Superbaba

Superbaba has been around for quite some time, first as a food truck, and now with a B&M location on Main Street (in the old Kam's Bakery location).  I'm not really sure why I never made it out to try their highly-regarded Lebanese fare, but hey, you can only try so many things and yes, this Covid thing kinda gets in the way.  Finally, I made it out with the urging of Mijune.  As per usual, I decided to get "one of everything" to get a good sense of the menu.

In actuality, one can get all options in either a wrap or a bowl.  We decided to get one meat in a bowl with the Steak Bowl (on a base of half rice and half salad).  It consisted of kebab spiced grilled steak, sumac onions, baba ganoush, pickled cucumber, tahini and shug.  I thought this was a considerable amount of food with plenty of tender beef on top.  I did find it a touch spongy though.  Flavours were varied and bright due to the spice, tang and aromatics.  Lots of textures too including crunch, creaminess and meatiness.

Our next bowl was vegetarian with the Falafel Bowl (also on a base of half rice and half salad).  This came with fried cauliflower, tomato & cucumber salad, hummus, pickled cabbage, tahini and shug.  Due to the addition of the tomato and cucumbers, there was an added layer of freshness and crunch.  This was further forwarded with the tangy cabbage.  This helped balance the robust texture of the crispy falafels.  I preferred this over the beef bowl.

For the chicken options, we went for the Chicken Wrap with Shawarma style grilled boneless chicken thighs, fries, shredded cabbage, pickled turnips and sumac mayo.  I found the chicken to be a bit dry especially for chicken thighs.  These were grilled like kebabs so there was depth-of-flavour but I would've enjoyed an actual chicken shawarma instead.  However, the wrap was still delicious where the fries were crunchy and the bright flavours came through again.  The combination of crunch, tang and spice made each bite interesting.

Now the first 3 items were good, but the Sabich Wrap was my absolute favourite.  It sported battered & fried eggplant, seasoned egg, cucumber, tomato, pickled cucumber, tahini, shug and amba.  The light tempura-like batter was crispy while the eggplant was tender but not mushy.  Combined with the made in-house soft pita, once again, this was study of textures.  We had different forms of crunchiness (batter and the veggies).  Coupled with the creaminess and aromatics of the tahini and shug as well as the tanginess from the pickled cucumber and amba, it was a party in my mouth.

As mentioned, they make their pitas in-house, so unlike the store-bought variety, they are fluffier and softer.  In addition to the ones they use for their wraps, they also have a side of Fluffy Pita available.  This smaller pita is thicker and goes well with something like Baba Ganoush (or hummus or yogurt).  We had baba ganoush here and it was delicious being nicely textured with a hint of smokiness.  The soft pita was so airy and light.  Makes a great snack.

Finally, for dessert, we tried the Turmeric Cookie which was large, flat and thin.  It was crunchy on the outside and dry chewy throughout.  It was aromatic and fairly sweet.  For some reason or another, the texture resembled a day-old cookie, even though I'm not suggesting it was day old.  As for the rest of the food, it was definitely fresh and incredibly delicious.  I would 100% return and recommend that you give it a try, especially the vegetarian items (I can't believe I said that, but it is true!).

The Good:
- Wealth of flavours
- Weath of textures
- Made in-house pitas

The Bad:
- Meats were fine, but the vegetarian options were the highlights, possibly would like to see actual shawarama preparation?