Manakeesh Cafe Bakery

Manakeesh Cafe Bakery
4420 Walnut St Philadelphia, PA 19104 University City, Spruce Hill (215) 921-2135

I must first apologize about the quality of the photography, but I found myself here late at night with just my cell phone to record this Lebanese fusion restaurant with an adjacent smoothie bar (Bliss) and a Lebanese style grocery that sells traditional spices, crepes and other foods. Founded in 2011, per their website, the name is inspired by the Manakeesh, a Lebanese flatbread sandwich traditionally baked in an open flame oven and cranked out early in the morning in time for breakfast.

To the far left of this picture is the flatbread oven area used to churn out some of Manakeesh's signature dishes including: beef shwarma and arguably the best Baklava in Philadelphia.

We ordered food and had to wait so we decided to check out a few of the desserts. We got a couple cookies that tasted like shortbread cookies.  Nothing special here.  It was difficult to understand the cashier and it was not well explained what the desserts were. I'm guessing the cookies we had were: Shamiyyat (Assorted mini cookies, mostly date filled), Maamoul (Stuffed shortbread cookies, filled with date, walnut, or pistachio).  They were adequate but nothing to write home about.

Tawook (Creamy marinated chicken w/our house sauce).  The best way I can describe this is a mildly spicy, bland tasting pizza with chicken that was kind of ground up almost to a pate consistency. It certainly left much to be desired.  Again, one of the dishes you just kind of eat because you are hungry and it is in front of you.

Lamb Gyro (Succulent lamb strips with pickles and taziki sauce).  This made up for the tasteless Tawook.  Very tasty, huge portion, and the hummus was amazing.

Caveat emptor

I decided to be adventurous and got the Ayran. According to the label it was supposed to be "a delicious refreshing all natural yogurt drink." It was anything but that. It tasted like sour milk that had been left in the fridge for about a month.

Some interesting lighting fixtures on the ceiling.

A view of the dining area.

Glass case under the case register featuring different currencies (I'm assuming mostly Lebanese).

Detail of the ceiling lights.