You can find Dubai chocolate — a social media sensation — in Sacramento. What’s the hype?
They look like typical chocolate bars from the outside, sleek matte brown exteriors promising a familiar sweetness. Crack them open, though, and a fluorescent green middle is exposed, along with phyllo dough strands and nut fragments.
The treat known as Dubai chocolate has spread across TikTok and Instagram over the past year, inspiring imitators in the Sacramento region and around the world. Invented by Dubai resident Sarah Hamouda as a pregnancy craving in 2021, its eye-catching filling is a combination of pistachio butter, tahini and kataifi (shredded phyllo).
California dessert chain Chocolate Bash sells a pair of Dubai chocolate bars, one with the classic fixings and one with a lotus cookie butter filling, at its stores in Arden Fair mall and south Sacramento’s Delta Shores shopping center.
Rooftop Macarons, also in south Sacramento, has experimented with Dubai chocolate bars as well as macarons with a pistachio buttercream and toasted kataifi filling, finished with semi-sweet chocolate and pistachio crumbles. Further south in Elk Grove, Rumi’s Oasis and Elk Grove Donuts both make Dubai chocolate doughnuts, and the former does truffles and XL bars as well.
Perhaps no local restaurant has leaned harder into the craze than Nour’s Cafe, Nour Alchikh Said’s community hub at 5800 Madison Ave., Suite A, in Carmichael’s M&M Shopping Center. While Nour’s Cafe has a full menu of mezze platters, acai bowls and loaded waffles, the cellophane-wrapped bars with green-and-yellow streaks have emerged as best-sellers.
People buy 70 to 100 Dubai chocolate bars per day between in-person customers and food delivery apps, Alchikh Said said. She makes the $14, nine-ounce bars every day or two in her uncle’s commercial kitchen on the shopping center’s opposite end, along with white and dark chocolate bars upon request. They’re crunchy and sweet but not cloying — sort of like an earthier, nuttier version of Kit Kats.
“It’s a mix of chocolate and the Middle Eastern vibe, the phyllo dough, the pistachio,” Alchikh Said said. “It’s a good mix, and I think that’s what made it go viral.”
Nour’s Cafe also does Dubai crepes ($13.50) and croissants ($9) stuffed with kataifi, pistachio cream and Nutella, both of which can be a bit heavy for one person. The newest item is 2025’s trend-within-a-trend, Dubai strawberry cups that layer those same ingredients with freshly-sliced berries in a chalice, creating a chilled, refreshing parfait.
Alchikh Said immigrated from Syria to California in 2008 and lived in Tennessee before returning to the Sacramento area. She had never worked in food service before opening Nour’s Cafe in March 2021, but was greeted with a line of customers on opening day.
People had seen Nour’s Cafe’s Instagram post advertising a specialty drink: fluffy pink cotton candy clouds atop colorful, nonalcoholic mojitos. Social media had brought the cafe customers, and there was more to come.
What I’m Eating
Still celebrating the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl win? Phat Jerry’s Phillies is your place for the City of Brotherly Love’s famous sandwiches, albeit with 49ers scarves, paintings and signs on the walls of the North Highlands dive. You can also track down Phat Jerry’s food truck at local breweries, where it stays well into dinner time.
Hesitate when ordering, and Jerry Mogannam will pounce. You want the super Philly ($13), he’ll tell you, a 10-inch cheesesteak with 50% more cheese and meat than the original ($9 for a seven-inch, $11 for a 10-inch and $16 for a footlong). “Trust me, I’m fat,” he’ll say.
He’s not wrong — about the cheesesteak, at least. Chopped top sirloin or broasted chicken spill onto the red plastic basket’s yellow paper, while the sauteed onions and hot or sweet peppers stick a bit more to the layer of melted American cheese. The bun, a soft hoagie roll, is toasted on one side to offer a bit more crunch and structural support.
You can add bacon, garlic or spinach for another dollar apiece, but most options simply supplement the original. The pizza deluxe ($10/seven-inch, $12/10-inch and $17/footlong) adds a bit more with its mushrooms, provolone and surprisingly spicy tomato sauce, resulting in a sandwich that’s the love child of a meatball sub and a cheesesteak.
Phat Jerry’s Phillies
Address: 4332 Watt Ave., Suite 30, North Highlands
Hours: 10 a.m.-5:45 p.m. Monday-Friday; 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Saturday; closed Sunday
Phone: 916-487-4677
Website: phatjerrysphillies.com
Drinks: Sodas and bottled teas
Vegetarian options: A loaded veggie sandwich with spinach, mushrooms, grilled onions and peppers plus side salads, fries, baklava, cookies and chips.
Noise level: Somewhat quiet
Outdoor seating: None
Openings & Closings
▪ Palo Palo Kitchen & Bar is in its soft opening at 5804 Marconi Ave. in Carmichael. FJ and Janine Villalobos closed El Papagayo Restaurant to serve adobo chicken wings, smoked sisig spare ribs and other Filipino fusion dishes in its place, along with inventive cocktails.
▪ New York Pizza recently opened at 1046 Florin Road in the Pocket’s Lake Crest Village shopping center. $3 slices and pies from $13-$26 are the main attractions, buoyed by pastas, subs and potato skins.
▪ Asian Food/Pure Water has closed at 8119 Scottsdale Drive in Sacramento’s Florin neighborhood. The Hmong/Laotian restaurant and market will be folded into the owners’ other business, Xieng Khouang Market at 4506 Brookfield Drive in south Sacramento.