Chocolate News
Go nuts over chocolates and Arabic desserts at new gourmet shop in Plano
Plano has a sweet new dessert shop with chocolates and favorite Arabic treats. Called Pistachio, it's at 4101 E. Park Blvd., in a small shopping center in East Plano where it sells specialty chocolates, all kinds of nuts, baklava, cookies, and Turkish delight.
Pistachio is from the Aljazaerli family, with brother Naser and sister Rohaf handling the front of the house and their mother overseeing the kitchen.
The concept was originally founded by a family member in their hometown of Dubai, where it operates under a different name but with much of the same merchandise.
Some of what they sell in Plano is shipped from Dubai, and the rest is made in-house, Naser says.
"All of the Arabic sweets like baklava, and the baked items including cookies, my mom and sister make those fresh every day," he says.
Their best-sellers are their nuts.
"People go crazy for them," he says. "We have plain nuts but the seasoned nuts such as paprika pistachios and salted Eqyptian seeds are unique."
Egyptian seeds are seeds from a melon, similar to pumpkinseeds, sunflower seeds, or any other squash seed (all of which they sell), which you salt and bake until they're a crunchy, nutty snack.
Pistachio also sells:
- Turkish delight, the soft jellies dusted with sugar in delicately perfumey flavors such as rose and orange
- "twist wafers," like pirouettes, filled with cream in different flavors such as chocolate and pistachio, which Naser likens to Kit Kat bars
- coffee beans and Turkish coffee they make on site
"We make Turkish coffee because it's such a good pairing with our Arabic sweets," Naser says.
They have beautiful cookies, including pastel spherical cookies oozing with a caramel filling, like an extra-decadent version of macarons. Others are like shortbread, dipped in chocolate and chopped nuts.
Their selection of chocolates includes luscious bonbons filled with whole nuts and flavored creams like hazelnut and pistachio, each wrapped in foil like a miniature gift.
There's another whole component to Pistachio, which is its role as a kind of party-planning/gift store, with stuffed animals, artificial flowers, and tins of baklava and cookies, all you need is a bow to make them complete.
