Noah Halal

The falafel was mushy, overall plain tasting, and really slow service. Wouldn’t come back.

Very mediocre. My chicken shawarma wrap would have benefited from a little hummus, tomatoes, or pickles– in my experience all standard condiments. Chicken was precooked and reheated quickly on the grill. Especially given all the authentic, fresh, and carefully prepared food available from the food trucks, this was a disappointment.

Being from SF and used to the food truck culture, not the food cart culture, I thought the service here was sooooo s-​l-​o-​w for something that I expected to come out quickly.
Ordered the chicken Caesar salad and lamb gyro to share with my hubby, and we agreed both dishes were yummy and fresh, as one would hope given the wait!

A wonderful taste of the Middle East! I had the kofta-​kabab sandwich, which was everything I was hoping for – delicious, fresh and filling. Definitely a food cart I plan to frequent (and work my way through the menu!) whenever I’m downtown Portland.

A simple review for a simple little place, how fitting!
One of the last stores open on a Friday evening for dinner, ordered our food, cook made each one with such love and attention to detail, cheap, and delicious. Though you may not think about it much, he gave us a ton of napkins and my tree hugger side came out, but I quickly became grateful as it’s quite the sloppy meal, drenched in amazingness!

Out of all the food carts in Portland, I had to get dolmas from this one.
They won me over with the painted images of a bunch of animals (Noah’s Ark) on the side of the cart and then lost me with their surge pricing and less than stellar attitude.
I just wanted a bunch of dolmas for lunch. I saw they had a $ 5 lunch order and a $ 6 dinner order. I asked if the dinner portion was more dolmas, and didn’t really get a straight answer, more like a mumble and a «huh». I asked again and the guy started prepping the container with dolmas and while he was doing so I added in one last time, ‘can I get the dinner portion?’, because I was super hungry.
The guy rang me up and it was $ 5, so I asked if he had given me the dinner-​sized order. With yet another non-​answer, he then yelled out, «$ 6».
So, is the $ 6 because you gave me a larger portion, or because you just realized you could get away with charging me an extra dollar even though it’s lunch time and the lunch order. I’m 98% positive it’s the latter because the portion was pretty small for even $ 5 and while the dolmas were good, it wasn’t worth even $ 5.
Lastly, I tried to pay with $ 50 bill because it was the only thing I had and while I realize that a $ 50 bill to a small business is like getting leaches in a swimming pool, it was all I had and I thought they’d appreciate the cash more than a credit card, but I was wrong. They basically wouldn’t accept the $ 50 and though they were quick to take me up on my offer of paying with credit, they were also quick to charge me an extra 47 cents on top of my order for paying with credit… which is some bull ass shizz considering the guy had already pretty much ripped me on that extra dollar for the dinner time dolmas.
It is what it is, but next time I’ll be getting my dolmas from anywhere but Noah Halal.

I ordered a beef kafta plate to see if the criticisms about the meat are true. I had it once before but I was so hungry that I didn’t focus on it. This review is about the second visit I had, ordering the same dish.
The meat is savory and not greasy. However, it breaks off in an unusual way. Beef should have some grain or some amount of tenderness. This one crumbles in an unusual way. It’s not loose like how a cookie does, but when I chewed the beef there was something unusual about the texture. The meat has some filler in it, and should have been much better in quality.
A good plus on Noah is their falafel. Their falafels are light, with crispiness on the outside and some softness on the inside. They were not greasy and tasted savory. At least they were much better than the ones in Zupans (where the latter would refrigerate them until they were dry).
But I would look elsewhere for delicious Middle Eastern or Mediterranean cuisine.

I’m not sure why other Unilocalers are being so generous with this place…
Many people’s parents have told them «If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.» Fortunately, I don’t think I got that. I don’t get to tear a place a new one often, but this one deserves it.
That said, I have one nice thing to say: the rice was good. Noah’s is one of the normal, dime-​a-​dozen Middle Eastern food carts serving sub-​par food. This one was fairly egregious in its pricing and dubious quality.
We ordered from pictures, which included gyros sandwiches, lamb gyros, chicken shwarma, blah blah blah. We ordered the «lamb» shwarma and chicken shwarma plates, each for $ 8 ($ 9 for dinner if you’re really set on being screwed or you’re desperately drunk, which is probably more accurate). We also ordered the $ 2 samusas, but they were «sold out.»
We watched our attendant cook form-​fitted «lamb» meat, rectangular and perfect in size, and put it on a flat griddle. He then used tongs and puts some diced, marinated chicken meat on the griddle. We were not impressed.
While that was cooking, he gooped in tzakiki and «hummus.» As we took our plastic tubs to our eating place in the park, complete with plastic forks (yay! [sarcasm]) we weren’t sure if the hummus was hummus because it was nearly liquid. Note to these guys: Hummus isn’t canned chickpeas tossed in a blender – it requires more than that.
By the time we opened it up, we continued our experiment. The «lamb» was frankly a ripoff. It was bland, flavorless, and awful. The «salad» was another foray into I-really-don’t-give-a-shit: it was iceberg lettuce and a smattering of chopped tomatoes. The chicken wasn’t as dry as Huong’s, but was of slightly better quality. It still had no major flavor nor nutritional value. The hummus was slightly grainy, runny, but it did stick to the fluffy, store-​bought pita. The rice was slightly yellow and had a nutty, spice to it. In short: this sucked. This is one of the worst things I think we’ve eaten. Ever.
Scores:
Time: Normal time here: about 8 minutes. No complaints.
Value-​1: Crappy food for $ 8 each is not a value.
Gut check at 3pm: I’m not hungry, but I’m not happy either. My dining partner complained of a grumbly belly.
Sustainability-​1: Plastic, store-​bought bread; processed meat. This is a slash-​and-​burn policy toward earthly stewardship; sort of ironic given its name. You know, Noah: the guy who tried to save the world by building a big boat. And yeah, it’s that Noah: they even have pictures of pairs of animals all over their sign and a big ark in the back.
Fear Factor-​5: Well, crappy meat and low-​quality, gloppy hummus wasn’t a good start. The dolmas tasted like they had turned; maybe they fermented in the jar. We would not go back. This was a dare. And we took it for you, fair readers.
Staying Power-​1: There is no reason whatsoever for this place to stay in business. It is too expensive for what you get, it is a slight against the food carts in the vicinity and it is so completely unoriginal, there is no reason to go here. These guys have no business staying in business.
Creativity-​1: I sometimes wonder if people emigrate here and get a business plan set up for them. «Here’s the deal: these stupid Americans will buy anything. You make crappy food for three bucks, sell it for eight, and go home at three. This is a win-​win.» Except the loser is their customers.
As we walked by some of the carts that we will be visiting later, we saw pretty much the same menu at three other places. This is a big stinker.

If your hungry, drunk, and out late I’m sure this place will be open for you. The flavor is good, but the place is a bit stingy with the meat. Though, the stinginess could have been due to me getting food at 11pm? Still, that shouldn’t be late for down town… especially not on a weekend. Buuuut, Portland seams to go to bed early womp womp.
I digress, you’ll look at the pictures on the food truck and your mouth will water, and then you will get your food and it won’t have a likeness. The server is really nice though. Whatevss it’s cheaper than other places and open late, and it’s pretty authentic. Not my favorite, but it wasn’t bad.

my kafta was red in the middle and burnt on the outside. not worth the $ 9 for kafta plate.

I ordered a veggie samosa here. It was small, flavorless, and unsatisfying. That is all.

I bought chicken gyro from here today and while it was a fairly big size serve the taste was far from being good. This tasted like pita bread filled with fried chicken pieces and with some salsa. The taste is just not zingy enough. The server was nice though. Since this is one of many tuck shops among this square block area, go to Gyro House which is opposite to this on other end. They make far far better gyro and it is super TASTY!

How does this place have only 3 stars? We’ve been here twice now and it’s awesome! Huge gyros filled with delicious meat, veggies, herbs and yummy tzatziki sauce. Everything is fresh and the staff is nice. Whats even better is that they’re open late and take credit cards. They’re still open when many other restaurants and food carts have closed for the day.

Was trying out a few food trucks in the area during a rainy afternoon, BF was compelled to stop here despite multiple vendors offering falafel.
Service was a tiny bit slow but very friendly, and order was made fresh– falafel wrap in pita was our poison. Received a HUGE wrap, loaded with fresh falafel balls, what seemed to be salad mix, some beige sauce, and tomatoes. Not sure what the sauce was, taste was very light and it wasn’t similar to hummus or tzatziki. Veggies were fresh and pita was warm and fluffy and didn’t fall apart.
Falafel was different than I’m used to: it was obviously more of the middle eastern style rather than Mediterranean, but it was cooked on the outside without really being crisped up at all and as a result it was fairly mushy. Texture issues aside, the flavor was fairly good, though it just did not stand out as stellar falafel to me.

On the corner of Washington and 10^th, this little food cart is very colorful with it’s Noah’s ark mural on two sides of it’s truck. They serve, I think, middle eastern food. I ordered one of the kofta entrees and I think that it was good overall — the rice was pretty darn amazing, the beef patty looking meat was alright — not dry but not juicy either. It came with a side salad and cucumber ranch, also pita bread to go with the hummus. The servers were very nice and asked if we wanted to place anything in to go containers — very accommodating. Also, there is a $ 0.45 sent few for using card transactions, FYI!