Syracuse, N.Y. — Sure, you can get shawarma — an Arabic specialty of grilled, spiced meat — on pita at Sumera Restaurant in Westvale, but you can also get it on saj, an unleavened flatbread baked on a metal griddle. Thinner than a pita, you might expect it to take on a crispy exterior from toasting, yet the saj was pliable and when stuffed with an abundance of chicken shawarma and a housemade pickled cucumber, and pressed on a grill.
There was no cheese to bind things together in the Arabic chicken shawarma sandwich made with saj ($10.99); the heat of the grill sealed the saj to create a tightly rolled result. Inside was a generously spiced portion of grilled chicken, packed with flavors of cumin and grill smoke. It was served with a soggy batch of French fries that didn’t fare well on the 15-minute drive from the restaurant to my Onondaga Hill home.
A perfect Friday evening meal in our house is a tableful of mazza, or appetizers from one of the area’s middle eastern or Mediterranean restaurants. After a busy week of working, shuttling children to and from activities, and cooking dinner for four people, spreading out containers of dips, snacks and pita offers a much more relaxed approach to the evening meal.
Rather than going deep into the Iraqi-inspired menu at Sumera Restaurant — previously known as Sumer — we leaned into the Westvale restaurant’s interpretation of mazza, along with some other street food, for a recent Friday night takeout meal.
Housemade grape leaves ($8.99), or dolmas, are stuffed with seasoned white rice and served 10 to an order. The tender leaves of the dolmas give way quickly when bitten, having steeped in olive oil and lemon juice. Mint wafted from the plastic to-go container when it was opened, and the sharp herb lingered after every bite.
Stuffed grape leaves, or dolmas, from Sumera Restaurant, Syracuse, NY (Jared Paventi | jaredpaventi@gmail.com)Jared Paventi | jaredpaventi@gma
Baba ghanouj ($8.99) was full of smoky flavor, as pieces of eggplant caught plenty of fire from the grill before pureeing. Olive oil gives this dip a velvety texture, even though it was anything but smooth. The dip was lumpy with uneven chunks of eggplant distributed throughout, lacking the polish of a foodservice product and reassuring that it was housemade.
There was an expert balance of tahini and chickpeas in the hummus ($6.99). Olive oil aided in smoothing out the dip, which got significant brightness from the addition of lemon juice.
Less impressive was the falafel ($7.99). Eight deep-fried chickpea patties were forgettably bland, with hints of chickpea and frying oil flavor in each bite. A dunk in the garlic yogurt that accompanied another dish helped.
Eight falafel patties from Sumera Restaurant, Syracuse, NY (Jared Paventi | jaredpaventi@gmail.com)Jared Paventi | jaredpaventi@gma
Three large meat kebabs comprise the mixed grill ($21.99). Chicken and lamb are prepared tekka-style, marinating in yogurt, garlic and spices before grilling, to render juicy, smoky results without masking the natural flavors of the meat.
The chicken tekka had all the flavors of grilled chicken, while the lamb kebab was full of grassy, slightly gamey notes. A ground beef kebab was a little dry and tasted mostly like grill smoke.
The kebabs were served over yellow rice that fared about as well as the aforementioned fries. Though the takeout containers were wrapped in plastic film, the rice was room temperature and dry.
The mixed grill includes three kebabs: (from top) tekka chicken, tekka lamb and ground beef. Dinner from Sumera Restaurant, Syracuse, NY (Jared Paventi | jaredpaventi@gmail.com)Jared Paventi | jaredpaventi@gma
The same rice was at the base of the beef shawarma ($17.99), though that wasn’t really our focus with this dish. The shawarma was juicy and robust, packed with flavors of cumin, coriander, cloves and ginger (those were the flavors we could detect, though there are probably more).
The only thing that wasn’t housemade was the pita bread; a bag of bread from a bakery in Pennsylvania accompanied the order, which meant we had to give it a quick run through the microwave to quickly make it pliable.
Middle eastern food is one of the least discussed topics on Syracuse’s ethnic food scene and each restaurant reflects a different region and approach to the cuisine. Sumera’s interpretation is long on pungent flavors of smoke and cumin, and gives us cause to come back and go deeper on the menu.
The Details
The Restaurant: Sumera Restaurant (the exterior sign still reads Sumer, which was its previous name), Westvale Plaza, 2204 W. Genesee St., Syracuse, NY 13219; (315) 802-2390.
Takeout/Delivery? Takeout is available by calling the restaurant or ordering on the major delivery apps.
Reservations? No.
Credit cards? Yes.
Access to the disabled: Located in a shopping plaza, the entryway is at street level.
Parking: The shopping plaza’s parking lot has plenty of room.
Special diets? The menu does not specify dietary details. Meat-free is easy enough to find, but you will want to investigate dairy- and gluten-free items.
Children’s menu? Not that we were aware of.
Hours: Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; closed Sunday.
Cost: Most menu items are between $6.99 and $15.99. A few entrees are more, but $21.99 is the most expensive item on the menu. Dinner for three with starters, entrees, tax and 20% gratuity was $128.26.
Jared Paventi is a restaurant critic for syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. You can reach him at jaredpaventi@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter. Sign up for our free weekly Where Syracuse Eats newsletter here.
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