Baba Nahm - Middle Eastern Street Food — Restaurant in Asheville

We've now had take out from Baba Nahm a few times. Let me first say that their gluten free pita is wonderful. They make it in-house. I wish more middle-eastern type restaurants had this!

Their grape leaves are also quite good. Very house-made in feel, seemingly not just taken from a can, as some restaurants do.

But this is kind of where any remote quality ends.

The quality of ingredients and quality of preparation here is very sub-par. I don't think the people cooking really understand the cuisine or how to properly construct middle eastern dishes.

Total pass on the vegetables and vegetable salads.

There is no striving for excellence here.

The same dry herb blend is sprinkled on everything, but not properly incorporated into the dish. They taste raw and randomly applied and stirred-in.

The rice is dry and flavorless.

The lentils inexplicably taste overwhelmingly of vinegar.

The best I can tell, their hummus may or may not have chickpeas (some random legume?), then a bit of canola oil (not olive oil), salt, and I think that's it. Hummus is thick, pasty, and heavy, not creamy. No discernable taste of tahini or olive oil.

The restaurant will also swear to you over and over again a dish does not contain dairy, only to find that the dish is heavily sprinkled with feta.

If you have food sensitivities or allergies, you cannot trust what Baba Nahm will tell you about ingredients in dishes.

Bottom line: Get the gluten free pita (which is excellent) to go, then make your own hummus, or get some from Gypsy Queen (which is a notch superior to Baba Nahm, but that's really not saying all that much).

It's a shame that Asheville hasn't really seemed to crack the code of this amazing type of cuisine yet. I think an excellent Lebanese / Middle Eastern restaurant would do very well here.

I'm only half kidding when I say that Meherwan Irani and Molly Irani (from Chai Pani, Buxton Hall, etc.) should probably take up this style of cuisine and open yet another restaurant. It would blow everything we currently have out of the water, especially creating Spicewalla blends made of very fresh...

I took my mother out to eat on her birthday this Cinco De Mayo and we decided to try this new place Babanahm. unfortunately our experience was not great, it started out with our kebabs being served to us on giant metal skewers, the waitress forgot to tell us they were scorching hot and my mom proceeded to burn her hand. we started eating and as soon as we cut the chicken kebab you could just tell it was raw, my mom had even had a bite before spitting it out and you could just see the pink. they took our plates and brought out an appetizer while we waited for them to remake our food, we would have left but we were starving and had already waited 20 minutes for the undercooking chicken. another 20 goes by after we’ve eaten our appetizers and our food comes out. everything was delicious once made edible. i do want to note that when the manager came over after he was informed of the burn and the raw chicken, he came over and asked us what we wanted to do, now i’ve worked in the restaurant industry all my life and i know that he should be telling me what they are gonna do, so that was a really akward interaction since obviously i want my money back. Anyways the bill comes and the only discount we got was $7 and i looked at the receipt and i could see that they went in there and took off just the meat that was on our plates, to be honest i was almost expecting a free meal since my mom got burned and basically ate raw chicken but hey here’s my attempt at justice. it was her birthday y’all do better. (and don’t worry we still tipped the waitress she clearly felt very bad and had little control over...

Oh, how I would love to give it 5 stars. 4th attempt.

Walking in - if you haven’t been here before, good luck picking the right door.

Lobby space is pretty big and they definitely could reorganize the space better. I was greeted with a smile, and a hello. - yes, it’s a big deal. Why? Because I’m interacting with a person, not a robot.

Lunch time around 3 was pretty empty. The waitress was friendly, quick to get us water, and engaged well. Leading to a good atmosphere.

The food (why you’re reading) - 4.5 out of 5. Honestly, I’d give it a 3 out of 5 but at its price point, they get a big slide.

The food tastes great, but all that flavor does mask a secret.

The halloumi was WAYYYY overcooked and to compensate for the disguised (not disgusting) eraser, they doused it in jam and honey.

If you’re going to order, make your own bowl. Don’t order what their standard items are because, it’s literally just a combination of their bowl options.

The bowl was well presented, tasted great. The falafel were somehow mush at the center with a crispy coating, but I let the mush slide this once.

They NEED to include pita with everything and not rely on customers to ask for it.

It’s a staple of this cuisine and should not be an “add-on”. I’d prefer it if you raised the prices and just added it in, rather than make it an add on.

Canned drinks (no fountain), homemade lemonade was no better than just ordering lemon water, and they need a proper bar tender to make their mocktails.

Overall - visit it. Try it. Great for families and...