Over-achieving Montrose convenience store offers delicious gyros, falafel, and other Mediterranean specialties, as well as burgers and breakfast tacos.

2002 Waugh Dr, Houston, TX 77006
(713) 522-5170
Website

8am–10pm, 7 days a week

Most recently visited on September 16, 2018

Located next door to Rudyard’s, AL Quick Stop (also known as “Al’s”) is a Montrose convenience store with an over-achieving kitchen. Their extensive menu includes Mediterranean, American, and Tex-Mex specialties. Living within walking distance of here since July, we have made multiple stops whenever we have been in need of a no-hassle, budget-friendly bite. Since Al’s gyros, falafel, and breakfast tacos have consistently impressed us, we decided to don our reviewer hats and take better note of why their food checks more boxes than just fast and cheap.

On our latest visit, we ordered a gyro sandwich ($6.79) with fries ($1.50 with sandwich) and the #3 Mediterranean sampler ($10.99). Our order arrived in a few minutes, accompanied by squirt bottles of ketchup and a house-made hot sauce. Something of a calling-card of Al’s, this scorching, dark red sauce has an elemental flavor of mostly red chiles, not much sugar or salt.

Gyro sandwich: Al’s gyro sandwich consists of mixed beef and lamb gyro meat wrapped in a thick, soft, pocketless pita with grilled onions and tomato. Sliced off the cone, the meat acquires a thorough, smoky sear on the flat-top, endowing it with a dark crust and well-developed browned flavors. Al’s decision to fill the sandwich with grilled vegetables rather than raw lettuce and tomato adds to the overall “brown and savory” quality of the meat. Served with a sidecar of tangy, yogurt-based tzatziki sauce and liberally spiced with the house hot sauce, this is the post-workout/drunk food of royalty, which we felt like when digging into this after a Sunday-morning bike ride. The French fries were of the bagged, frozen variety but were crisp and non-greasy, and included a nice dusting of seasoned salt. We enjoyed dipping them alternately into ketchup and the house hot sauce.

Sampler #3: One of four Mediterranean sampler plates on Al’s menu, the #3 includes falafel, stuffed grape leaves, cauliflower, tabouli, and hummus, and is accompanied by a pita and tahini sauce. The falafel has the crunchy crust that you would expect and deserve from these ubiquitous chickpea fritters, but Al’s is more delicately seasoned than usual. We detected cumin, cinnamon, and cardamom, and a staff member confirmed that they season their falafel with Middle Eastern “7 spice”, or baharat. Their hummus also stands apart not only for its silkiness but also for the Lebanese-style turnip pickles and high-quality olive oil with which it is topped. The tabouli, roasted cauliflower, and stuffed grape leaves provide a tart, vegetal counterpoint to the falafel.

Unsurprisingly, AL Quick Stop stood out to us again as going above and beyond for convenience food, which is the reason we stop in on a regular basis. We also recommend Al’s various breakfast tacos with a careful squirt of the shop’s one-of-a-kind hot sauce.