Twice I have been here in the hopes that this restaurant with all the right ingredients would pull it together and impress me. Both times I've been extremely disappointed.

Ambience
The first visit we were seated upstairs with a party of 15+ on a Friday night (midnight). Good place for accommodating large groups, good decor. 2nd visit was a Monday dinner group of 3 by the 5 foot ways outside - unfortunately not so good. the two tables could not fit our 1 meze, 1 foul harissa, 1 falafel sandwich, 1 chicken cutlet, 1 mushroom kebab and 3 drinks. Plates were literally stacked up against each other. Why - you ask? Which brings us to...

Service
Truly the deal breaker and reason I cannot, will not and won't be going there or recommending other people to go there again. The most recent visit (Monday dinner)
1) I specifically told the waitress to serve the meze and foul first as starters, knowing that they DO take time to make the main meals. I even told her in both English and her native Indonesian. What happened:
a) the meze came a full 20min before anything else.
b) no cutlery (at all) was served until we had to catch about 3 waiters’ attention

We ordered chicken cutlet and mushroom kebabs. We sat down at 7.45pm and ordered by 8pm. The main meals came at 9pm. 1 full hour after. We had nearly cancelled our main meals and were about to LEAVE when they arrived. And it was not a busy night, despite what the wait staff allege.

Unfortunately, more minor details irked my tourist guests off – e.g ordering a pot of their signature mint tea – the tea is in the form of tea dust, yet they did not have a single tea strainer for us to use and had to bring the tea back to the kitchen to strain it there. The previous time I had been there I drank dusty tea.

The first visit to the restaurant, they forgot my foul harissa order completely. When I asked to cancel the order, there was a confusion with the waiters. 20min later, the dish arrived even though I had cancelled it and they begged me to take the order (really unprofessional!)

Great location, great ambience isn’t enough to bring me back. And at $67 for 3 people for a thoroughly unsatisfying meal, I’d much rather have my Middle Eastern fix at the local coffeeshop that serves a great foul mesdammes.