Evelyn G.
Yelp
Overall: great value, very delicious food (the only reason I didn't give 5 stars is because I reserve 5 stars for places that I literally can't think of anything that could be improved), and very delicious drinks. I would definitely come back, repeatedly (if I lived in the area).
The ambience was nice: casual but well decorated and comfortable, with plenty of available seating when we went for lunch on a Sunday. There is also a little lounge area with couches in a corner. The music was a little loud but was fun music that contributed to the ambience.
We had hummus, the chicken shawarma plate, the souq veggie plate, the Za'atar fries, mint lemonade, and hibiscus tea.
The hummus was good (not necessarily better than average as far as taste, but definitely solid and worth eating/buying) and served with a little olive oil drizzled on it, which was a nice touch. It was also visually very appealing, but we dug into it before taking a picture.
The chicken shawarma was probably the best food item we ordered. The chicken was really tender, not dry at all, and very nicely seasoned. I am a person who hates chicken because it is almost always dry and largely tasteless when I order it at restaurants (Spouse always has to remind me "you don't like chicken" because for whatever reason I forget when it comes time to order food), but after trying this chicken, I would order it in the future despite any and all of Spouse's warnings about my normal dislike for chicken. It was *really* good.
The vegetables in the souq veggie plate were very good. They're fried, and I was worried they would be oily or breaded or something, but they were also very good. Not oily (and not breaded even a little bit, hooray!). It's a good variety of vegetables too: zucchini, cauliflowers (probably my favorite thing in the dish), onions, red bell peppers (actually I really liked the onions and peppers too). The dish had the tiniest kick of spicy to it: enough that it adds interest to the dish but not enough that you have to increase your water intake to compensate (and definitely not enough to be overpowering). My only complaint was actually that it had too much of the sauce on top of it. I liked the sauce, but I had to scrape some of it off because I felt there was so much of it that it masked the really nice flavor of the vegetables.
For both plates, the rice was perfect for the dishes: neither mushy nor dry; it had a nice flavor and wasn't overly salty, which I've noticed at some restaurants. The salad that came with the plates was also fresh and good.
The Za'atar fries were really yummy: they were crisp but not hard, and the seasoning was really nice. They also weren't excessively salty, which can happen with fries. Also it's a generous helping: it's a basket of fries, not the amount you get in a little pocket of fries that you get at drive-through places.
Speaking of the generous helping of fries, the overall amount of food was generous. We weren't able to finish all the food we ordered. I think we would have been quite satisfied if we'd just gotten the two plates, even though we both eat a lot of food at baseline (and I have been eating more than I normally do because I am 5 months pregnant). So the serving sizes were a definite plus for me.
Lastly, the drinks: Spouse got the mint lemonade, which he really loved (he says it is "as every mint lemonade should be"). I got the hibiscus tea (it's chilled). I don't usually order drinks that aren't water when I go to restaurants because they're usually too sugary for me (soda is really not my thing any more because I am pretty much a 90-year-old living in a millennial's body). This tea was sooooo worth it. It was a little tart but not too much so, and not overly sweet.
Lastly lastly, the servers were really friendly! This is definitely a place I could see myself coming to on a regular basis if I lived nearby!
