty.
The only complaint I have that they need to cook the chicken slightly longer, my chicken was a bit pink near the bone.
I will be back for another round.

No, I haven’t been back already, although now I probably will give it another try when I’m in SF in a few weeks. After posting this review, I got a Unilocal Compliment from the staff:
«Hi Joseph,
First and foremost I would like to thank you on behalf of Tayyibaat meat and grill for your patronage and constructive criticism.
We take our customer reviews very seriously and value your opinion. The normal turn around time per order of the wrap is 7 to 10 minutes, 20 minutes is completely unacceptable and I send our sincere apology and would like you to come back and have lunch on us. any one item on the menu except the party platter. We also looked into the wrap and retrained the employees to make sure the portions are correct. Thank u for your time and hope to see u again soon.
Best regards
Hamza»
I respect any business that is reading Unilocal and other reviews and/​or talking to their customers to try to improve their offerings. I believe their response about the normal wait for a wrap because I haven’t seen many other people ding their reviews for long waits; so I’m assuming, again, that this was because I went at an off hour. And even for an off hour, this might have been unusual.
And so, I wanted to bump the review up to a neutral 3 stars until I can try Tayyibaat again. While I hope Unilocalers aren’t writing bad reviews hoping for make-​up freebies, Tayyibaa’ts response is exactly what I would do in this situation.

Great food, great service. What more could you ask for. My kabob was cooked to perfection and my rice was just right. I cleaned my plate and was ready to ask for seconds, but I’m trying to keep a good figure.
All in all if you’re looking for a good place to eat in SF, Tayyibaat should be your #1 choice.

I’ve been a Unilocal lurker for years and this is the place that inspired me to sign up to review it, so that’s high praise in itself.
I work in the area and started going to this place around when it opened up. I hit it up at least once a week now. These guys run a great place and I really want to see it succeed so I’m doing my bit to help out starting with a positive Unilocal review.
I regularly get the Chicken Chili Kabob or the Chicken Tikka Kabob. I guess I prefer the Chili because its a dollar less and you seem to get just as much if not more chicken. The meat is more flavorful than any other kabob place I have been to in the City. Where at other kabob places the meat is more on the dry yet flavorful side, here it is both incredibly fresh and flavorful each and every time I’ve been here.
I also usually get the baklava for dessert which is solid and at 99 cents is a real bargain.
Its a fast food type place (I’m sure they do a lot of takeout), but the atmosphere is spacious and clean. Also there is free arabic tea with your order. If you work in the neighborhood definitely check it out.

It was on February 13, 2012, I offered an opinion of this place on this website. On March 2, 2012 at 12:33 PM, I received an email from W. @ Unilocal HQ that my opinion was being removed, as it was in non-​compliance to the rules and guidelines of posting a review and it was also due to the fact that I did not have first hand experience to offer that opinion.
Yesterday afternoon, I finally made the trip at 12:33 PM to Tayyibaat Meat & Grill. After telling the friendly gentleman at the cash register about my food allergy to certain spices, I asked him for a suggestion as to what should I order. His suggestion was the roast chicken wrap at $ 7.99 ($ 8.67, tax included).
I ordered the wrap to go, not realizing how big it was. It felt like it weighed a pound. I took it back to my office and I couldn’t even finish half of it. The wrap was delicious, but I think I better hold off on the cilantro sauce. I added some to the wrap and the next thing I started getting a slight case of hives on my face when I was eating it. Without the cilantro sauce on the wrap I was okay.
The restaurant is clean and I noticed they had an assortment of fresh meat in their refrigerated case — beef, lamb and chicken leg quarters. On top of that refrigerated case was a scale. Curiosity has gotten the best of me — now I’m wondering if they sell the meats and chicken by the pound to their customers. I will find out on my next visit.

*****Additional star (s) maybe awarded by this writer down the road*****
My co-​workers and I are always excited whenever a new restaurant opens up in the Tenderloin area. When we saw Tayyibaat a couple days ago, we decided to give it a try.
Once we were inside the restaurant, I was very pleased to see a clean and bright interior. The new owner certainly did a good job in fixing up the place. We ordered our food to go (three kabob meals and two burgers). The kabob meals came rather quickly. However, that was not the case for the burgers. From start to finish, it took them 21 minutes to get our burgers. Since I only have 30 minutes to eat, that’s not quite acceptable. They also messed up a part of my friend’s order, but she was good enough to let it go.
With that being said, I think the delay had something to do with them being new. But since they have two other restaurants in the Bay Area, they should have had this part down.
Overall, my co-​workers had nice things to say about the kabobs. The burger I had was decent and the fries were surprisingly good.
I will go back there again. Hopefully things will be smoother by then!

Why I came here:
On my way to El Castillito with my co-​workers for lunch, we stumbled across this new spot in the Tenderloin and decided to give it a shot.
Food:
Bizzare menu – kebobs, burgers, wraps, and rotisserie chicken – I don’t get the concept.
One co-​worker and I each ordered the chicken tikka kabob. The picture on the menu looks better than it tastes. The chicken and rice were dry. The rice and «cole slaw» were bland.
My other three co-​workers ordered the cheese burger meals. I noticed that the burger patties were frozen (Costco run anyone?) Two of the burgers were over-​cooked. One looked wayyy undercooked (Eek! I really hope my co-​worker doesn’t get sick!) One co-​worker also mentioned that the bun on her burger was stale and dry.
Service:
My group’s food came out at different times. One co-​worker was finished with his burger just as my other co-​worker received his. The soda machine was non-​functioning. The cash register froze when placing my order. My co-​worker (the one that got his burger last) asked for no sauces, but got a burger full of ketchup, mustard, and mayo! My co-​workers’ fries weren’t ready at the same time as their burgers, and came out at the end of the meal.
Ambience:
At first glance, the newly remodeled space appears contemporary and inviting. However, they re-​used the rickety and worn tables and chairs (and possibly the Siratcha bottles) from the Vietnamese restaurant that use to occupy this space – well at least the reuse was sustainable (?) It was a bizarre space.
Overall:
I was disappointed by Tayyibaat. The service still needs to work out its kinks, and this location was just not prepared for its grand opening. My co-​workers’ hopes for a new and different lunch spot were unfortunately dashed. We should have just kept marching towards El Castillito I may give them another chance in the future, and I hope that they have worked out their kinks by then. But in all honestly, if you’re craving some Mediterranean or Kebabs, you’re better off checking out Gyro King nearby where the food is less expensive and better established.