#37 Saqqara Cafe - Sam's synopsis

I had never heard of Saqqara Cafe before - Sandya kept pronouncing it like Sakura, which I think is actually pretty close, although the emphasis might be on a different syllable. Of course I think of my girl Cardcaptor Sakura when I hear that, but this is not a maid cafe. It is a hookah bar that also serves food. I think most patrons come here for the hookah, but since neither myself nor Sandya are all that into hookah, we just got food. It is also a BYOB, which we missed the memo on, so I'm pretty sure our server (who I think might also be the owner) was very confused as to why we were there, but he was still very friendly. 

The only thing I will say about the interior is that we were the only folks in there for awhile until a group of women came in who knew the owner/waiter so it was particularly quiet. I say this because the television screen above us was blaring middle eastern music at a volume too high for such a small customer base. Maybe they were expecting it to fill up and get noisy, in which case the volume would have been acceptable, but when there are only two other people in the restaurant, it could have been lowered quite a bit. Of course, I failed to mention this because I really hate being a jackass about things and it wasn't THAT annoying, just something noticeable throughout our meal.

Since we didn't BYO anything, I decided to splurge and order a chocolate milkshake. It did not disappoint, although it's hard to mess up a milkshake. Very nice and creamy, with some chocolate syrup on top. For dinner, I ordered the falafel platter, which came with pita, tabouli salad, hummus and rice. Let me say right off the bat that the rice was absolutely delicious. Cooked to perfection and it had a nice, buttery flavor. It was some of the best rice I've had in a long time. The falafel was very good, some of the better I've had in the city. The tabouli salad had too much parsley in it - I actually enjoy eating parsley even though it's more of a garnish, but this was a bit overpowering.


Overall I enjoyed my meal, especially the buttery rice, and I would probably order take-out from here if I were in a falafel mood, but otherwise I imagine that most people go here for the hookah and the food is there as an added bonus.

Saqqara Cafe
1356 South Street
Philadelphia, PA
(215) 735-0565