A king walked into a strip mall on Sherman Street this summer, and the people working the counter at Khashoka still talk about it like it happened yesterday.
King Abdullah II of Jordan and Crown Prince Hussein stopped in before the Jordanian national team’s first-ever World Cup appearance, part of a swing through North Texas that put Amman’s food culture directly in front of Richardson strip-mall traffic. The restaurant’s own account of the visit calls it an honor to welcome the players who made history, and owner Mohammad Albakri has said the moment still catches him off guard when he thinks about it.
Khashoka opened in Richardson last November, the first United States location for a chain that already runs close to a dozen restaurants across Amman, Aqaba, Dubai, Doha, Cairo, and Erbil. Albakri, who grew up in Jordan, operates the Richardson store himself, and he has said something close to 90 percent of what lands on the plate here gets imported directly from Jordan rather than substituted with whatever a Texas supplier can offer. That includes wild za’atar made from thyme that only grows in Jordan or Palestine, and olive oil pressed from trees that survive on rainwater alone.
The name translates roughly to a spoon that feeds everyone, and the dining room backs up the sentiment before the food even arrives. Ten large wooden spoons hang from the ceiling, each carved with Arabic script and tied to a different city where the chain operates. Vintage radios and a rotary phone sit around the room. The effect reads less like a restaurant and more like someone’s grandmother’s living room, preserved and then scaled up for service.
Jordanian Mansaf is the dish that gets ordered for the table, lamb over rice finished tableside with jameed, a fermented yogurt sauce poured in front of the guest for full effect. It is the national dish of Jordan for a reason, and the restaurant treats it like one, presenting it as the centerpiece rather than one option among many. Hummus Khashoka, the restaurant’s namesake version, arrives with the kind of finish that separates a good hummus from a forgettable one. Musakhan Rolls wrap sumac-spiced chicken into something closer to a hand pie than the traditional flatbread version, built for sharing rather than committing to a full plate. Fatteh, built with beef over crisped bread and yogurt, layers texture the way the best regional comfort food always does.
Breakfast runs all day here, which matters more than it sounds like it should. Shakshouka, eggs poached in a spiced tomato base, and Sujuk & Eggs, built around a cured, spiced sausage, are both available from morning through the 9 p.m. close, an acknowledgment that breakfast food does not need to apologize for showing up at dinner. Zaatar Manakish, a flatbread finished with that same imported thyme blend, works as an opener or a meal on its own.
A Halloumi Plate gets grilled and finished with honey, the sweet exterior working against the sharp, salty cheese underneath. Mutabal, the smoky eggplant dip, and a small dish of Jordanian olives, brightened with marinated lemon, function almost like a palate cleanser between the heavier courses. For dessert, Kunafa closes the meal the way it should, cheese and shredded pastry soaked in syrup, served warm.
The restaurant runs walk-in only, no reservations, which has made peak dinner hours genuinely unpredictable. Portions come built for the table rather than the individual, which changes the math on value depending on how many people show up and how hungry they are. Some diners have found the pricing steep against what they expected from a fast-casual-looking storefront; others treat that as the cost of importing nearly everything rather than making do with the closest domestic substitute. Either way, it is worth knowing going in.
Jordan’s World Cup run ended in the group stage, but the restaurant that hosted its king before the tournament is still standing on Sherman Street, still importing its olive oil from rain-fed trees, still pouring jameed over rice in front of strangers who have never heard the word mansaf before walking in. Richardson has quietly become one of the better places in North Texas to eat food that has nothing to prove and everything to offer.
Khashoka Middle Eastern Cuisine is at 1057 S. Sherman St., Suite 130, in Richardson. Hours run Sunday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Call (469) 277-7477 or visit khashokausa.com.
