No doubt, you turn to Racket for our strident, rigorous commitment to objectivity, that timeless journalistic scruple to which we’re all bound. But we’ve got some biases to disclose up front today. Namely: Baba’s rocks.
Founded in 2018 by Palestinian-American siblings Rana Kamal and Khalid Ansari, Baba’s has grown from a locally loved Minnesota hummus brand to a chickpea powerhouse. The company’s dips, spreads, and pita puffs are available in more than 600 stores around the U.S.; a Baba’s stop has become a must-do at the Minnesota State Fair each year; and, in the summer of 2023, Kamal and Ansari opened Baba's Hummus House & Mana'eesh Bakery, a colorful, proudly Palestinian restaurant on Lyndale Avenue.
The menu at Baba’s Hummus House features pizzas served on mana’eesh, salads, sandweesha, and bowls. It’s the bowls, from buffalo chicken to minced beef, which we set out to try last week in order to bring you this definitive ranking.
7. Beauty and the Buffalo ($14)
Ranch hummus, buffalo chicken, blue cheese, scallions, buffalo sauce, buffalo dust
Here’s where we’ll establish the baseline that makes even this, the last-ranked Baba’s bowl, far from bad: It’s built atop the best fucking hummus in town, folks. And the competition isn’t even close, although we’d never turn down the stellar stuff produced by Holy Land. (Meanwhile the ubiquitous supermarket hummus, problematic PepsiCo.-owned Sabra, which I had the misfortune of tasting recently, smacks of peanut buttery dog food.) Almost supernaturally creamy, exploding with flavor, sturdy enough for dipping—Baba’s stuff is stupendous. Sensing a but? BUT! The heavily battered, nugget-grade chicken chunks topping Beauty and the Buffalo accomplish little else besides extreme saltiness. Big, stupid, American sports-bar flavors fall flat compared to the Middle Eastern magic executed at such a high level elsewhere on the menu.
6. Jerusalem-Style ($11)
Traditional hummus, warm chickpeas, tahini, zhug, herbs (VN GF without pita)
It’s a chickpea-on-chickpea party, for better or worse. No lilies were gilded when concocting this recipe; the tahini and herbs aren’t doing much heavy lifting, flavor- or texture-wise. The Jerusalem-Style bowl does arrive with a splash of zhug, Baba’s vibrant green hot sauce, which you can (and should) add to any bowl on the menu for $3. Can’t recommend that route enough—if not for the whole “certain death” element, we’d take an IV of Baba’s zhug straight to the veins. As it stands, however, the Jerusalem-Style bowl functions better as a shared snack than a standalone meal. Should we talk about the side of pita puffs that comes with each of these bowls? Let’s talk about ‘em: poofy yet densely chewy, those poppable lil devils are a hoot to eat. They’re available, like the hummus they pair so well with, at a growing number of grocery stores. (Pro tip: Get yourself a swimming pool-size tub of Baba’s hummus on the cheap at Costco.)
5. Falafelicious ($14)
Traditional hummus, falafel, warm chickpeas, pickled red cabbage, Arabic pickles, tahini, sumac (VN, GF without pita)
Falafel can really suck if you’ve got a joker working the frying basket. Not the case at Baba’s, where those crispy, fall-apart balls deliver texturally but also (and this can be rare) on the herbaceous flavor side of things. Just top-notch execution. Racket’s Em Cassel is a self-described “briny bitch,” and ya know what? Fellas can be briny bitches, too. And that’s why I enjoyed chomping through the generous heaps of pickled cabbage and mild, snappy Arabic pickles swimming around this hummus so damn much. Creaminess, brininess, crunchiness, pita puffiness—take my $14 already! At the risk of offending vegetarian readers, even an excellent dish like Falafelicious still can’t compete with the beefy power-players at No. 3 and No. 1 on our list…
4. Za Za Labaneh ($12)
Labaneh, Palestinian Olives, Magdooz, Pickled Beet Cabbage, Celery, Carrots, Walnuts, Herbs
At first glance, Baba’s Za Za Labaneh bowl (say that five times fast) looks almost like a cobbler, with its colorful pickled beet cabbage and crumbled walnut—even the mint garnish lends to this effect. So it’s kind of mind-bending when you bite into it and, rather than tasting a sweet treat, encounter olives, carrots, and eggplant mingling together. The base of the Za Za Labaneh is, of course, labaneh, and Baba’s is silky smooth and tantalizingly tangy. It’s a refreshing, light, and bright combination, and it makes for maybe the best of Baba’s bowls to enjoy on a cloyingly hot summer afternoon.
3. Wagyu Shawarma Bowl ($17)
Traditional hummus, wagyu beef, pickled sumac onions, arabi salad, Batata harra, tahini, parsley
Can we talk about how pretty these bowls are for a sec? Like, we’ve all had the experience of ordering at a fast-casual counter and being served a pile of… stuff, carelessly tossed together and presented to you in exchange for your 15 bucks. (They don’t call ‘em “slop bowls” for nothin’.) But look at this Wagyu Shawarma Bowl. Even with so much going on here—pickles, onions, herbs, beef—the colorful spread is assembled artfully. Tender, tasty shawarma may be its namesake, but you’ll be surprised how much the veggies stand out in this beefy bowl; Baba’s sumac onions are one of my favorite components of any dish we tried, and I could say the same of the batata harra, or perfectly crispy, gently spicy seasoned potatoes.
2. Super Green ($13)
Green herb hummus, falafel, herb salad, English peas, pistachio, green tahini (VN, GF without pita)
Speaking of eye-catching bowls, get a load of the Grinchy color scheme we’ve got going on in the Super Green. Minty, citrusy, zesty—these are just some of the words we wrote in our notes regarding this bad boy, which also features Baba’s excellent, moist falafel. Those brown balls are the only not-green ingredient; otherwise you’ve got edamame (we didn’t see the English peas listed on the menu), crushed pistachios, and a base of herbaceous green hummus. There’s even a wonderfully garlicky green tahini hiding under the herb salad.
1. Hummus bi Lahme ($14)
Traditional hummus, minced beef shawarma, lemon sauce, parsley, almonds, sumac (GF without pita)
When we sample seven-ish dishes for a Racket ranking, it’s easy to tell which was the group’s favorite: You’ve just gotta look at which we ate the most of after everyone’s had their fill. We scraped the Hummus bi Lahme’s vessel clean; you could have reused the damn cardboard bowl. A heaping pile of crumbly seasoned beef is the star, with a sprinkling of toasted almonds adding welcome crunch. A flourish of ruby-red sumac finishes things off with a pop of flavor, but it’s that beef shawarma you’ll find yourself elbowing colleagues in the ribs to get one more bite of.
Baba's Hummus House & Mana'eesh Bakery
Address: 2220 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis
Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Thursday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday
