Fast casual dining has been on a tear the last couple of years.  After the huge success of places like Chipotle and Five Guys, Poke Basin spots have begun popping up everywhere, and now, The Halal Guys are going national.  The Halal Guys started every bit a "street meat" hot dog cart in New York in 1990 and take recently been bought out past Fransmart to franchise, with over 200 locations in development, opening up their 2nd Bay Area location at the finish of January.

Their Halal platter combines chicken and gyro meat on elevation of seasoned rice with lettuce, tomatoes, and pita, to build your ain flavour-filled destiny bite later bite.  I got the minor size, which costs $8.99, and is a pretty decent portion with enough of poly peptide and carbs to kick.

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The craven on its own is a flake dry out and banal, not bad, but goose egg also remarkable either.  It'due south chopped and shredded into bite sized pieces and then information technology can be easily mixed with the other components in the bowl, which is good considering it needs a little help.  On the flip side, the gyro meat is moist and salty with Mediterranean seasoning that embraces garlic, cumin, and rosemary.  The beef is delicious and robust with its employ of bawdy spices and aggressive salt smooth.

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The orangish rice is a piffling hard, almost similar al dente pasta, with a slight oil slick and only a hint of additional spice, but no spiciness.  The pita is standard and tastes fresh; information technology is soft and fluffy with a doughy chew that serves as a good foundation for your personalized Halal-chomp.

What The Halal Guys are most heralded for (co-ordinate to internet hype) is their White Sauce, which is substantially seasoned mayonnaise, or, ranch dressing without the dill.  It's a purely corrupt slathering of fat that helps help in the moisture and flavor of the chicken, and is a solid combo with the poultry, merely ultimately felt almost too rich for this blazon of nutrient, which I associate more than with a yogurt-based tzatziki sauce.  Information technology'south got a slight lemony tang and beyond that just tastes kind of "white" – like a coating of mayo snow on a town made of craven.

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The element of this experience that surprised me the most was the Halal Guys hot sauce – information technology is HOT!  Information technology might be the spiciest sauce I've always received in packet form from a eatery and there is no better time to utilise the phrase "a dab will do ya" than when applying this stuff to your food.  The sauce is thick and deep red with an immediate oestrus that coats your tongue and makes its way to the back of the throat.  I'thou not sure which peppers they conjured from hell to whip this stuff together since the label just lists "spices", only they did a very convincing chore of channeling fire into a "to get" course.  Apparently in the original days of the New York food cart the people preparing the food would layer the 2 sauces on top of the platter, and if you're going to use any decent amount of this hot sauce with your meat, the white sauce is definitely necessary to provide a cooling backdrop to the oestrus.

Overall my initial impression of The Halal Guys is that it is good, but not nifty.  Anytime a highly anticipated concatenation, pocket-sized or otherwise, makes it to an surface area with such an elaborately rich food culture similar San Francisco's, information technology'southward hard to convince me that the new guy is really needed.  While I would get back if the correct scenario presented itself, I certainly wouldn't put the food above the local chain Oasis Grill, or a fantastic 1 off spot similar the Mission'south Former Jerusalem.

Rating: vii/10