Kosher Food and Drink

This review is part of a series of restaurant reviews conducted while my family was on vacation in Houston. It was an amazing opportunity to try many kosher restaurants in this growing Jewish community.

Dino’s Middle Eastern Cuisine (9419 Glenfield Ct, Houston, TX 77096; (832) 667-8592; dinosrestauranthtx.com (website not working at the time of this writing); under HKA supervision) seems to go under a variety of monikers: Dino’s Mediterranean Cuisine, Dino’s Restaurant, and so forth. I’ve gone with the name on their storefront, which is as good as any. For the rest of the review, I’ll just call it Dino’s.

Dino’s is located in a small shopping plaza, with a reasonable amount of parking, in a residential neighborhood. It’s not hard to find, and they have an appealing storefront with a bit of seating.

Inside, it’s pretty nice! It’s not going to win any interior design awards, but the general ambience is quite tasteful, and it was a pleasant place to sit and eat a meal.

For whatever reason, the mashgiach was running the front-end service when we visited. While he was a pleasant, affable guy, I didn’t necessarily find it the most efficient ordering experience of my life. In general, I found service on the slower side.

Dino’s menu has an extensive, but not overwhelming menu. The main thrust of the menu is the usual shwarma/falafel/schnitzel/kabob in lafa/pita/baguette that is the norm for these sorts of places, but with some steak, shakshuka, and other items mixed in. If you’ve been in a “kosher shawarma joint” (Shawarma Vegas, Oh Mama Grill, etc.), it’s similar to that. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Pricing was $10-$20 per item, which seems to have become the standard these days for fast casual kosher dining.

We ordered the arayes as an appetizer, along with shakshuka, shnitzel in baguette, shnitzel in lafa, and shnitzel in pita. What can I say – we know what we like. Unlike in most of the establishments I’ve been in, you told them what you wanted in your lafa/pita/baguette instead of coming to the counter to construct it. This honestly seemed rather inefficient since we had no idea what they had, and I think maybe a small written listing of the potential contents of the sandwiches would be in order.

The arayes were pretty good – crispy and spiced well – and so were our various sandwiches. I wouldn’t say they were ground-breaking or particularly special, but there’s nothing wrong with Middle Eastern done right. Not screwing things up is its own quality. My wife loved her shakshuka, which was tasty and spicy, but not overly hot.

I’d come back again – the food was good – but I’d encourage them to let the mashgiach deal with kashrus and find dedicated front-end staff to run the tables. I know that finances are tight at these restaurants, but sometimes the extra money is well-spent.