Reader’s Choice

Sahar Meat Market

At Sahar you can get imported basics as well as more specialized Middle Eastern ingredients. The butcher case is heaped with meats, offal, bright red merguez sausage links, cheese, and olives. On the opposite wall you’ll find frozen meats, halal ducks and chickens, soujouk and basterma sausages, and a refrigerated case for yogurt and labna and other dairy products. Between, towering shelves are packed with teas, nuts, and spices, including two wonderful things useful well beyond a strictly Mediterranean diet: sumac, a tangy powdered spice from that goes great on fried potatoes, and zataar, a green blend of sesame seeds, oregano, cumin, and other spices that brightens scrambled eggs. Don’t want a whole jar of white pepper? Fresher spices are sold by weight at the butcher counter.  4829 N. Kedzie, 773-583-6098. —Mike Sula

Readers’ Choice

Middle East Bakery & Grocery

1512 W. Foster, 773-561-2224.

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