This week was my daughter's lunch pick and she wanted to revisit a Delmap Loop establishment she just recently visited, Ranoush. Now I am usually the one who picks the weird places so I was really excited it was my daughter who selected it. I am not overly familiar with Syrian or Middle Eastern food, but the menu looked a lot like Greek food with more spices and with a more Arabic flair to it. I had never been there so as we were driving west down Delmar we spotted the "Ranoush" sign and parked in the metered parking garage on the north side of Delmar. But then we walked to where the "Ranoush" sign was located we noticed it was only for the Ranoush Hookah Lounge which was closed. The actual Ranoush restaurant was on the corner in the location of the former Saleem's "Where Garlic is King". I have definitely been hanging around the Delmar Loop for too many years! I do like how Ranoush still has the same funny overhang that Saleem's used years ago.
As I mentioned before the menu at Ranoush bears some similarities to a typical Greek place like Olympia House, but it has some different options and more spices. I selected the Chicken Shawarma lunch special for $7.95 which was grilled spiced chicken on a pita with a giant salad on the side. It also came with two different sauces which our waitress described but which I quickly forgot. I know the one in the little cup was for the meat, so I poured that on my chicken, and the other creamier sauce went well with the salad, whose sauce was fairly minimal. In fact, as I ate the pita, chicken bits would fall out and combined with the creamy sauce, that went quite well with the salad. Eating the pita full of chicken was not easy to do neatly, as I decided it had to be eaten with my hands since the knife and fork method seemed too slow. It was a big drippy mess, but I thought it was quite delicious. The portions in general were quite generous and I was the only one at my table who could eat everything, including all of my salad.
All in all I thought Ranoush was quite good and definitely a different place to grab a tasty, inexpensive lunch with plenty of food for your dollar. I may have to select it as my lunch pick in the future, but not for a while (I already have my next pick selected...)
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