OBA
10:03 PM
OBA
• aka: OBA Mediterranean Gyro & Grill
• 70-35 Austin Street
• Forest Hills, NY 11375
• (347) 308-6901 •
If you're the kind of person who finds solace in the long lines at Great Adventure or Disneyland, who takes pleasure in waiting for the next 6 train to come because the one arriving is too packed to get into, then OBA is your kind of restaurant. Do you want a seat? Huzzah! You ain't getting one. OBA, the new Mediterranean restaurant on Restaurant Row, will take you in about an hour.
...unless you're me and you go at three in the afternoon like a geriatric who insists that Florida might as well be Alaska what with how cold it is.
Yeah, I COULD wait an hour for a table to get a gyro. Or, I could buy a six pack of beer, hit the halal cart for a lamb platter (extra hot sauce, don't go nuts with the white sauce) and spend the remaining 55 minutes of that hour playing Fallout 4. But I have a blog. So here we are.
OBA, which I'll assume stands for Omediterranean Bgyro & Agrill, is a totally unassuming, pleasant place for lunch or dinner. For the record, the menu doesn't change regardless of time of day. So if you get lunch here, it's your dinner. The big glass walls allow for tons of light, and I imagine that come spring and summer, the sidewalk will be filled with tables. If not, man, will they have dropped the ball. The interior is simple without being spartan. Low key without being dumpy. You could eat here in a track suit or a real suit and feel equally in place.
The biggest downside is that it's cramped. The second biggest downside is that the door constantly locks itself open, allowing cold air to blow inside, and someone has to close it.
So. The food. It's all right. That's about it. It's perfectly fine. I want to say that it blew me away, and that my eyes rolled into my skull with each bite, but that didn't happen. Instead, I got some decent meals for a decent price. I've been here a handful of times, so here's my overall take. Every table gets a loaf of bread and olive oil to snack on. It's delicious. It might be the best part of the meal and it's free. The Stuffed Grape Leaves are good and you should absolutely order them when you come. A squirt of lemon juice on top will always leave a smile on your face. The Lentil Soup on a cold day is amazing and they could sell this stuff by the gallon if they tried. I simply cannot overstate how cozy a hot lentil soup in when it's twenty degrees out. Finally, the Lahmacun, a flat meat "pie" is perfection. It costs four bucks, it's the size of half a pizza and it's delicious. This could easily be your whole lunch. But don't be an asshole and take up an entire table just to order one lahmacun. Get it to go.
The appetizers were above par. How about the sandwiches? I tried a Lamb Pita sandwich and a Falafel Wrap sandwich. They were both... meh. The pita sandwich was large, but layered in such a way that eating it meant eating first having a vegetarian sandwich, then having the meat. The wrap is a much much better option. Sadly the falafel was pretty dry and tasteless and, once you add hot sauce and tzatziki sauce, you can't tell the difference between the falafel and the lettuce and tomato. That's the next downside: there are only these two sauces and salad is the only topping.
Speaking of the salad, it comes with every dish. It's in the wraps, it's next to the kebabs, it comes with some of the appetizers, it's the universal side dish. It add a vibrant pop of color to your instagram photo. Thankfully, it's a good, albeit plain, salad. Lutsy ordered the Small Lamb Shish Kebab plate, which means one skewer of lamb. Same amount of rice. Same amount of salad. Three or four pieces of lamb. This did not go unnoticed and was not terribly appreciated. My mom ordered the Lamb Shish & Lamb Adana Combo plate. Lamb adana is ground lamb; it is not gyro lamb. The lamb cubes were tender, flavorful, and juicy. The lamb adana was spicy. Not in a hot way, but in a spice way. I ordered the Half Char-grilled Organic Young Chicken. Lest ye be thinking that ordering half of a chicken might be a wee much for you, banish those fears. This is not half of an Oven Stuffer. This is half of a cornish hen. The chicken itself came skin-on and with a good amount of charring from the oven. Frankly, I liked the char. It wasn't overdone and made the bird a little different from what one normally finds out there. Unfortunately, the chicken could not have been more dry had they tried. I'm used to eating chicken with my hands, and here it was a necessity as the meat had to be pried off of the bone with your fingernails. I threw on some sauce and it tasted fine, but they really need to cut that baking time down by a chunk.
OBA is, at it's most basic, a higher class version of The Halal Guys. Food cart food, but brick and mortar. Yes, there's a more extensive menu than the cart food (the chicken dish pictured above, soups, seafood), but it's roots are the essentially lamb platter around the corner with rice.
I do like OBA, and am almost certain to return. It's relaxing, not too expensive, I love the bread they put on the table when you arrive, and they have good service with very nice waitstaff. I do wish that the food was better; had more oomph to it though, and for that reason I can safely say that if I ever show up for dinner and there's a line, I will always go somewhere else. It's good, but not good enough to wait in line.
Appetizers average $7, entrees average $17, sandwiches average $9.
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