Zaffraan Midden Oosters Restaurant Amsterdam — Restaurant in Amsterdam

----22nd April 2023---- We visited again to try out some other dishes off the menu.

We ordered: 2 house drinks (mocktails), Rabi3 which was ok... Thousand &one night - bit too sweet but nice.

Muhamara - just Amazing... Highlight of our dinner.

Kibbe Vegetarisch- first was served with meat🙁 then the one served was under cooked... We mentioned this and it was taken off from our invoice. Falafel was better than this

Biryani - nice. But there was no Saffron... The description says differently & what we got was something different... But it was ok..

Knefeh - takes quite some time to prepare, was ok... It was fried in oil, I do prefer sweets to be in Ghee, but it is what it is.

The service was very slow, even though there were quite some tables empty.

It made our dinner time 90 mins... Which could have been easily 60 mins if the service was better.

Again will visit the place only for the Dips & tandoori breads

Taking out 1 star based on the recent experience

----15th April 2023---- We visited at very peak time without reservation, the staff were kind enough to make space for us. As we ourselves were in quite hurry. We ordered quickly - Lentil soup, Hummus, & Falafel Falafel was Ok, but the Tandoori Bread was just amazing. Best I had so far. Service was very quick, we were in & out in just 20 mins…

Would definitely be visiting again with reservations so that we can enjoy and try other...

They had plenty of free tables without "reserved" sign on them, but they refused to service me because I was alone, and it's apparently not fitting into their box a person willing to eat alone in a restaurant. The food on other tables looked nice. It looked also like a place where middle eastern (moroccan?) people gather and not welcoming strangers from outside their culture. Waitress with artificial facelift and puffed lips looking like a wax mask. A man (probably the owner) started yelling at her in front of me in arabic, with big gestures, telling her apparently that she shouldn't have given me a whole table and that maybe they might have more promising customers for that place. Horrible. And when I was about to leave, after this huge scene, being kicked out from a table, after already having placed an order, another guest jumped up and started yelling on me, telling me that he normally works there, but today he's a guest, then changing his mind to telling that he's just a friend of the owners, and that I should understand the situation and not to blame them. So I left, almost in tears, feeling really humiliated. About the menu. Lipton tea for 3 euros is somewhat overpriced. A lot of junk(-ish) food next to real dishes. .. Never again. Also not recommended for western people because the cultural difference brings together rudeness and a lot of other...

Nice traditional Iraqi restaurant, the food quality is great in general:

Pros: Friendly and cozy atmosphere Grilled Kebab and lamb chunks were amazing Qouzi was tender and meat melts in mouth (literally...) Hot fresh flat bread (they will serve more if asked free of charge) Hot traditional Iraqi black tea at the end of the meal is complementary (Cardamom tea) Clean and well maintained bathrooms.

Cons: The restaurant size is relatively small for the # of people during dinner time. Kid's burgers were alright, not far away from McDonald's quality (which to my taste is below average) The day we went (my family of 4 and family of friend's of 3) the restaurant was crowded (which is usually a positive sign), yet the restaurant was understaffed for serving, to the point the chef was helping delivering meals to tables, this caused few orders to delay a bit longer than normal (chef apologized to us on our way out and explained understaffing due to couple of usual serving staff being out for family emergencies)

Overall experience: Definitely will be coming back for more, the mentioned Cons are not critical to me, yet had to...