Pita House is a Middle Eastern restaurant and grocery located in an unassuming venue on South Pleasantburg Drive. About a 20-minute drive from Furman, the trip is more than worth the unique culinary experience.
When you enter Pita House, a modest sit-down restaurant with an adjacent grocery store, you’ll immediately notice strong and appetizing smells. At the counter, you’ll be distracted by a pastry display case filled to the brim with flaky, freshly baked sweets. There are also pictures of all the dishes offered on the menu to assist you in making your choice. The menu is affordable and diverse with plenty of vegetarian options as well as authentic dishes to try if you’re feeling adventurous. The entrees range from $6 to $12, but the servings are pretty substantial.
All of the dishes my friends and I ordered were served alongside fresh pita bread, which were used as shells to hold the contents of our dishes. They also came with shockingly tasty side salads that were lightly brushed with a citrusy, oil-based dressing.
I ordered the baba ghannouge plate, which included the mashed eggplant dip, a light tahini salad, tomatoes, pickles, and olives. It was incredibly flavorful and slightly spicy with a light coating of cayenne pepper dusted on top. There were two unique sauces on the table, both of which I tried with my baba ghannouge and pita. The first sauce was a tahini paste and the second was a slightly spicy, thick, Sriracha-like sauce. Both made my meal even more incredible and flavorful.
My table also tried the Jerusalem kebab, which was made with kofta, a Middle Eastern meatball composed of a mixture of minced meats. They smelled smoky and perfectly grilled. One of the friends I dined with, who traveled to Turkey during the summer of 2012, said the meatballs were similar in quality to the ones she had tried while overseas. I was surprised we’d found such authentic Middle Eastern food in Greenville!
The Middle Eastern plate offered a great variety of several things on the menu for little over $7. The dish came with a choice of gyro, chicken, or beef with falafel, hummus, olives, and cucumber and tahini salad. I tried the falafel, which was honestly one of the best I’d ever had. It was very crunchy and fried to perfection. My friend told me that he was disappointed in the quality of the gyro; he said it tasted like it had been sitting out all day.
I also tried a side of the tabbouleh salad, which was unlike any tabbouleh I’d ever had. It was very parsley-heavy with a minty and zesty aftertaste. Couscous lightly decorated the tabbouleh, so it had a much fresher flavor than other tabbouleh salads I had tasted in the past. I will definitely be ordering this unique salad the next time I visit Pita House.
My group also couldn’t resist trying the reasonably priced Lebanese pastries staring at us from the display case all during the meal. We tried a nut nar ($1.25) and a finger roll ($.65), which were both light, crispy, and a perfect sweet finish to the meal. The nut bar was the sweeter of the two and was filled with minced nuts and honey and had a flaky crust.
Despite its effortless décor and tableware (everything was served on Styrofoam), Pita House offers light, authentic Middle Eastern cuisine with plenty of interesting flavors and aromas. It is very affordable for a college budget and definitely worth a try if you’re in the mood for something different.