Mejana Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Alafaya

For starters, let me establish some credibility. I travel for a living and love dining in unique places. I am a fulltime consultant and specialize in market analysis as well as PMO Consulting for Deloitte Consulting. This month alone, I’ve been to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle, Orlando, and Denver.

I’ve tried Mediterranean in each place. Mejana blows the preceding restaurants out of the water in more than one category. The service was quick, and the overall cleanliness of the restaurant was above standard from what you would usually expect from a corner place restaurant. For environment and overall cleanliness I rate the restaurant a 9/10.

The hostess greeted me and immediately sat me down. There was less than 15 seconds from the time I walked in the door to the time I sat down and had water on the table in front of me. She promptly informed me of the specials and new items to the menu. I went with what I knew and ordered a Gyro Plate though the new items sound exciting and could be more appealing to a greater audience with a more refined taste. For knowledge of the menu and overall satisfaction with the service I rate the restaurant a 9/10. I would give a perfect 10 though there seemed to be a bit of role ambiguity among the other servers when I walked in. My waitress, Wynn was an exception.

Now let’s get to the part you’ve been waiting for. THE FOOD. There’s not much to your standard Gyro platter but Mejana seems to have some nice selection of sides to coincide the main course. I personally went with Chickpea Salad, Lebanese Rice, and Hummus. The hummus was good, the pita served alongside was warm and perfectly fluffy. Sometimes pita can be tough to bite into and rip off in the mouth but Mejana has it down to a science and so that wasn’t a problem. Next, I tried the Gyro meat. It wasn’t bland like a lot of places but it also wasn’t over seasoned. I could enjoy the meat and it was more than satisfactory. The chickpea salad was prepared well and served cold, not a hard dish to make, no room for error there. Next I tried the rice and it was good, not my favorite that I’ve had but I do have a slight bias being raised in a Filipino family. (Grandma’s rice will always be the best.) There are a couple of other sides that I could have tried but didn’t. I’ll leave those for you to decide on. The Tzatziki was good, missing a little bit of a kick that I was hoping for. Though I do say I didn’t notice it as much as I would have if the Gyro meat was bland, which it wasn’t. For the quality of food, and value, I rate the Restaurant a 9/10. I would like to see salt and pepper available on the table though I’m sure that’s more of a precaution than an inconvenience.

I paid $18.11 post tax, pre tip. The value was there, I’m sure there are more competitive places to go but if you’re in Avalon Park while visiting Orlando, I would recommend Mejana over any other restaurant in it’s vicinity due to the quality of service, food quality, and overall cleanliness.

Add it all up and the restaurant rates a 27/30. That places the establishment in the top 10% of places I’ve eaten this month or 90% better than other restaurants. As far as Mediterranean is concerned, this is the top destination I’ve had this month.

Thank you for reading my review, let me know if you find...

Ate here with family during low traffic. The portions and pricing were as expected, around 15-20$ per person. It was an enjoyable experience overall.

Atmosphere (5/5): The area is very nice, the seating was clean and simple. There's indoor and outdoor seating. Lots of windows inside to feel the atmosphere all around the street corner. There was some enjoyable contemporary music playing at a comfortable volume.

Service (4/5): The staff was very welcoming and polite, they always responded promptly and met our requests. I gave 4 stars because we had to ask for some things like spare plates to share the food.

Food: Falafel (5/5): One of the best falafel I've had. It has a slightly unique taste compared to other falafel. It tastes like it is fresh and is a good balance of crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Mediterranean salad (4/5): Simple and fresh. I would prefer less pickles and olives so that there's less of a sour taste.

Beef shawarma platter (2/5): The beef was well seasoned, but it was tough and chewy. This made it quite unenjoyable. We specifically asked the waiter if it was chewy before ordering, and he said it wasn't. I would seriously suggest using a different cut of beef or changing the cooking method. There was also more quantity of the sides and not much quantity of the meat, which was disappointing.

Mejana platter (5/5): The platter came with kofta kebab, grilled chicken, and gyro meat (along with your choice of sides). All the meats on the platter were delicious.

Sides and sauces (5/5): The hummus and babaganoush tasted simple and authentic. The fries were average. One of our favorites was the garlic sauce which paired so well with the meats and sides. We had to ask for more!

Mejana has great food and I am certain that it will continue to improve and become even better. Best wishes to the wonderful...

So here’s the scoop - I would only return if I wanted a gyro - the meat tasted good. But, We’ve been told by the owner a few times everything is “fresh” and “homemade” and much to my disappointment it’s clearly not. More later. Most disturbing, a food preparing was wearing food-grade plastic gloves as is allowed by Florida law, but he stops prepping the food and goes to deliver it as they don’t have dedicated food runners. So with his hands still in his gloves, he OPENS THE DOOR, goes to the outside table and delivers the food. Mind you, we can clearly see the prep line - he goes back to the line with the SAME germ-laden gloves and begins preparing orders. Violation. Meanwhile, the Italian dressing served on the salad that comes with the gyro platter was clearly Wish Bone Italian (I’m a kid of the ‘80s - I grew up on that stuff). The Greek Salad dressing tasted bottled and boring, too. The kibbeh, even though we watched him deep fry the order before giving it to us consisted of one that was still “frozen” in the middle and the other was hot. Since it was frozen in the middle it really makes me question whether it was made fresh. The falafel had a similar problem but all pieces were served lukewarm. The tahini sauce and the hummus - HUMMUS- of all things were both bland. So bland. Both were in this pitiful little plastic condiment holder tub (so about 1/8 cup) and most of the hummus was olive oil that was drowning the hummus, floating to the top. There were multiple tables that hadn’t been bussed since they had no one dedicated to the task, crumbs on...