Soumaya & Sons Bakery

Love, love — love this place. I’m addicted to the Kenny Salad, it’s fattoush salad with grilled chicken — so delicious.
The thoum is the best I’ve had in the Valley and it pairs perfectly with their fresh homemade bread, baked daily!
I’ve also had the baba, hummus and tabouli — all are spot on!

Try the steak shawarma you will fall in love. Fresh baked good every morning. The Baklava is soooooo good

If they had a bigger parking lot, they would be even busier for a late lunch. Pita was perfect as always. Ordered schwarma, beef chicken mixed and a side of falafel pieces. Because it was so late in the afternoon, they were low on the meat, so it was a bit dry but the flavor was all there. The falafel were just so good, wish I got more.
I am rooting for this family owned business. They are doing everything right.

The guy below told me I needed to try a traditional shawarma sandwich. Wasn’t sure what to expect because I have never had it, although i am a big fan of traditional Arabic food.
Shawarma– it was a pita with grilled chicken seasoned well with a garlic lemon roast taste. Lettuce and a yogurt based sauce. Oh and he added fries in the sandwich noting it was a better with it.
The flavors of this sandwich was extremely flavorful and couldn’t of had a better experience with my first shawarma.
I also ordered the taboli which is a traditional Syria salad. The flavor combination is exquisite and here it tasted exactly like the taboli I had at my Arabic families’ homes.
Not only was the food delicious, the cook was extremely welcoming, including the Arabic customers in the store. The environment is so pleasing here and it’s not the question if I’d come back here again, it’s when I’ll be back.

The absolute best shawarma sandwich I ever had in Allentown! The grape leaves are very delicious as well. Unfortunately I did not try any baked goods I swung in with a friend for lunch after finding out my usual shawarma spot was closed. Glad I stopped I had been meaning to for a while now. Good service, very friendly atmosphere, and good prices. Can’t wait to go back.

I like their food but I’m giving them 2 stars for twice now charging me too much for my items. The first time I didn’t realized the mistake until after I left the store. I was over charged by about $ 3 or so. The total seemed high but I didn’t add it up before check out so I just paid it. I do like the food and figured it was a mistake. Today it happened again except I this time I knew what the total should be so when they told me $ 26 for $ 18.00 worth of food. Right away I said that wasn’t right so she looked at the register tape, apparently she charged me twice for the grape leaves.
I just think its weird that I was over charged by several dollars twice now. Make sure you have some idea of what the total should be BEFORE you check out there.

FABULOUS food! We live about 45 minutes away, and it is definitely worth the trip to stock up on spinach pies, kibbeh, meat pies, stuffed grape leaves, and the best baklava you’ll ever eat! Everything is amazingly fresh, delicious, and very reasonably priced.
In addition to the prepared food, they have a small but good selection of middle eastern groceries/​ingredients for your home cooking, also at unbeatable prices.
The family is friendly and helpful.
It is truly a delight to go here!

I adore this place for its foods.
While not a restaurant, you can sit and eat at one of two four-​person tables. The people are nice. They have, among other things, excellent fresh spinach pies, dolmas, hummus, pita breads, baklava, sandwiches (before going vegetarian I used to love the shawarma sandwiches with their excellent garlic tahini sauce which I highly recommend having extra amounts of) & some grocery items (such as excellent pita bread, spices & other ingredients you won’t find at your local grocery store).
I’ve been eating their food for years & loving it. And STILL loving it today (updated this review in may 2014). They have very good prices, especially considering the lackluster options for pita bread & hummus at my local grocery stores. If I’m smart, I’ll remember to buy these items at Soumaya & Sons next time!
I think they might be supplying some restaurants with pita bread and baba ganoush, because the Aladdin and Soumaya and Sons both have indistinguishable, and utterly orgasmic, baba ganoush. Seriously. It’s just heavenly (and I’m atheist). You must have some. Then have some more. OOOOHHH!
I’ve had baba ganoush from many places and this variety is superior to ALL. Whatever you bought at the Giant grocery store, or even Wegman’s, is not baba ganoush. Get the real thing here!
Also of note, it’s easy to be a vegan there. All you have to do is ask about ingredients if you’re unsure. The employee who helped us had dairy intolerances & was therefore quite prepared to help my friend determine which items were dairy free.

Pita bread, just baked, no preservatives; all kinds of olives, Bulgaria Feta, meat, spinach pies, hummous, babganoush, Syrian cheese, condiments, canned goods, frozen items (phyllo), and spices. Then ALL grades of bulgar wheat for cooking and salads. Fresh tabbouli too. When you go– bring a several spoons so you can have your co-​pilot make hummous and baba bites for the driver– you cannot do without eating that fresh hotbread!!! Go early– by noon bread is nearly gone, and cooled off.

I went here for the first time today and was blown away. Their pita is fresh every day. I bought their beautiful thin pitas – perfect for pizza crust, btw – and they were still warm. The door to the back was open and you could see women baking. So authentic and so good.
I am eating their babaghanoush as I write this and it’s as good as baba gets – lemony, garlicky, creamy, smoky. The spinach pies were so good I got four of them to go. Hummus is fantastic. Zaatar bread delicious. The falafel was terrific and it had the pickles the way it’s supposed to. The grocery selection is small, but right on. $ 3.70 got me a block of haloumi cheese, which is so, so delicious. You can pay three times more at Wegmans if you want.
I will be back all the time. I mean all the time.

Soumaya Bakery proved itself for about 30+ years by its loyal middle-​eastern customers living in Allentown’s Sixth Ward. You can count on getting fresh pita bread made on-​location, which is not the case with pita bread sold in grocery stores. Remember, though, that you need to eat this bread in a day or two for best enjoyment because it’s not loaded with preservatives. Lebanese and Syrian people eat their bread with almost every meal so they don’t need those preservatives. This may be why one person below said the bread was slightly tough; usually that only happens if you wait more than 2 days to eat it. And, the price is right.
Yes, their meat and spinach pies are great too. Try kibbee as well!

Came here looking for the fairly hard to come by (in a brick-​and-​mortar shop) ingredient hartshorn (aka ammonium carbonate, baker’s ammonia, sal volatile) for making springerle and they had it. So on the off chance anyone else is looking for it, here you go.
Having already braved Route 22 to get there I figured I might as well make the most of it and tried a few things. Pita were still warm and well priced coming in packs of 10 smaller size white or whole wheat loeaves or packs of about 5 large white loaves all priced at $ 1.50. They were a tad tough but still good and great once reheated at home and crisped some. Enjoyed them with the hummus which tastes great. My only wish for the hummus is that it be a little thicker.
Meat pies and spinach pies were good, spinach pies were large but not stuffed, just a layer of spinach on the bottom. Fine with me, I’m still learning to like spinach anyway.
They carry a fair amount of spices including some harder to find like the hartshorn, citric acid, powdered vanillin, and zatar. A few varieties of bulgar wheat.
Great prices, helpful service, and they had the secret ingredient I was looking all over for!

A totally authentic gem!
This place came highly recommended to me from my PT office staff — everyone loves their hummus and pita bread. So today, I convinced my boyfriend to come with me and check this place out. Boy were we glad we did! Their pita is quite scrumptious and the best part is, you get 6 large loaves for ONE DOLLAR! We also got the baba ganoush which was very flavorful and not at all bitter (I find some hummus to be bitter — maybe it’s just me!). We also bought a spinach pie and a meat pie which are small pastries filled with either spinach or beef. We haven’t had a chance to eat those yet so I’ll be back to tell you how that went. But for now, I was blown away by their baba ganoush and pita. To be more specific, the pita bread was very fresh (still warm) and not at all chewy. It ripped cleanly and tasted like freshly baked bread more than like a tortilla. (I’m comparing these to supermarket pitas by the way).
I highly recommend a visit and next time plan to stop there at lunch to have one of their $ 4.25 sandwich wraps (Pita with falafel or kebab meet). On top of all that, it’s run by real Middle Eastern folks who all spoke amongst themselves in their native language — shouting questions and advice across the whole store… I felt like I was in a different country for a moment… a great experience.
UPDATE: So we had the pies… boyfriend liked the meat pie a lot — I’m not a beef fan but it was ok to me. The spinach pie was good though. Not anything crazy good but I’d get more of them if I was a local.
On the other hand, we went back there for lunch on Friday and shared the chicken kebab wrap… SO good. They marinate the chicken strips and grill them… then they wrap them in a fresh pita with… something, some kind of super tasty garlic sauce with some kind of spicy pickles. It’s not super spicy overall or anything but it was really really good. Definitely worth a try!