Pak-A-Pocket packs 'em in: Owner Imad Eljizi and a customer.

Pak-A-Pocket 5512 S Bellaire Dr, FW. 817-735-4363. Mon-Fri 10am-7pm, Sat 11am-5pm, closed Sun. Cash, checks only.

Saying somebody else to make you a sandwich is like the culinary equivalent of soliciting sex: It feels wasteful, and it's not what you'd rather do. But, hey: Sometimes it's just simpler to buy what you need and get a little variety in the process.

The owners of Pak-A-Pocket, a strip mall establishment so far southwest in Fort Worth that it's actually located in Benbrook, would abhor the comparison, but they stuff a lot of pleasure into their pocket bread. ÒSandwich standÓ might be an appropriate description of the place: just a few heavy wooden tables and chairs, the menu items in black plastic letters on a white board with a soda logo, no public restroom in plain sight. Pak-A-Pocket, which is not much bigger than a pocket, is not about ambiance. It's about celebrating the wide variety of American and Middle Eastern tasties that can be stuffed into chewy Syrian flat bread (that's pita bread to you, Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Fort Worth). The folks here seem to work with an engineering formula that allows maximum possible pita expansion before the thing splits.

The menu is divided into hot pockets and cold pockets, all of which contain iceberg lettuce and sliced tomato, with cold pickles and a kindergarten-size bag of chips on the side. Corned beef, peppered beef, ham, and turkey breast are among the possible meats; cheddar, provolone, mozzarella, and Swiss are potential cheese companions; and the usual suspects -- mayo, spicy mustard, bleu cheese, and ranch -- are on hand as condiments.

The real pleasures at Pak-a-Pocket, though, are the combinations that don't often reside together in the aforementioned icebox. One terrific hot pocket is the vegetarian-friendly A.M.C. -- Avocado, Mushroom, and Cheese. It's surprising that avocado has never really caught on as a condiment in this country the way it has other places. When fresh and warm, it spreads as smoothly as butter with even more flavor. It retained its identity rather than gumming together with the American cheese, allowing the plump mushroom slices to take center stage.

The Middle Eastern selections really call out to you from this menu. The babaganouj cold pocket was superior. Babaganouj is the excellent Lebanese dip made of eggplant, yogurt, olive oil, and parsley, and you can order it that way at Pak-a-Pocket with pita wedges on the side. But with lettuce and tomato, it's excellent inside the pocket -- cool to the tongue, substantial, but not overpowering, a little like egg salad. Order it with a side tabouli salad, that exquisite citrus-sour mix of parsley, bulgur wheat, onions, tomatoes, and mint. An informed source often complains that many American versions of tabouli emphasize the wheat over the parsley, whereas an authentic concoction would let those chewy parsley sprigs dominate the texture. Parsley ruled the smallish Styrofoam box in which this salad arrived.

Two other Pak-a-Pocket specialties also satisfied. Kibbee is a Lebanese delicacy, often a combination of ground lamb and beef, that's kind of like a very lean meat loaf mixed with bulgur wheat and black pepper. The kibbee hot pocket was all beef and wheat with absolutely no grease, recommended for old-timers who still count fat calories. The spinach pie turned out not to be a pie at all but three palm-sized triangles of soft baked bread with a lemony core of hot shredded spinach inside each. They arrived with a plastic cup of ranch dressing on the side, which -- in light of all this unbridled tastiness -- seemed utterly superfluous.