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Is Albany Park's Dining Scene Suffering From an Identity Crisis?

By Patty Wetli | March 19, 2015 5:30am
 Got falafel? Staff at Salam do, as do other Albany Park restaurants, whether Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Persian or Lebanese.
Got falafel? Staff at Salam do, as do other Albany Park restaurants, whether Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Persian or Lebanese.
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DNAinfo/Patty Wetli

ALBANY PARK — Albany Park is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the country, so it stands to reason its dining scene would draw from a multitude of cuisines.

Foodies will find hummus, kebab and falafel on the menu at Pita Puff Mediterranean Grill. Then there's Salam Middle Eastern Restaurant, 4636 N. Kedzie Ave., where dishes include ... hummus, kebab and falafel. And at Semiramis, 4639 N. Kedzie Ave., they serve up "the finest Lebanese cuisine in Chicago" — hummus, kebab and falafel.

Ditto for restaurants labeled Turkish, Iranian, Moroccan, Arab and Greek.

Seems there's a bit of an identity crisis among the neighborhood's restaurateurs.

Mohammed Toulabi, manager of the year-old Kabobi Persian and Mediterranean Grill, 4748 N. Kedzie Ave., attempted to create order out of chaos.

 Anyone know the difference between Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Lebanese, Turkish and Arab cuisine?
Anyone know the difference between Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Lebanese, Turkish and Arab cuisine?
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DNAinfo/Patty Wetli

"It's all the same food," he said. "The roots of the food are 100 percent Persian."

Patty Wetli discusses Albany Park's dining options:

The Persian Empire, centered in Iran, at one point stretched from Greece into China, blanketing Iraq and Central Asia's "Stan" countries, as well as skimming parts of the Arabian peninsula.

Toulabi, who moved to Chicago from Iran in 2008, said, "We call ourselves Iranian, but when it comes to cuisine ... I can't say Iranian. It's Persian."

The style of food crosses national and religious boundaries, though there are regional differences, he said.

Hummus isn't Persian per se, according to Toulabi, but people have come to expect it from restaurants billing themselves as Middle Eastern or Mediterranean.

The most Persian item on Kabobi's menu is probably the one that's least familiar to Americans: ghormeh sabzi, a green herb stew often called Iran's national dish.

Technique is as important to Persian cuisine as ingredients, Toulabi said.

Rice is steamed — as is spaghetti or any type of noodle — with each grain individually distinguishable as opposed to clumped, he said.

"You have to be a good cook to make a good rice," Toulabi said.

Kabobi specializes in skewered meats — the name itself is a generic Persian term for a style of restaurant Americans would call "fast-casual." Food is paid for up-front and served on trays.

"People from my country don't have a casual place" to eat, he said. "It's more comfortable."

Though Toulabi envisioned Kabobi becoming a hub for his fellow Iranian immigrants, the restaurant has attracted the "full spectrum of different people with different cultures," particularly students, he said.

While Persian/Mediterranean/Middle Eastern/Lebanese cuisine might be major draw in Albany Park, Toulabi said it lags in acceptance in other parts of the city and the U.S. as a whole.

"Thai food is all over. Chinese, every single American knows it," he said. "How many Persian restaurants are there? Go to southern states, you're not going to find it."

He speculated that a number of reasons have kept Persian cuisine from spreading wider, among them the difficulty of making the food versus, say, tacos or pizza.

"Many Iranian people who live here are highly educated and not involved in the restaurant business," Toulabi added.

But perhaps the chief factor, he noted, is that Iranians don't patronize Persian restaurants.

Why not?

"They're cooking our food at home," he said.

DNAinfo Chicago recently conducted a joint research project with Yelp. Results showed which cuisines were more prevalent in each neighborhood versus their representation city-wide.

In Albany Park, Korean restaurants are found 1,309 percent more than in the rest of the city, Middle Eastern 1,247 percent more, Latin American 1,027 percent more, Mediterranean 424 percent more, and Mexican 421 percent more.

Add Middle Eastern and Mediterranean for a combined total of 1,671 percent.

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