While trawling around google maps, I managed to find yet another grocery/meat/bakery combination store in the small Iraqi community around Greenfield and Warren. This was the third I've visited so far in this area, and as with the other two stores, the quality of the Iraqi-style breads at Al Ghadeer Bakery are excellent. This store in particular seems to mainly focus on the bakery aspect. There are only 3 or so small shelves with Middle-Eastern goods, a small prepared foods heated display (only falafel were available when we went) and a fish counter, but probably half of the building area is taken up by a large room in the back where they store bags of flour and have an industrial mixer and two tanoors pumping out fresh and hot pieces of bread. In addition, there's a commercial pizza oven to the side where they bake samoon. For my first visit, I got 1x Khubz and 6x Samoon, which cost $3.75 total
Khubz (Arabic Bread) ($0.75) - I'm actually not 100% certain how much this costs, but the price breakdown given how much I was charged makes sense. This bread has a fantastic, rich, fire baked taste. It's thinner than the other two competing shops down the street, so it has more areas that deliver an excellent crisp. There's less bran used in the dough which gives a taste that's more pure wheat. The edges, I guess where the bread contacts the surface of the tanoor the most, has phenomenal flavor. Overall a great khubz. They only problem is that they bag the bread for you, so you have to make sure to take it out before too much condensation develops.
Samoon ($0.50) - These were prebagged so they weren't super fresh, but they probably were still made less than an hour before considering that I could see a small amount of condensation inside the bag. I found these to be a bit tougher and chewier than other samoon I've had. Still good, but not as good as other bakeries.
Note: This place is not the same as Al Ghadeer Meat Market on Schaefer.
As a quick comparison of the three places I visited so far:
Al Ghadeer has both khubz and samoon. At least when I went, there wasn't much else in terms of prepared foods. Pricing is the cheapest.
Al-Rada has both khubz and samoon. They have the most prepared food options, including rice, meat, and fried foods. They have the most groceries. Pricing is the most expensive and inconsistent.
Al Falah has only khubz. They also have fresh kabob and prepared masgouf. Pricing is in the middle.
I guess if you're in the area, give all three a try to see which one you like the most. Honestly you can't go wrong with any of them.
Edit: This bakery is named الغدير Al Ghadeer - it says so right on the sign of the building in English. I have no idea why Yelp decided to rename the entry to "Ali-Harvi Bakery" read more