The menu features kabob skewers, gyro and falafel sandwiches with plenty of basmati rice and feta cheese on the side. After a year and a half of preparation, Ali’s Mediterranean Cuisine opens this week on Thompson Drive at Gabriel’s Plaza.

 

The unique restaurant is owned by Ali Shirazinia and his wife Samira, both who will be cooking up a variety of specialties, combining favorites from Iran, Turkey, Greece and other Middle-Eastern countries.

 

Ali Shirazinia is former owner of A’s Grill at Meadowbrook Mall, where for several years he served food items including steak gyros, Greek salads and bourbon chicken. He is also former owner of Manchu Wok where he pleased palates preferring Chinese fare. Having also cooked at Oliverio’s Ristorante and Ryan’s Steakhouse, Shirazinia has vast experience in the kitchen and with the public. He hopes the specialty foods at Ali’s will appeal to the public and fill a unique niche. Because it’s important to his customers, it’s important to him to offer a good meal at an affordable price, he said.

 

Over the past couple of years, Shirazinia – while working two jobs – has in his spare time remodeled the space formerly occupied by Philip’s Pasta Cucina. He has customized the kitchen, laid the floor tile and the brick on the interior walls and counter. Accenting the eatery are historical artifacts which Samira Shirazinia brought straight from Shiraz, Iran, where she lived until just 12 years ago. That’s not all she brought from her homeland. She will be taking an active role in the kitchen, preparing dishes learned during her childhood. She talks often to her dad, who remains in Shiraz, comparing notes about some of their shared recipes.

 

For the time being, the menu will be kept fairly simple with a limited amount of entrees which can paired with rice and other sides as a filling sit-down dinner or wrapped in pita bread for convenient on-the-go fare. In Iran, that’s referred to “picnic” style, she said.

After an appetizer such as hummus and tabbouleh, restaurant patrons can choose from ground sirloin, chicken and steak tip kabobs; chicken gyros, beef shawarma and beef kabob sandwiches or Greek, kabob and gyro salads. Ali’s Mediterranean Cuisine also caters to vegetarians, offering on the menu falafel sandwiches and veggie gyros with lots of options.

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The couple and their young son Kiyan, a fourth grader at Simpson Elementary school, were working late into the evening just hours before they planned to open their new family restaurant.

 

Bridgeport’s Juli Jones expects to be among the new restaurant’s first patrons.

“I am so excited for this to open. Being Lebanese, I can’t hardly ever get my Middle-Eastern cuisine fix unless I travel to Dormont in Pittsburgh and get the ingredients and good spices myself to make our favorite dishes,” she said. 

 

Ali's is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 12 noon to 8 p.m. Sunday.