Oriental Cafe

Culled from: Drury, John. Dining in Chicago, New York: The John Day Company, 1931, pp. 169-170.

Note: The Newberry Library holds the personal papers of author John Drury.

ORIENTAL CAFE, 1814 South Wabash Avenue

From the Far East to the Near East is but a step in Chicago. You have only to walk a few blocks north of Chinatown and you are in the Arab quarter at 18th Street and Wabash Avenue. Here we turn you over to Mr. Jamiel Salamy, an educated Arab rug merchant and part owner of the Oriental Cafe, which is a typical basement coflfee house of the quarter. He'll explain everything and serve you the sort of meal the Bedouins eat in the holy city of Mecca, say, or in the desert villages of Arabia — kibbeh, made from meat ground with wheat, fried, and then cut into little squares; arische mahshi, grape leaves rolled in the form of sausages and stuffed with rice and bits of lamb; and melfoof mahshi, which is rolled cabbage. The dessert consists of baklawa and Turkish coffee served demi-tasse. The Oriental Cafe is unpretentious but clean.

Maitre d'hotel: Jamiel Salamy, or his brother Jaleel Salamy