Oasis Grill

You can find the Oasis Grill at 1104 South University, next to the National City ATM at the corner of East University.  It is the descendant of the hole-in-the-wall Oasis snack bar that is now a candy shop.  Both the new Oasis Grill and the candy store are owned and run by the same folks who do the Rendezvous just east of the candy store.

My wife and I used to love getting food from the Oasis and eating outside on the picnic table in front in warm weather. We'll see if that still will be possible next spring. The new place has most of the same food, but a bit upgraded in my opinion. I love Middle Eastern food because it is so healthy compared to the grease-laden fast food alternatives. Some of my favorites there:

• Tabbouli, a salad made from parsley and cracked wheat (aka bulgur), along with lemon juice, a bit of tomato, and some additional herbs. Sounds jarring from a traditional American perspective, where parsley is a decoration on the edge of the plate that we throw away after eating the meat and potatoes.
• Fattoush, a salad with bits of pita bread and yummy dressing.
• Felafel, a deep-fried croquet sort of thing made from chickpeas ground up and mixes with spices. Typically you eat felafel wrapped up in a pita with lettuce, tomato, and sesame tahini sauce, but felafel can be put on top of any of their salads (as can chicken or beef shawarma).
• Chicken or beef shawarma, usually eaten in a pita bread sandwich but also available as an entrée. Spicy but not hot-spicy.

The one thing we miss is the tofu fapita, which was a kind of pita sandwich with cubed tofu simmered in a spice sauce. It was totally not Middle Eastern, but amazingly good and nutritious.

I don't know if you can take food from here over to Rendezvous, as you used to be able to do with the food from the hole-in-the-wall place.  It was nice in the winter to take a felafel sandwich or tofu fapita over to Rendezvous to eat with an espresso.

All in all, a new favorite fast-food place for me.
Click to get direction.

Comments

[bEckY]

I would like to volunteer a much better middle-eastern style restaurant in the Ann Arbor area: Jerusalem Garden. The shawarma and falafel is far superior to Oasis and they have the most incredible lentil soup I've tasted.

~bEckY

http://beckyeisen.blogs.com

[Hunscher]

Becky, I partially agree with you. I was going to get to the Jerusalem Garden before I talked about them, but they are in the queue. I think they are different and not so easy to compare. The JG folks are (if memory serves)sephardic jews, and the Oasis/Rendezvous folks are (again if memory serves) Lebanese. There are a lot of flavor variations around that end of the Mediterranean. Each time I go to one or the other, I leave thinking they have the best food. As for me, it's nice to have both to choose from. But if you prefer JG over Oasis, that's fine too.

[ellie]

If you haven't tried the Oasis Cheese Delight you haven't had a good vegetarian wrap. This wrap combines all the senses: crunchy, soft, salty, melty,...
I can't wait to get another one.