Aladdin Cafe - Downtown Vancouver

Aladdin is a Shawerma wrap shop located on the quieter part of Robson Street.  It is about a block east of Pacific Centre Mall on the North side of Robson.  We passed by this shop many times before and finally had the courage to give it a try.  In the past, we would frequent Babylon on Robson, but that place has disappeared years ago.

Their prices were rather reasonable.  They were slightly cheaper than the food truck parked outside the art gallery that had a similar menu.  Given the choice, we’d rather come to Aladdin since comfortable seating is available.

We ordered the chicken with all the trimmings

You can’t see it in the above pic, but they were rather generous with the chicken when loading up the pita pocket.  It also had the usual lettuce, tomato, onions and hummus.

Here is how it kind of looks a quarter way into the wrap:

What we would have preferred is that the chicken was sliced off fresh off the oven.  For our orders, we saw that the chicken was already precut into a big bowl.  It would have been better if the chicken could be more hot.

Aladdin also has a wide selection of canned and bottled sodas.  Some were imported which we’ve never seen before.  The Coke machine looked quite sleek with a low profile design.  We had to get a pic of it.

What we noticed is that this place is very very clean.  Throughout our visit, we saw one of the employees continuously wiping tables, floor and the glass.  The shop was quite shiny.  It’s good to see the owners taking extra effort to upkeep their shop.

Overall prices are reasonably good and the service is fast.  It would have been a better Shawerma if the meat was sliced at the time the order is placed.  This is a pleasant place to get a quick bite to eat while you take a break from shopping downtown.

SFDD gives 3.5 out of 5 Delights.

8 @ Doneras - New Westminster

8 @ Doneras is located just across the street from Douglas College.  It specializes in Middle Eastern type pita wraps.  They also have a selection of ice cream and coffee drinks if you are interested.

This place is a small and cozy shop run by a couple.  They are rather friendly and take their time to chat with customers. 

We tried their wraps for lunch.  You can get small or large sized wrap.  You can also upsize to a full meal. This is the chicken donair.  We ordered the full sized meal  which came with potatoes.

The size was quite big and after eating the potatoes we were full.  Not a bad deal for around $10.

Next  is the falafel donair wrap, we opted for the small size but it was fully packed with the usual veggies and sauce.  This was about $7.

Falafels are like vegetarian meat balls.  They were nice and tender and went well with the sauce.  What we didn’t like was the banana peppers inside. It kind of ruined the taste a bit.  Next time I would definitely opt out on the banana peppers.

Prices are reasonable and the best part is that the wraps are made to order.  We hope they do well as it’s nice to have some variety of food choices in this neighborhood.  We noticed it’s just the usual sushi places opening and then closing after short periods, so it’s good to see 8 @ Doneras moving in here.

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights.