Damascus Falafel — Restaurant in Illinois

Walked in after many weeks of contemplating my visit. I was pretty excited to try out the beef shawarma, considering I am SME Of Shawarma worldwide I had my level of expectation pretty high. It was Friday and line was quite long, this place had the feel of the one Mexican joint called chipotle.not sure if you heard of it.

All I decided to get was a simple beef shawarma and fries. Normally I do not get fries unless it’s a burger joint but I felt very lonely that day so I needed something greasy.

Happy to see they had Lebanese flat bread, not the fake burrito bread used by many other places but they did have this choice for the people who don’t know any better.

Service guy who started me off took the meat out of a little container, so precut from the spit. Ok, I am OK with that considering these guys want to make things efficient but quite honestly turned me off. I like the experience of watching the meat slice off and fall on juicy fat but instead I see a bowl of meat scooped out and I must say the amount of meat out on my bread was very small like the person felt I needed to watch my cholesterol? Proceeded to ask for toppings and I went with tabbouleh, spicy hummus, pomegranate sauce and garlic sauce plus some onion and tomatoes. Pita was then wrapped and warmed up.

Took the bite and hmmmmm..nice crisp notes of bread and juicy meat (or what little I had) and the meat flavor was just not there...all the condiments did the flavor work and I was hoping it would be other way around.

Alas, fries were fries nothing unusual.

Good place but for 10 bucks it was decent shawarma....not the B or...

So I went there yesterday during the noon rush and the place was JAMMED. It sort of reminds me of a Chipotle for middle eastern food. I had never had middle eastern food of any sort before and wanted to try shawarma, but was sort of intimidated going in not having ever had it before.

Despite there being a line out the door, the guy taking my order was super patient, really kind, and talked me through all the possible combos for my chicken shawarma bowl. I never felt even a little rushed by him, but I was so worried about making others wait I just told the staff to combine whatever they thought was best for a newbie after they asked me if I liked hot spicy (important because I don't).

The food was delicious and I couldn't eat the whole bowl in one sitting, so I got two meals for my $12. BTW, I am a big fan of their compostable bowls. What struck me even more than the food was how kind and patient everyone was and how grateful they seemed for my patronage. I felt very welcome and significant to all of the 3 employees/owners I interacted with. From a food perspective alone I'd go back for sure, but the way I was treated was the icing on the cake. Great job to everyone there! Give them a try - especially if you are new to this...

My sisters and I just had lunch today at Damascus Falafel for the first time. I am a vegan, and my sisters are not, so, I chose this place as a happy balance, and all three of us could not have been happier! I had the falafel bowl, and these were truly the best falafels I have ever tasted...and I have tasted quite a few both in the Chicago area, as well as the DC area. One of my sisters is gluten-intolerant, and the helpful servers knew exactly what had gluten. ALL the food was great, and both my sisters are not that familiar with Middle East dishes, so this was even better! Unfortunately, I live about 30 minutes from the place, and even though they are connected to Uber Eats, I don't think I would be able to have the food delivered to me.😒 One word of warning when it comes to putting the address of the place in Google Maps - don't. Look up "Damascus Falafel" itself to get the correct address. They are located just off Kingery Highway 83 and 91st Street. I would have rated it 5 stars, but, 5 star ratings are only for full vegan...