Alamodak Restaurant and Hookah bar — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Major kudos to Francisco and his team for a fantastic evening of excellent food and service! I came here with a large group of (hungry) friends, and by the end of the evening we were all stuffed with delicious goodness of the Jordanian cuisine which Alamodak specializes. We had a number of vegetarian dishes, including the best hummus I've EVER had, the stuffed grape leaves, the Greek salad, the hot pink pickled turnip, an outrageously good quinoa-and-eggplant dish called maqdouse, the spicy foul medames dip, and falafel so fresh that the steam burst right out when I cut one in half with my fork. Everything was ridiculously delicious, with fresh, high quality vegetables and spices. This is coming from a Greek girl; given the overlap between Middle Eastern and Greek cuisines (um, the Greek salad and dolmades we had) I've got high standards, and while the spice profile for many of the foods was unique, I was definitely able to appreciate the quality of the preparation of the different dishes. Next time I would definitely want to come back to try the grilled halloum cheese (if you've never had any, you don't know what you're missing) and the mamoneyah dessert sounds amazing too. Francisco, the owner, and his staff were wonderful about explaining all the details about all the dishes to my friends and me, and were very friendly and attentive to make sure that everyone was 100% happy with their experience here.

Alamodak is a BYO family restaurant downstairs, and the walls are decorated with the gorgeous portrait paintings done by Francisco's father, a really nice touch in a very comfortable, homey setting defined by elegant hardwood floors and furniture, and an open-window to the kitchen so that you can take a peek to watch as your food is being made. The full hookah lounge upstairs is filled with comfortable, plush couches, imported straight from Jordan, and the whole ambiance, further accented by more beautiful paintings and decorative touches, gives you the feeling of transported to the Middle East from within Old Kensington. On Saturday nights they have belly dancing performances, and probably the part I'm most excited about, international music for the patrons to dance to! AND I think they do karaoke on Friday nights! This might be my new favorite...

So, check this folks.... Came out on a random Thursday with some friends. My friend called ahead(who highly recommended this place) and made reservations for a group of us, one didn't show, but the rest of us were there.

The place is nice inside the tvs are pretty small though, i was squinting trying to watch the eagles game from where i was sitting. I didn't have the hookah so i can't speak on the flavor or smoothness, but i can speak on they're arbitrary rules about hookah.

We had been sitting for a while and my friends had ordered hookah by the time we arrived.. it was a fruit hookah. The attendant told us randomly that it's 2 people to a hookah and when our other friends arrived they told us we had to buy another hookah..out of nowhere... remember i told you he made a reservation ‍ it's not like we were "walk-ins"... it's fine if that's the rules....but you get what I'm saying.

The food wasn't bad though; however lots of these reviews say they are byob and even when my friend called to make the reservation he asked if it was byob and he was told "yes." We like to follow whatever the rules of the establishment are.

Upon arrival we found out that all of those things weren't exactly true... The are not byob.... They are bring hard liquor only which is what they should say.. ohhhh and you also should have a receipt or proof of purchase, which of course we found out after we got there(what if I brought it from home???) ... not only did they not say that, they also don't just charge a bottle/ corking fee like most byobs in town.. they charge per cup/glass fee..... and it's not cheap like $2-$4 PER CUP... very predatory business if you ask me... and it's a little small plastic cup they give you that cost like 2 cents.... SMH.... The thing is we don't mind paying just tell us ahead of time or spell it out on the social platforms!

So much more i want to say, but I'll leave it at this.... If you come here prepare to pay whatever prices they make up that day because thats what appears to be happening...... there are several other hookah lounges around town/area i would def do my research and checkout other places and let them keep making up pricing as they go.......

If you think the hookah is good over here then you should start re evaluating your self on how much you know about hookah. Hookah sucks, Food - Please even dont ask. We were there on a Saturday mid-noon and asked for kabsa. The lady gave us some old crappy food which was microwaved. Please i humble request ppl to save there money. We informed the management tht day tht the food was not fresh ( At least cooked on the same day earlier ), and this was no were close to it and they told us its fresh. I have been eating Kabsa chickn for like 20 yrs of my life. I know what fresh means. ! **NEW REVIEW , RESPONSE TO THE OWNER . Dear Sir/ Madam , I respect each and every business as everyone strives to be good at what they do and improve. But please dont be stupid to say my review was for another restaurant. If you go to Starbucks to drink coffee and got a left over coffee at a particular location, you basically know what and where ur getting. No one will in the right mind say that Popyes chicken was horrible and piece of garbage (Got my point ? it's Starbucks which was bad not popeys ) .So i please request you that as a human being and as an individual accept your mistakes. The time i visited the restaurant it was during the FIFA World cup games. I have pictures of ur food too. I will post them once i dig them out. . What i am trying to make u understand is. It's not u personally who ruined my day. It was the people who were working over there. And please please please, i know how a kabsa and hookah tastes. I am doing this for past few...