Sammoon Bakery and Restaurant-El Cajon (revisit)

It appears that Sammoon has closed.

Well here you are, back at mmm-yoso!!! looking at posts about food. Cathy still has places to talk about while Kirk and Ed(from Yuma) are trying to get back to normal after each of their whirlwind vacation jaunts.

Yes, I've posted about Sammoon, a Mediterranean restaurant owned and run by Iraqui immigrants which makes its own breads, in El Cajon twice already. If you've ever had Jury Duty in El Cajon, you probably have been here, since it's within walking distance of the Courthouse.  

This is the entrance from the Parking lot.  From the street, you'll see it's next to the Panda Express. 

Once inside, you'll see the menu and the former pizza oven, which is now used to create the wonderful, fresh samoon shaped breads made here throughout the day. 

You may also notice the rotating spits of beef and chicken schawarma, and additional menu offerings over the rest of the open kitchen area. 

One day, The Mister tried a Lunch Special ($5.99) which was choice of schawarma with a choice of bread and included fries and a salad (this day was a roasted eggplant salad).  The bread choices are either a samoon bread or saj bread.  The above is a chicken schawarma saj sandwich. There is pickle and tomato wrapped in the saj before the bread is grilled. This is very, very good.  The fries are standard and crispy, not greasy and that roasted eggplant is really great.     

One day, I noticed on the menu the "Sajj beef burger" ($4.49) and decided to order it.  It came wrapped looking like a sort of American hamburger, with fries. Then I opened the paper…and you can see the Saj bread folded so perfectly tight. It was then cooked on the grill, sealing in the already cooked burger (you can click onto the small photos which will enlarge).

When I cut through the delicate yet crispy after being baked/sealed closed Saj bread, the inside of the tightly folded bread revealed a very nice sized ground beef burger, tomato, pickle, onion and a sweet sauce. The burger was not as spiced as the kabobs here, but was still the coarse ground beef used for the kebabs.  The meat was moist but apparently drained, so no grease softened the Saj to make it fall apart. A very good non-traditional, yummy burger.

One day, we noticed a separate ad on the outside window (on the left side of the first photo)-a "Feast for Two" ($18).  We ordered it. 

First out was a basket of three hot, fresh samoon breads, along with a platter of hummus, tzatziki and baba ganouj. All fresh made here and very refreshing.

Since everything here is made to order, there was a less than ten minute/more than five minute wait for this GIANT platter to be brought out. Clockwise: pickled cabbage, roasted tomato, chicken schawarma, fresh falafel, beef schawarma, fresh tomato.  On top of the fresh long grain yellow rice are a beef kebob, chicken tikka and chicken kabob with fresh cucumber slices and raw onion topped with sumac (a citrus/salty spice).  We had leftovers which were enjoyed that evening. 

Always good and always fresh food at Sammoon.