Aladdin Grill started as a food truck on Grove Street in Sonoma, and it's still there, still open, still the original. Santa Rosa is the second location — a full kitchen, not a truck — and the thing worth reporting first is what didn't change: the portions.
A lot of restaurants that grow from a truck into a real kitchen use the upgrade to tidy things up. Smaller scoop, neater plate, a portion built for a photo instead of a meal. Santa Rosa didn't do that.
The truck built the reputation.
The kitchen kept the portions.
The shawarma is still built the way it was on the truck: sliced off the spit to order, piled onto warm bread with lettuce, tomato, onion and a dusting of sumac, then wrapped tight enough that it survives the drive home.
Nobody split a plate
Order the skewer plate and you get rice piled, not scooped, with two full skewers, tomato, pickle, and a choice of sauces on the side. It reads like a portion built for two people who are both pretending they're only a little hungry.
That's the throughline at the new Santa Rosa location — the plate is the meal, not a suggestion of one. Bring an appetite, or bring a container.
The vegetarian plate isn't an afterthought
The kibbeh and hummus plate gets the same treatment — six pieces, not three, over hummus with dolma, pickle and a sharp red-onion salad on the side. It's easy for a Mediterranean spot to treat the vegetarian option as the smaller plate. Aladdin didn't.
If you knew Aladdin as the truck on Grove Street, the Santa Rosa location is the same food with more room to sit down and eat it. If you didn't, this is a reasonable place to start — just don't order for one.
The truck taught Santa Rosa how to eat. The kitchen just gave it somewhere to sit.