Koshari is Egypt’s national dish, and you’ll find it, along with a host of American dishes, at Kosharie (with an ‘E’) on campus.
As examples of the latter, the menu includes fried chicken, hoagies and breakfast items like chocolate chip pancakes. Curiosity led me to try the Boar’s Head sub ($6.49), and I really liked it. The meat choices are a little unconventional, with turkey breast, blackened turkey, cajun roast beef, cajun turkey, pastrami or beef salami. The pastrami I chose was stacked high on jalapeno bread, which wasn’t spicy but did have an enjoyable jalapeno flavor. I applaud the restaurant’s effort to make a somewhat unique sandwich.
Now let’s move onto the namesake dish. The Egyptian kosharie ($5.95 small) is made up of rice topped with pasta (both macaroni and noodles!), garbanzo beans and lentils, and it gets its flavors from the sauteed onions and tomato sauce (everything else just soaks it up). All-in-all, it’s a tasty dish, though I hate to think about the amount of carbs in it. Of note, the small portion was huge.
Huge portion sizes seemed to be a common theme, as a single order of the lamb biryani ($14.95) contained about 2-3 servings. All the veggies (peas, carrots, cucumber, squash, onions) were perfectly tender, the biryani is well spiced and you get a decent amount of cubed lamb. I’m used to biryani being “drier”–for lack of a better term–but this version was slightly soupy from sitting in what presumably was lamb broth. Other meat choices include chicken and shrimp.
I didn’t get a chance to try any of the kabobs, but I did have a shawarma with beef ($6.49). It was juicier than expected, with an overall flavor of curry. The grilled pita was delicious, but the beef, while plentiful, was bland and a little tough.
The diverse sides include tabbouleh ($3.99) and pasta salad ($2.99). I enjoyed the falafel (four for $3.99). They were sprinkled with salt, perfectly deep-fried on the outside and not at all dry on the inside. In fact, the falafel were good even without the tahini sauce.
Kosharie is typically open for lunch, dinner and carryout Monday through Saturday.
Tags: downtown, Mediterranean
