Ariana Kabob Grill - Afghan Kabob Truck on Route 40, now in the BP Parking Lot in Catonsville

[Justin Bittner]

Alright, got something delicious for y'all. I was running around all day doing errands and whatever and ended up hungry as hell in the Catonsville area, I've seen this brown and beige halal food truck parked in the same spot for years( in the Walmart parking lot up near route 40 and rolling.) but never stopped in. Decided what the heck, pulled up and hopped out into the rain and ordered up a lamb kabob which came with salad and that rice with the raisins an carrots which I have no idea what it's called. Nine bucks and I was told the best news ever from a food truck with no line, "be about 10-12 min" . So I get my styrofoam box and chow down, the rice is perfect, salad is crisp and the lamb is amazing, tender and charred and juicy, like 6 big chunks. It came with two cups of sauce, one raita and one I thought was a chutney of sorts, wrong guess. It was spicy as all hell, but made it that much better. You gotta check these dudes out, they have beef kabob chicken, butter chicken, gyros, and for the hell of it cheese steaks burger subs and ice cream treats. Although I didn't get one it was nice to see the good humor toasted almond.

[DonRocks]

Alright, got something delicious for y'all. I was running around all day doing errands and whatever and ended up hungry as hell in the Catonsville area, I've seen this brown and beige halal food truck parked in the same spot for years( in the Walmart parking lot up near route 40 and rolling.) but never stopped in.

It's called Ariana Kabob Grill, and is 100% Halal according to Zabihah. Here's a Chowhound thread on it advising to stay away from the cheeseburger sub, and stick to the Afghan platters.

[Justin Bittner]

Ha, awesome. Thanks don for squaring that away.

[khalilsadiq]

Hi, my name is Theresa and i am the owner and operator of Ariana Kabob Grill along with my husband and sons. Next week will be our one year anniversary. I would like to thank the Catonsville, Md community for receiving us with such enthusiasm. We are so grateful for the positive reviews and feed back we have received. I would like to take this opportunity to elaborate a little more about who we are. Ariana's specialty is Kabobs and Rice. We offer Chicken breast kabobs, our lamb is from the leg of lamb and our beef kabobs are cut from the loin strip. We have a white basmati rice seasoned with cumin which is served with our platters and a kabli palau rice that comes with the kabobs. In addition to kabobs we have a large variety of halal items on the menu. I tried to create a Halal menu that would appeal to everyone and still be able to execute in a food truck. We have the all popular gyro over rice and seasoned chicken over rice (which is quite different from the push carts in Baltimore). we also have Butter chicken, Tilapia fish platters and sandwiches, grilled chicken, cheese steaks, burgers, and salads. With exception of our gyro and seasoned chicken which is cooked 2-3 times daily everything else is cooked fresh to order. This can mean there will be a small wait time but there is plenty of parking and we encourage our customers to call ahead of time. I would like to address the Chowhound thread that Don mentioned here regarding our burgers. This thread was created the first month we opened. I completely agree that our burgers were not up to par. We took the criticism seriously and immediately began to find a solution. After several tries,(we don't have a large variety of halal beef cuts to choose from) we have come up with a much improved burger, We have been grinding our burgers in house for about 8 months now and have received good feed back. I would like to thank Don for creating this wonderful website and giving me the opportunity to introduce Ariana to the Don Rockwell community. If there is anything I neglected to address in my post please feel free to let me know. To jbittnerpilar I am so happy you enjoyed your meal and hope to meet you in the future.

[DonRocks]

Hi, my name is Theresa and i am the owner and operator of Ariana Kabob Grill along with my husband and sons. Next week will be our one year anniversary. I would like to thank the Catonsville, Md community for receiving us with such enthusiasm. We are so grateful for the positive reviews and feed back we have received. I would like to take this opportunity to elaborate a little more about who we are. Ariana's specialty is Kabobs and Rice. We offer Chicken breast kabobs, our lamb is from the leg of lamb and our beef kabobs are cut from the loin strip. We have a white basmati rice seasoned with cumin which is served with our platters and a kabli palau rice that comes with the kabobs. In addition to kabobs we have a large variety of halal items on the menu. I tried to create a Halal menu that would appeal to everyone and still be able to execute in a food truck. We have the all popular gyro over rice and seasoned chicken over rice (which is quite different from the push carts in Baltimore). we also have Butter chicken, Tilapia fish platters and sandwiches, grilled chicken, cheese steaks, burgers, and salads. With exception of our gyro and seasoned chicken which is cooked 2-3 times daily everything else is cooked fresh to order. This can mean there will be a small wait time but there is plenty of parking and we encourage our customers to call ahead of time. I would like to address the Chowhound thread that Don mentioned here regarding our burgers. This thread was created the first month we opened. I completely agree that our burgers were not up to par. We took the criticism seriously and immediately began to find a solution. After several tries,(we don't have a large variety of halal beef cuts to choose from) we have come up with a much improved burger, We have been grinding our burgers in house for about 8 months now and have received good feed back. I would like to thank Don for creating this wonderful website and giving me the opportunity to introduce Ariana to the Don Rockwell community. If there is anything I neglected to address in my post please feel free to let me know. To jbittnerpilar I am so happy you enjoyed your meal and hope to meet you in the future.

Thank you, Theresa, and your comments about the burgers are a *perfect* example of why I wrote this Tweet last week:

"Restaurant reviews must now be subject to constant revision. The power of the internet is accompanied by the burden of eternal vigilance."

There is no longer any such thing as a "one-time only" review (there really never was, but now we can do something about it). Restaurants are constantly in flux, and the internet has given us the power to stay on top of those changes.

It also gives us the ability to shine the light on reviews like this one.

Seriously, we really do appreciate owner participation here, and even encourage it. Thanks for chiming in, and I look forward to trying your food the next time I'm up that way. jbittnerpilar is a respected chef here in Washington, DC, and his opinion means a lot to people.

Please stop back in a couple times a month, and let us know what's going on with your food cart.

Cheers,

Rocks

[JDawgBBall9]

I got lazy and didn't go to the grocery store on Monday/Tuesday night so I swung by yesterday for lunch. Even though I work in the area and have been to that Wal-Mart at lunch while Ariana Kabob was open to run a quick errand, I would have had no idea that this food truck exists if this thread didn't get posted. I've often complained about the lack of quality food options within a quick drive from my work to my friends, but this is one more place that will cause me to complain less. (I still need to try this dumpling stand down the street, but that's a different story.)

Like the OP, I got the lamb kabob platter. I was hungry as hell yesterday and this completely satisfied me. I devoured the salad, it was nice and crisp while the lamb and rice were well-seasoned. I was sad about the amount of lamb, not because it wasn't well portioned for $9 (it was, I'd very much recommend it to anybody in the area) but because I kept wanting to eat it- it was delicious. This will definitely be added to the rotation, a good discovery by the OP. I stuck with something more traditional but sometime I'll have to give the burger or something else a try just because. Once summer hits I'll definitely take advantage of calling ahead as standing in that parking lot can get hot I'd imagine.

[khalilsadiq]

Hi DonRonockwell community, I wanted to let everyone know about the recent situation we have had with Walmart where we park Ariana Kabob Grill. In April of last year we opened our Halal food truck and went directly to Walmart to ask permission to operate out of their parking lot. Walmart was gracious enough to let us park there and we have spent a year building a large following. We were just about to hire someone full time because it has been so busy. In that past year we have had no complaints, no incidences and have been extremely grateful to Walmart for giving us the opportunity to use their space. But shortly after the Boston marathon bombing a man in his 50's came around the truck twice taking pictures and asking our customers who were waiting for their orders if they know they are buying food from muslims. That we don't belong there and they shouldn't do business with us. Two days later a manager that we have never seen before told us we could no longer park here. He said Walmart was receiving junk mail in our name and that they had received some complaints. when we asked about the complaints his response was "he didn't want to discuss it and we had to High Tail it out of there". So we left. We then were able to get permission from the Giant supermarket next door but the property manager told us we need to have a formal lease agreement. She knows who we are and asked what happened with Walmart I told her what i suspected was the reason and she confirmed by apologizing to me because this man had contacted her first demanding she throw us out immediately for the reasons I mentioned above and she had to refer him to Walmart. We have had an out pouring of support from our customers and the community. Catonsville, Md has the largest muslim community in Baltimore County. It is a very diverse area and a large percent of Walmart's customers are muslims. We were very disheartened that this could happen. Walmart doesn't owe us anything but after being there for over a year I felt we at least deserved an explanation. We have since started a petition to bring Ariana back to Walmart. The purpose of this petition is not to DEMAND Walmart let Ariana come back, although if that happens it would be great, we loved being there. But instead to show Walmart that for every person who harbor's hatred with out even knowing who we are, there are hundreds more that love and want us at Walmart. We worked so hard to provide the best service and food we can to the community that we also reside in, and to be treated this way really hurts. We will continue to remain in the neighborhood no matter what happens. I have left the link for the petition if any of your members wish to help us in this cause. Thanks so much. http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/bring-ariana-kabob-grill-back-to-catonsville-md-walmart.html

[JDawgBBall9]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I did notice one day last week that your truck was parked on Crosby Rd near the intersection with Rolling Road and meant to bring it up but it slipped my mind. Will that be a temporary spot or are you managing the setback in different ways?

I have signed the petition and will pass it on to others. Don, maybe you could get some sort of tweet or something out to the masses so this update is more widely seen?

[Justin Bittner]

It seems they moved to the bp parking lot a bit farther down 40 towards 695, had the gryo last Monday and it was delicious, and came with a drink for 6 bucks. I believe they're doing just fine after that whole wal mart thing since they were out of the lamb and chicken kabob by the time I got there at 1230. Good for them.

[Justin Bittner]

Had my first ever butter chicken here yesterday after a trip down to old ellicot city to buy some old glass for a door were building. How have I never had this before! No seriously it was very good and was ready fast. A solid choice if your on the run. They bumped the prices up a buck across the board but for 7 bucks I got a pretty sizeable plate with rice and salad. I still go here pretty much every Monday for a gyro, still rocks.