Now Open: Shahrazad Cafe & Market
Rashid Khalaf opened his Middle Eastern market — with its shelves laden with a fragrant array of herbs, spices, coffees and teas, imported candies and sweets, flavored tobaccos and elaborate hookahs — last spring. The adjoining cafe wasn’t officially ready until last October. But Rashid is now officially back in the restaurant business: the chef who formerly managed the popular Olive Cafe on Kansas City’s east side and, long before that, the Athena on Broadway restaurant at 3535 Broadway (where I first worked with him, over 26 years ago) now is the boss of his own kitchen, serving up a lot of the dishes he originally served at the Athena: marinated lamb chops, grilled kabobs and chicken, and a sumptuous selection of Middle Eastern appetizers.
Before opening the Shahrazad Cafe & Market, says Khalaf, he made some fact-finding trips to Los Angeles, Detroit and Chicago to see what restaurateurs in other cities were doing. He fell in love with the shiny metal trays for appetizer combos that he found in Detroit. So much so that he brought enough of them back to serve in his own dining room. The Shahrazade appetizer combo — $9.99 for two people, $18.99 for four — can be made with his most popular new creation, fried cilantro potatoes as well as creamy hummus, baba ghanoush, stuffed dolmas, falafel patties, pink pickled turnips, and tahini sauce.
Last week Khalaf introduced something completely different: a weekend breakfast deal offered each Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to noon. “It’s all you can eat falafel, hummus, baba ganoush, fava beans, pickles and pita bread and hot tea for $4.99,” says Khalaf. He wasn’t sure that his American-born customers would find the selection as enticing as his patrons from Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon — but on the first Saturday, the dining room was packed.
