Ali Baba Express

Moving my review to the correct listing and upgrading it a star because it’s definitely one of my favorite buffets, and definitely my favorite «mediterranean/​middle eastern» food.

Awesome restaurant! Their hummus is the BEST and their food is beyond good. If you’ve never been to Ali Baba, you MUST try it. They have a huge buffet during lunch hours.

Ali Baba is a good place to eat and be stuffed. The food is great and is always crowded at lunch so that means it it good. The only con I have is the chicken and beef is sometimes too dry so when you go for the chicken or beef make sure it has not been sitting out long.
The buffet is at a good price point and the staff is always friendly.

Ahhh I love this place! Every time I go I overstuff myself! I even went today! Yum yum yummooooooo
Place gets pretty busy for lunch. and why wouldn’t it? It’s so good!
They have all kinds of goodies for you to choose from and everything tastes pretty fresh to me. For $ 12, you can’t beat that! You get everything and anything you want!
My first time here I fell in love with the tomato soup. It was so delish! But when I came today it was so salty! I took away one star for inconsistency. Boo!
My mouth is watering now just writing this review. O_​o

Previously, I used to always go to Afrah’s on Belt Line Rd. for my Mediterranean buffet fix. But now I’ve discovered a better alternative, Ali Baba’s!
AB’s has a far greater number of items on its buffet. I won’t attempt to list them all but I tried about 80% of the buffet and was happily stuffed. The rotisserie chicken was juicy and nicely seasoned (definitely not CHIC from Barcelona good, but still excellent). Roast potatoes, rice pilaf, hummus, deep-​fried cauliflower, grilled veggies, gyro meat, and ground lamb skewers were all deee-​licious!
Cons: The tomato soup was a little bland. Dolmas were cold and unappetizing. The spinach-​stuffed Phyllo was cold and not at all crispy (I found out later that you can get them hot and crispy depending on when you happen to arrive). Afrah’s doesn’t even have those items on its buffet so I’m not taking points away from AB’s because of those sub-​par items.
They recently (mid-​2011) raised the buffet price from $ 11.99 to $ 13.99, basically automatically ordering a drink for you whether you want it or not.
Overall, AB’s is still my favorite Mediterranean buffet despite the price hike.
I’ve also ordered the lamb chops with grilled veggies and rice pilaf for dinner and loved it. The lamb was beautifully cooked with nice charcoal grill flavor and the sides were equally good. They didn’t skimp on the quantity either; I got two small dinners out of it.

I had to write another review for this place as I went there three times in 4 days and that just doesn’t happen. We went back the second and third time for their lunch buffet and it was Dy-​no-​mite! I snapped a picture of my first plate through on one of our feeding through there and added it to the pictures for this place. SO GOOD.
My vegetarian friend loved this place as they served a fabulous lentil soup and a tomato basil soup and she said it’s hard to get soup when you are a vegetarian as so many soups will use chicken as a base. And the awesome person who took us to the final buffet before we headed back to Minnesota said she actually hit this place 4 times that week. I figure if a local hits a place that hard it really says something too.
So yeah. Ali Baba’s rocked my socks off and I am now so stuffed with their wonderful food that I can’t fit into my socks. (Ok — that’s a bit of hyperbole but you get my drift.)
And I don’t think I mentioned this but their staff is really attentive and very sweet.
Go. There. Now!

They’re open again!
Ali Baba closed this summer to move into a new space across the highway (I don’t have the new address with me though). It’s right by Richardson Lanes and Café Brazil.
The space is much nicer. Same great food, same type of style. There are two differences that might spin people into culture shock; one, you have to pay first, and two, it’s 10 bucks now.
Oh, there’s a bar too!

This is a great buffet place with a healthy food selection (too many choices which makes it easy to over eat). The food is Mediterranean with a decent mixture of veggie dishes and non-​veg dishes. The food tastes great and you have to watch that you don’t eat too much or you will be sleeping at work :).

This is one of the best restaurants in Richardson. It is a $ 8.99 lunch buffet and that is all there is to it. The food is great, and it shows — during lunch it is packed from all the office workers nearby. Actually, everything around is zoned office space, so the restaurant is open only for lunch, only on weekdays.
If you come here for lunch, don’t plan on doing anything for the rest of the day. There is so much good food here, you will want to eat until it hurts.