By: David Dorsen Oct 1992

"Their name may be odd, but Moby Dick Kabob house knows how to cook."

THE JOURNAL FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1999 VA

Great fast food at Moby Dick’s House of Kabob

Moby Dick’s House of Kabob has terrific, healthy, wholesome and fresh fast food, and is perfect for a quick lunch fix.

But you’ve got to be patient.

The McLean, Va. Moby Dick’s is small and less than efficient.  I knew the food was going to be fabulous before I took a single bite for two simple reasons: The place was packed and the phone was ringing off the hook with carryout orders.  I watched as two overworked counter servers tried to take phone orders, fill orders and wait on customers all at the same time; another half-dozen people grilled, baked bread, made rice and cleared tables haphazardly. 

The menu is quite confusing – a large board on the wall lists the dishes available, platters of chunks of grilled meats with either rice or bread, salads and sandwiches.  The difference between the sandwiches and the dishes are that the sandwiches are smaller and come with lettuce, tomato and onion, and the full dishes include your choice of bread or rice and more extensive toppings.  A wonderful Greek Tzatziki sauce of plain yogurt, chopped cucumber, onions, garlic and herbs comes with anything you order, and this tangy sauce is an excellent accompaniment for any dish.

There are four basic types of meat, including grilled chunks of lamb, beef or chicken and ground sirloin, or kubideh, a slightly spicy mixture of lean beef, onions and spices that’s been wrapped around a skewer and grilled until moist and meaty inside, crisp grilled outside.

The chunks of chicken, which are marinated in a mild mixture of yogurt and spices then chargrilled until crisp outside, are plump and juicy – in other words, perfectly cooked.  You’ve never tasted chicken kabobs like these before ($5.25 with bread, $6.45 with rice, $4.50 as a sandwich), and they’re even better with grilled tomatoes for added flavor.

The beef tenderloin and lamb kabobs are also marinated before grilling, so they’re moist and juicy ($6.50 with bread, $7.75 with rice, $4.50 as a sandwich), but the chicken seemed to be the most popular during my visit.

The bread was a disappointment.   You can watch the dough being prepared through a window while you wait for your meal, your appetite whetted as the baker pounds a large mound of dough, chops it into small pieces, then pulls them flat to bake until puffy.  When they’re done, the baker hangs the pieces of pita bread from a rack; later I noticed they’re held over the clay oven to be reheated.  Mine was tough, like it had been on the rack too long then not beated long enough.  I’m sure the bread was excellent fresh and piping-hot, though ($1.10 a la carte, or served with most dishes).

Moby Dick’s serves a pretty good gyro sandwich, too.  Finely ground meat is seasoned then shaped into a huge roll, then sliced into thin strips and stuffed into pita along with lettuce, tomato, onions and feta cheese ($3.95).  The tangy yogurt sauce cools and adds a refreshing zip to the seasoned meat.

Fish kabobs are different every day, based on what’s available. ($7.75 with bread, $8.95 with rice).  The fish of the day when I visited Moby Dick’s was swordfish, the thought of which made my mouth water until I was told they were out.  I’ll have to go back, but I know to call ahead.

Side dishes include hummus, a popular dish of mashed chick peas with garlic, lemon and tangy tahini paste ($2.30) and a dip of sautéed then mashed eggplant, onion, garlic and boiled yogurt that’s a paste-like dip with an exotic, smoky flavor ($2.75).

Baklava, a Greek pastry of phyllo dough layered with honey, cinnamon, chopped walnuts and chopped pistachios is excellent, but is more like a brownie than the usual crispy, crumbly pastry ($2.75).

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THE ALMANAC, DECEMBER 30, 1997

Middle East Meets West at Moby Dick

For natives of Chicago, a few shrines are sacred: the Water Tower, Wrigley Field, the clock in front of Marshall Field’s department store, the Museum of Science and Industry and the Bon Ton restaurant.  Windy City émigrés speak reverently of the Bon Ton shish kebob: the lamb marinated to savory succulence and grilled to a crispy crust, then arranged artistically beside the perfect grilled tomato and herbed rice.  Those who have tasted this incomparable entrée are doomed to try to repeat it, in vain.

They can come pretty close, though, at Moby Dick House of Kabob in Bethesda and McLean, and for a fraction of the price.  Because the lamb kabob is made of Hallal meat (the Moslem equivalent of Kosher), some diners come from even farther than Illinois.  On a typical weekday afternoon, a patron in African tribal garb may be standing in line with office workers in security badges and navy suits.  It’s almost a perfect place for family dining, combining a casual setting with more than reasonable prices.

Brightly colored murals show pictures of jojeh-chenjeh combo platter and other unfamiliar offerings, across the room from paintings of Middle Eastern family life.

The service, by contrast, is pure American, with the diners placing their orders at the counter and waiting for their numbers to be called, then moving on the soft-drink dispenser.  The owner, “Mr. Mike” Daryoush, said that his secret of success was combining Middle Eastern delicacies with fast-food service, thus keeping the prices down.  The lamb kabob plate is $7.50, complete with the saffron rice, the traditional Middle Eastern salad of diced tomato and cucumber, fresh pita bread from a traditional oven and a generous portion of lamb.  Hummus, gyro and souvlaki are also on the menu, but not, however, the Fertile Crescent’s very favorite fast food, falafel (hint, hint, Mr. Mike).

Although some of the diners hail from Europe and China as well as the Middle East, about 70% are simply shish-kebob groupies from Chicago and other places.  Mr. Mike said that his most popular entrée is the chicken kabob plate, made of skinless boneless chicken breast, the favored fare for health-conscience consumers everywhere.

He claims to have created all of the recipes himself, and denies ever having attending cooking school.  Instead, he worked in a restaurant in his native Iran, to pay for his studies in electrical engineering.  Coming to America 24 years ago, he opened the Bethesda “Moby Dick Sandwich Shop,” named for a famous eatery in Tehran, then realized that there was a growing demand for affordable but exotic fare.  He accordingly opened the first Moby Dick House of Kabob in Bethesda in 1987; three other locations followed, in Crystal City, Georgetown and McLean.

Like many restaurants, this one is a family business, run by Mr. Mike with his cousin and friends.  With their efficient but friendly service, they help create an inviting atmosphere, especially for Chicagoans.      

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TIMES COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS MAY 17, 1995

Kabob Mania

Middle-, Far-Eastern Fast Foods on a Skewer

Let’s hope that this new-old way of eating – meat, fish, poultry and/or vegetables skewered and grilled – becomes a raging success, sweeping across the land as completely as say, the Golden Arches.

Not only can this be a healthful, low-fat way of enjoying meat, it also can be an eat-and-run way of enjoying flavorful foods – suiting America’s fast-food mentality.

Kabobs (also spelled “kebabs” and “kababs”) have enjoyed a great popularity in many Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian cuisines, showing up in what one food expert calls the “kabob crescent,” from Turkey and Iran through India to Vietnam.

Here in Northern Virginia, with several places featuring kebabs and with many others putting kebabs on the menu, one can almost detect a new fad afoot.  Let’s hope so.  Consider this selection for starters.

Take the new Moby Dick House of Kabob in McLean, for example – although not at lunch-time, unless you’re not in any particular hurry.

A branch of its famous parent in Bethesda, this kabob place carries with it a reputation and recipes for its sublime flat brads – rolled out and tandoori-baked before your eyes – and flavorful skewered meats and poultry.

Persian influenced, its kabobs are subtly seasoned and served with bread and/or rice.

Best bets? Try their “kabob-e-kubideh,” which is ground sirloin seasoned with onion and herbs and wrapped around a skewer for grilling.  Succulent, juicy meat wrapped in the hot chewy bread, this could become an addiction.

Other kabob choices include their chenjeh (marinated tenderloin), lamb, chicken breast, and combos, plus an assortment of souvlakis and a gyro.  But in a House of Kabob, why not kabobs?  Also, accompany your kabob with a side dish, such as their bademjan (sautéed eggplant and grilled onion), which has a pleasantly dark, rich texture and flavor.  One patron raved about the hummus, and that may well be a good choice, too.  The rice is delicate, delicious and splattered with saffroned butter, but their breads are divine.  Order both with your kabobs.

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THE JOURNAL FRIDAY, JULY 30, 1993 MD

Bethesda’s Moby Dick makes a whale of a kebab

Moby Dick may mean Captain Ahab and great white whale to some.  But to fans of good, cheap Persian food, Moby Dick means kebabs and fresh, chewy bread baked right before your eyes in a clay oven, a process that parallels the baking of tandoori bread, says the manager.

In fact, patrons of the Moby Dick restaurant in Bethesda, Md., may wish to watch this bread-baking process while they wait for their dinner order to come up front from the kitchen.  It certainly beats staring at the television in the corner or watching the passing street scene.

Bread baking aside, you may well wonder about the name.  As the manager explains, probably for the four thousandth time, it has nothing to do with the book of the same name.  But instead it recalls a famous restaurant in Iran, whose name they have transported to the metro area.  Kind of a token of remembrance.

Several years ago, some Persian friends introduced me to the splendors of Moby Dick and its exquisite bread.

Of course, they knew how to order and assembled a meal that included a yogurt dish, a salad, and several different kebabs, all accompanied by the fresh wheels of bread, hung on a peg to rest after baking before it is set on a dinner plate.  Once slice (wheel? disk? loaf?) can wrap easily around a hefty kebab or two.  In fact, the bread is as large as a steak platter and as round as the sun.

We ordered a gyro platter, which consists of sliced beef laid on layers of bread triangles and comes with lettuce, tomato, onion, and a yogurt-cucumber sauce.  The second choice, the kebab-e-Chenjeh (with a side of bread, but we got a side of rice as well) consists of a skewerful of tenderloin cut in chunks that have been marinated before cooking.  The meat is strung out on an opened flat piece of bread that you can fold around the meat before eating.  As an extra, we ordered a side of kashk-o-bademjan (delicious as a spread on the bread before folding; whether spreading is authentic or not, I don’t know), which is simply cooked and seasoned eggplant that has been smoothed into a puree and mixed with grilled onion, garlic and yogurt.

The manager says the most popular items include any one of Moby’s combo dishes and I say a meal would not be complete without one of the authentic side dishes.

But whatever you do, save room for a sweet dessert – the baklave here is a toothsome and worthy treat.  Served in a generous portion, this version is not oversweet and the pastry is flaky and tender.

The atmosphere is casual, and shorts seem to be the preferred mode of dress (in the summer, at least).  The food is delicious and wholesome.  But best of all, the prices are rock bottom and two people can eat amply for under $20.  The manager compares management’s pricing policy to the way the Price Club sells more for less: “We just want to have less profit on the food, but more customers.”

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