Ali Baba Restaurant — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

Really quite good Middle Eastern food! There aren't too many restaurants offering some of these food options and I'm glad we have this place in Oakland. It's a great place to stop by after visiting the Carnegie Museum or as a Carnegie Mellon University student. I ordered the homemade plain yogurt, pita, Syrian chicken sandwich with tzatziki sauce, cheese pie, white rice with egg noodle as well as toasted nuts, feta cheese (1.5 oz) with olive, and halawa bi-jibn.

The food is absolutely delicious and definitely very high quality. I'll start with the yogurt. You can easily tell this was homemade. It had a unique wholesome texture and flavor. Not salty, creamy but had little chunks (which is fine, it happens with homemade yogurt). The portion was unbelievably big for just $3! As in, bigger than most store bought yogurts by a large margin! Very good.

The sides and little additions were great, too. Some individuals mentioned they did not receive pita, but I did. It was the standard pita you'd want. Fair portion, and great to dip in yogurt. The feta cheese was quite good as well. I'd say it's a bit too salty. I don't really understand why they combined feta (a very salty cheese) with an olive (quite a salty vegetable) since it was a bit overwhelming. Still, it's good to add in the sandwich. The tzatziki sauce was incredible. It came with the sandwich for free. Creamy, refreshing, and just prefect.

On to the star of the meal: the Syrian chicken sandwich. Wow, wow, wow! An excellent sandwich and definitely one of the best lunches you could buy in the area. Super reasonable price at just $10(!!!) and great portion. The chicken has the perfect texture (it's shredded) and an amazing flavor. Nice wrap, crispy in the edges and soft in the middle. There weren't too many onions, and the sumac was a nice addition for that tanginess. So good, and highly recommend.

The cheese pie was probably my least favorite item. It did come in a good portion. But, it was baked for too long and looked as well as tasted burnt. There also wasn't that much filling inside. The flavor was overall on the sweet side due to it having caramelized onions. I was expecting something similar to tiropita and was honestly a bit let down. The white rice and noodles were pretty good, but honestly I'd skip them. I thought I need some extra carbs to bulk up the meal, but it really wasn't necessary. Not much flavor but again, the portion was good. The egg noodles had a cool texture though.

Finally, the dessert was also decently good. I've never had halawa bi-jibn so it was nice to give it a try. To my knowledge, this is the only restaurant that offers this dessert in the Pittsburgh area. The portion was on the small side. For me, it wasn't sweet enough. The texture was silky and it almost melted in your mouth.

All in all, this is an excellent restaurant. The food comes in generous portions and it is authentic as well as delicious. If you want healthy food, this is also an excellent option! Some unique items and some more standard ones. I would for sure...

I left Pittsburgh over 21 years ago. During that time I craved 3 Different foods. General Tso's Chicken from China Palace, Back when Mike Chen, the Dean of Chinese Kitchen owned it. Pamela's strawberry crepes and Mohamara from Ali-Baba.

I had an appointment down in Pittsburgh but I was distracted by the thought of Mohamara and being so close to Ali-Baba. After my meeting I rushed to Ali-Baba to get some and beat the traffic out of town. I arrived at 3pm and much to my dismay they were closed!

I saw that they opened at 4 however and I wasn't leaving Pittsburgh with out it! So I waited out front for an hour till they were open again. I ordered up my Mohamara and 10 pitas to go. (They have the best pitas around) and headed out of town. The whole 90min drive home I was excited. When I got home I popped open my Mohamara and feasted. It was so good! Just like I remembered all those years ago! Something else that was nice was it was still very affordable. A student on a budget can eat there.

It was really great to see Ali-Baba was still in business all these years later and that the food was just as good as I remembered it.

I highly recommend going to Ali-Baba and trying...

✴️ Updated August 15th, 2023 📖🔖 Added Menu Pics. This is one of my top 3 in PGH. ⭐⭐⭐ Delicious Syrian and Syrian-American lunch specials. Wraps hover around $11

Ali Baba's has been around for a 1/2 century. The owners retired a while back. New management made this place even better.

Gone are the brown derby interiors that were here till their recent renovations, and instead, a restaurant with a permanent partial sunroof and a French inspired stucco countertop.

It was nice to get some sun while I had this french fry sandwich. It's fries, aioli, lettuce, tomato, pickles. And it's delicious.

I've been going to this place on and off for the past 40 years. Reccos: Sleek Mujjadara Mezze Platter Loobeh Coffee (done Turkish style) Any of the wraps but especially the French Fry Wrap with Garlic 🧄 Aioli THE BONE-IN LAMB SHANK...