RESTAURANT REVIEW: Little Rock's Zam Zam has zest and zeal

The Zam Zam Special Platter features three kebabs — (from left) Shish Taouk, Kofta and Ribeye — with hummus tahini, Greek salad and rice.
The Zam Zam Special Platter features three kebabs — (from left) Shish Taouk, Kofta and Ribeye — with hummus tahini, Greek salad and rice.

There's good news and bad news about the storefront in the Galleria shopping center on North Rodney Parham Road in Little Rock that has recently been housing Middle Eastern restaurants.

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Zam Zam Grill Middle Eastern Cuisine serves a platter with two grilled fish filets, served in this case with baba ghanoush, rice and salad.

The good news:

Zam Zam Grill Middle Eastern Cuisine

Address: 9700 N. Rodney Parham Road, Little Rock

Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Saturday, noon-8 p.m. Sunday

Cuisine: Middle Eastern

Credit cards: V, MC, AE, D

Alcoholic beverages: No

Reservations: No

Wheelchair accessible: Yes

Carryout: Yes

(501) 246-5002

a) There is a new restaurant, attached to a Middle Eastern grocery store, in the space that previously had been Salt & Pepper Middle-Eastern Restaurant and before that, Shalimar.

b) The food at what is now called Zam Zam Grill Middle Eastern Cuisine is at least as good as its predecessors, which means it's pretty good.

The bad news is that the restaurant still faces the major stumbling blocks to success that would appear to have caused its predecessors to stumble.

To begin with, Zam Zam is still one of four Middle Eastern-Mediterranean places competing for customers in a 20-block stretch of Rodney Parham, with Layla Gyros & Pizzeria, just a couple of blocks east, at one end and the Terrace on the Green, on North Rodney Parham's north spur, at the other, and with Al Seraj in between.

The market, like the restaurant, is on its third set of owners in about two years, which may or may not be an issue. The market, formerly Shalimar Halal Market and Groceries, is now Zam Zam International Market. The current owner is Abu Bakr "Al" Sayyah, who, with family members, also operates a few Popeyes franchises in the area and the newly opened Sam's Southern Eatery on East Broadway in North Little Rock.

The market seems to be doing pretty well, at least judging from the number of customers we've seen going in and out. The next-door restaurant, however, doesn't have anywhere near that kind of patron volume. At a maximum, we were sharing the restaurant with two other tables and a to-go customer. Most of the time, it wasn't even that busy. (All our visits were in the late afternoon and early evening; perhaps it does better at lunch.) With a busy Irish pub (Hibernia) and a lingerie store (Cupid's) as its immediate neighbors, close parking can occasionally be a problem.

The new owners have done very little remodeling of the decor they inherited from Salt & Pepper. The terra cotta fresco/mural still decorates one wall; on the opposite wall are framed photos of Arab-world hot-spots -- Petra in Jordan, the Kaaba surrounded by Hajj pilgrims in Mecca, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. A "Visit Palestine" poster that used to be behind the cash register, however, is gone. The sound system soundtrack features a woman wailing in Arabic to Middle Eastern modal accompaniment.

The chairs and composite-topped tables are now plain black but all in the same places they used to be. Some of the solid and unusually heavy silverware survives, but now comes mixed in with thin, flimsy food-service stuff, wrapped in paper napkins. Service, however, comes on sturdy, oval plates.

The only thing we weren't thrilled with, food-wise, was the salad, and that only because the proprietor told us that the "Greek" salad, which consisted of lettuce, tomatoes and a lively Greek vinaigrette, was missing the kalamata olives and feta, and so brought us a second one to cover the kitchen's initial defalcation.

If you're a fan of kebabs, you will do well with any of Zam Zam's three -- Shish Taouk ($9.99 for three, skewered chunks of marinated chicken breast), Kofta (also $9.99 for three, a grilled composite of ground lamb, ground beef, onions and herbs) and Ribeye ($13.99, three skewers of marinated, bite-size rib-eye steak).

The chicken was tasty, and whatever they marinate it in kept it pleasantly moist and tender (and we have dealt with a lot of dry, tough skewered chicken over the years). The kofta kebabs were about on par with others we've tried, which certainly makes them worthwhile. The steak, while it could have been a little better trimmed, was delicious.

Can't choose? Try the Zam Zam Special Platter ($13.99), one of each, along with other platter components -- choice of hummus tahini or baba ghanoush, yellow long-grain rice and Greek salad (and the kitchen and service staff seem happily amenable to substitutions).

You can also get them in the $19.99 Zam Zam Mixed Grill, which also includes 5 ounces of gyros meat, 5 ounces of chicken shwarma, tzatziki, hummus and fresh-baked pita, and in the feeds-four, $59.99 Zam Zam Family Special, four of each kebab, plus hummus, baba ghanoush, pita and a family size bed of rice.

You can also order kebabs a la carte ($2.99 per for chicken, $2.49 for kofta, $3.99 for rib-eye). That part of the menu also offers a couple of curry-based dishes (Chicken Biryani, $8.99, and Chicken Tikka Masala, $10.99) for any "IndoPak" customers left over from Salt & Pepper or Shalimar, which had a wider South Asian menu.

Also among the platters: Grilled Fish ($8.99), two grilled and lightly spiced filets of swai, which our waiter explained is a Vietnamese catfish (also known as "iridescent shark"), a popular, inexpensive Southeast Asian food fish that American catfish raisers vehemently abhor. Zam Zam's version is reasonably flavorful and well-textured, far too moist to be flaky.

Zam Zam's hummus ($2.99 small, $5.99 large) is smooth, creamy, tangy and spiced just right, with discernible peaks of citrus and garlic. The texture of the smoky baba ghanoush ($3.99) is nicely balanced between smooth and chunky, with notable traces of garlic, citrus and olive oil. Hummus is available with chicken or beef as an "appetizer" (but big enough, and priced -- $7.99 -- to be an entree); the kitchen agreed to substitute chunks of gyros meat without either a murmur or any extra charge.

On our first couple of visits, we got fresh-baked pita, big, broad and almost naan-like, wider than the basket it was served in. On our most recent visit, however, we got triangles from what we're pretty sure was commercially produced, spongy pita. Time of day? Sick baker? Already cutting corners? We fervently hope it's not the latter.

As with Salt & Pepper, the Islamic-centered photos on the wall were a strong signal that Zam Zam doesn't, and probably won't ever, serve wine or beer. The restaurant has a soft-drink dispenser, but the boss told us it didn't create the right mix of carbonated water and syrup, so at least for the moment you get your soda in plastic bottles.

You stand a pretty good chance, the way the restaurant is staffed, of having the guy who makes your food serve it to you. Even with very few dinner customers, however, the place has been short-handed by at least one employee -- if the guy is in the kitchen, he's not out on the floor to figure your ticket or take your payment.

Weekend on 09/29/2016

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