4:35PM, 8/17/2022
On Wednesday I had myself all worked up for a post gym visit to a place called Wicked Star (Thai/Vietnamese Fusion) located near Chipotle and AT&T by the Galleria, but surprise surprise, they’ve apparently been gone long enough that there is no trace! I pulled up my list to find a backup plan, eventually realizing the backup plan was right in front of me in the same building. Shawarma Stacks was the answer.
I knew nothing of this place prior and I have to be honest that a lot of the gyro/kabob/shawarma/etc places feel pretty similar to me. I wasn’t super thrilled (and was still reeling from Wicked Star closing since I had already picked out what I wanted earlier in the day) but at 4:30PM I headed in. Last time I was here this was still Blast 825º Pizza. I recall the place feeing big and modern at the time (this was 8 years ago) and it still retained that. The large space is a bit more partitioned into 2 distinct dining areas and the kitchen. Now hanging from the center of the already visually interesting ceiling are a bunch of colorful lanterns.
When you first walk in you turn to the right and have a long walkway to the kitchen side of the store. In this walkway are three large panels with the menu (identical to the take-out paper menu’s three main panels if I recall). I stood here for a while going over all my options. For entrees you can build a pita (baked in house), a bowl (with a base of Basmati rice) or a salad (organic spring mix topped with tomatoes, red onions, bell peppers, kalamata olives and feta cheese with a vinaigrette dressing). Protein options for all three include falafel, chicken shawarma or steak shawarma. Fifteen toppings and 6 sauces make up the add-ons here.
Feeling mildly overwhelmed and unsure what direction to go I decided to pick out one of the “Stackz Originalz”, a collection of three pre-configured pitas and one salad. I went with The O.G. Pita (Inspired by the original Syrian style shawarma. Our steak shawarma pita, stuffed with shredded lettuce, parsley mix, tomatoes, pickled cucumber and Tahini sauce)[$11]. Looking to the sides menu, a lot of it is pretty standard stuff – pita chips, falafel, hummus. A couple things jumped out at me. The first were the Stackz Fries (French Fries topped with tomatoes, red onions, bell peppers, kalamata olives, pepperoncinis, feta cheese and choice of sauces)[$5 half / $8 full]. You can also add falafel or shawarma to these, which made them sound pretty good. The second item was Halloumi Cheese Stix (Imported Halloumi Cheese fried and served with our house baked pita, specialty Fig Jam and Cucumber-Yogurt sauce)[$9.50]. I decided on the Halloumi Cheese Stix as I was totally unfamiliar with these.
With that I stepped around the corner and, now in view of the staff, was greeted and someone met me at the register within a few seconds. I added a fountain drink to my order, paid and headed over to the fountains. They serve Stubborn brand soda, and even had a sugar free cola, which was the first I’ve seen of it (and it was quite good). Another interesting note on the fountains was how you pour it. Instead of a button or lever they have draft style handles that you pull, which I thought was kind of fun.
My food was out in no time, under five minutes I think. My initial reaction to the Halloumi Cheese Stix was that they looked like steak fries, and that there weren’t a whole lot for almost $10. After doing some reading about this cheese and talking to a coworker from Lebanon about it, I’ve decided that the pricing is actually fairly normal. The pita looked a little flat, but that was deceiving in the basket. Once I lifted it up I could tell there was quite a bit inside.
Starting off with the cheese I tried a bite on its own. It’s a medium-firm cheese with very mild, slightly salty flavor. The outside was just barely crisped up. These were decent, but they really shined with the fig-jam. The jam was dense and I had to be carful not to break off the cheese when scooping some up. It was delicious and very sweet, which went really well with the saltiness of the cheese. The cucumber-yogurt sauce was quite good as well, but man that fig-jam, I’m still thinking about it a day later. I would totally get this again. I should mention that I didn’t really touch the pita these came on, partly because I already had one with my entree, but also I wasn’t really sure what to do with it anyway. My coworker told me about how his mother would wrap the cheese up in pita along with some peppers as a snack. I’ll have to give that a shot next time.
Moving on to the pita. I should preface this by mentioning one of the few places I’ve had shawarma is Eat A Pita in Rancho Cordova. I probably first went there to try it after seeing that post-credits scene from The Avengers where they are all chilling in the shawarma shop getting a bite to eat after the battle of NYC. That shawarma is so intensely seasoned and delicious, I had yet to try it anywhere else for fear of being disappointed. Big mistake, this shawarma was just as good. Now I need to get it everywhere. This pita was great and, like I said, huge. I didn’t even finish it, which is rare for me since my stomach is a bottomless pit most of the time. The pickled cucumbers were a really nice addition to the flavors here. This was nicely constructed and had a bit of everything in each bite.
Overall I came away extremely pleased with this place. A far cry form my initial mindset when I first headed in. This appears to be the only one of these, and it’s very cool to have it here in Roseville.
Eating Through Roseville 