At Amira's Kitchen, being taught mansaf, and more, in Cheektowaga

Rotisserie chicken, falafel, kibbe, and more lessons from Palestinian grandmother

Mansaf with fameed sauce at Amira’s Kitchen

When I was issued my critic’s badge in 2012, my marching orders were to put a restaurant in its place. Assign it a grade from disappointing to extraordinary.

When I served as The Buffalo News’ restaurant critic, the grade was my call, period. No boss ever interfered. I wrote that a billionaire’s steakhouse billing itself as Top 10 U.S. could maybe make a case for Top 3 in Buffalo.

But doing an honest job meant sometimes registering disappointment. Despite picking places I hoped would shine, I’d hit a dud. That week, I’d call an owner to arrange for photography. In other words, asking them to run up dishes, at their expense, for an article that said nicely as possible that readers should consider other options.

Amira Khalil dressed up in traditional garb for her Cheektowaga ribbon-cutting.

Eventually, that bothered me enough that I made a rule. If I was going to tell the whole world why I didn’t like their place, I should at least show them the respect of hearing it from me before everyone read it in the paper.

Grading the work of people trying their damndest against an authoritative database I just made up was the worst part of the gig. So when I got the chance during the pandemic, I chose my own paradigm.

My review is a love letter to a restaurateur whose work I admire. The review is my attempt to explain what’s gotten me worked up this time. Then try to transmit that ardor, using my big boy words and images, in a bare-faced attempt to help them stay in business. When it comes to loving restaurants and the human beings who comprise them, it would be fair to describe me as professionally polyamorous.

Which brings me to this week’s admiree, Amira Khalil. The Palestinian restaurateur transplanted her restaurant, Amira’s Kitchen, to the Williamsville-Cheektowaga border hard by Buffalo-Niagara International Airport last year.

If you miss eating rotisserie chicken the Swiss Chalet way – that is, with your hands like an unrepentant carnivore – get a table at Amira’s for chicken made to be dipped. But leave your craving for the brick-colored Chalet jus at home, because Amira’s got better dance partners for your poultry.

We met in 2022, a few months after she originally opened in Riverside. Following tipster reports, I met her behind the counter. She answered my usual opening barrage of questions with aplomb, and offered me tea.

Rotisserie chicken was the tipster’s favorite, but the menu, and the Dome of the Rock plates behind the register, said Palestinian. Khalil hustled us out plate after plate of satisfaction, resulting in my rave review. The chicken was at least equivalent to Swiss Chalet’s, but you could dip it in garlic mayonnaise and sides like hummus, babaganoush, and yogurt cucumber salad.

A few months later, I asked Amira Khalil about the dish in the photograph on the wall behind the registers, she introduced me to mansaf. It’s lamb braised in broth made from dried fermented sheep’s milk yogurt called jameed. It’s not everyday food – mansaf is for feast days, or Friday night after mosque. The dish has Bedouin roots, jameed being a traditional way to stockpile a flock’s surplus milk while traveling in a desert without refrigeration.

The lactic acid and lamb fat become a gravy of the gods. Served over layers of pita bread and rice pilaf, strewn with toasted slivered almonds, and a cup of jameed broth for custom saucing, it blew my doors off.

A few months later, she told me she was thinking of taking mansaf off the menu because it wasn’t selling. Her cousin at Al Quimma also makes mansaf, she said. But her recipe, which begins, “cut one lamb into pieces,” was too expensive to waste.

If more people knew, maybe she wouldn’t be talking like that, I thought. So I tried to help.

Word spread, and enough mansaf fans found Amira’s. The mansaf persisted.

When Amira Khalil opened her new place, in the former Mr. Bill’s near the airport, I wrote about her plans. Invited to the ribbon-cutting, I was surprised to be handed the scissors. Mild protests silenced by a look over the top of her glasses, I cut the ribbon and wished her prosperity.

These days mansaf ($30) is served the first Friday of the month. The other Fridays the special is the rice and chicken dish called “upside down.”

Kibbe ($12), pointy-tipped croquettes of beef inside bulgur shells, are another favorite at Amira’s.

A whole chicken and two sides ($30) could include hummus, babaganoush, tabouli, or french fries. We got the Family Dinner No. 2 ($92), two whole chickens, four large sides – one french fries and four dips – and let the dunking begin.