Saj and Grill

I really enjoy Middle Eastern food, I've had this place on my radar for ages but its opening times are really odd so I've never managed it. I decided to go here for a solo breakfast one day, just out of boredom.

Mmm this place

This place was absolutely freaking freezing, even when I sat on the inside. I can't even emphasise how cold it was that day, I couldn't feel my face.

Grahhh

Here is their menu! This is their little set up, its a very simple little place, a front counter, menus on the cupboards and the saj oven in the corner.

The Saj!

Small!

I picked the chicken saj, it was made out of marinated garlic chicken tenderloin, olives, mushroom, cheese and onion. The saj was a flexible, lightly golden brown but slightly fluffy flat bread. I got an option of homemade hot sauce or sweet chilli sauce and I went with the hot sauce. It was so scorching hot that I couldn't really enjoy the rest of the saj, it was a sweet, fruity and yet super spicy sauce. I was panting so hard in between bites to cool my mouth down, it was tasty but I wouldn't order it again.

Drowning in sauce ):

I came back here a few weeks later for a second meal, this time just their plain herb za'atar. Za'atar is an amazing mix of salt, thyme, oregano, sesame seeds and sumac. It can be used as a topping on pizza with some olive oil to moisten it, as a dip or as a spice rub with meats. Any way you have it, it's an amazing flavour combination, salty, fragrant, lemony from the use of sumac and nutty from the roasted sesame seeds. It does get stuck everywhere in your teeth though, so there's that.

There's another foot of it

Just a peek of za'atar poking out

The za'atar herb saj is amazing, a super skinny but very long roll of freshly cooked saj, spread over with an olive oil and za'atar combination that is intensely flaky, buttery and intensely flavoured from the za'atar mixture. It's a great snack.

Those layers!

Saj and Grill
Atmosphere: 4, freezing spartan in appearance. ): not my favourite of places to sit.
Service: 8, absolutely lovely guys who recognised everyone by name/order and had a joke with them.
Food: 7, utterly redeemed by the za'atar herb saj, I'd definitely avoid the garlic chicken with hot chilli option and try the za'atar. It's one of those flavours you'll find yourself craving months down the track.