Mediterranean Cruise Cafe — Restaurant in Burnsville

It was a dark and cold night and we wanted food. I have seen this place multiple times online and when attending events in the area. The location is very beautiful when you walk in you feel as if you have entered an old palace on Egypt. It had every high ceiling and this place has a very impressive bar.

We were seated right away. The service was spectacular and on top of everything. The food however some of the items were not up to what I have had in my travels of the middle east. The pickles was a strange one the menu said pickles and we asked right away if all that was in it was pickles or if it was pickled veggies. We were told it was a bunch if veggies like beans and beats and other things.

Behold the pickles most of our plate was just pickles and we did get some colflower and olives. To be fair it had lots more pickles ans olives I was just late at taking the photo. The pickles were very very salt like If I was eating the sands of Egypt or sipping water from the dead sea itself. It had toooo much salt. The meat the khufta was salty also so if you have issues and need to watch your salt intake then this is not the place for you since almost everything we had was loaded with salt.

The peta bread was fabulous! The flavour and the texture and just the taste was absolutely divine as if it was sent from the heavens. The garlic well was very lacking in garlic it's like someone didn't stir or mix it well and gave us the top. It had lots of salt too but not as much as the other items but the flavor was good the consistency was a bit off. It was like garlic that you would use as salad dressing and not to smother onto your meats or peta.

The rice was cooked well and fluffy but was lacking those amazing flavors of the middle east. Lots of the dishes came already with lots of the "pickles" in them so pro tip if you want the pickles skip them you get plenty of them with other items.

The wine menu was good as well as the drink menu so you could wash the salt down with plenty of options. I was very optimistic about this place but once I arrived I was disappointed. The service however was second to none. I may give this place another chance and review it again because the chefs may have had an off night. I'm not the type to complain about the food and have the staff do it over and sound like the crazy Hispanic so i just device to leave a review. If on my next visit its good or things change then i will update the review. Our server gave us a baklava on the house to take with us.

I gave it 3 stars bases on the service provided and how nice and friendly the people were. It was a very warm and...

Here’s the thing about Mediterranean Cruise: the food is some of the best you’ll ever have. Easily best Mediterranean food in the twin cities and I would recommend and have recommended them to anyone. I’ve been going to this place since they were in the old location in Eagan and will go here until the end of time. The food genuinely is SO good. So good I come back every time.

However, they have easily the worst service imaginable. So, so, so awful it’s laughable. The last time we went, we were sat outside even though we don’t like to be. Unfortunately someone next to us had Hookah so I smelled like artificial blueberries the entire ride home. But the worst thing was that I think they just don’t care about the people outside because our waitress never checked in on us after we ordered, and we had to BEG to get our check maybe a half hour or more after we finished eating. I swear when we FINALLY saw her I flagged her down and looked at her so desperately like please give us this dessert to go and give us the check immmmmmmediately. Then it took her like 15 minutes to bring us a cold dessert and the check.

We were there last night as well and I swear to god, our waiter never once checked in on us after our food was served. Like, at all. Also we ordered hummus and had to ask a person that was not our server if they intended to give us pita bread. For our hummus. ???? We got better service from the belly dancer. She had a whole performance between us ordering and eating and she checked in on us before our waiter even acknowledged we existed. This man genuinely only acknowledged us when I pushed my food to the other side of the table and made it look like I was gonna fall asleep. He only cared about us tipping him lol, and if I wasn’t a nice person, he wouldn’t have gotten a tip at all. If you need ANYTHING, be it a tzatziki sauce or a napkin, don’t hold your breath. Unless of course you are the table behind us in which case he will stop at your table every single time but with his back to you and not even look at you.

My advice? Order food to go. It’ll be great and you won’t have to deal with how godawful...

Overall incredibly disappointed. Came here first time on Friday, Dec. 6 2024 after living in Burnsville for a couple years and hearing some recommendations.

First off, food. Incredibly poor. The chicken skewers were overcooked and dry (for all 4 members of the party that got them), shrimp was overcooked, grape leaves tasted like pure tomato, gyro meat was dry, pita was room temp and looks like it came from one of those plastic containers at Cub. Only good things I have to comment about the food are the hummus and filet mignon skewer.

Service was despicable. While the bartender was great as we waited for a table, the server at table was clueless at best. After taking our initial order, some other people brought food to the table incrementally without taking any plates away, leading to us all feeling very cramped (even though we piled the plates ourselves). A member at our table didn’t get the drink he ordered for 25 minutes after ordering, and our server was nowhere to be seen. I had to personally run around to find her, and she ended up being hiding at the front by the host stand chatting with 3 other servers. Mind you, during this group meeting of servers at the host stand, the actual bartender was tending to multiple tables in the dining room (bless his soul). 10 minutes after reminding the server about friend’s drink, he finally got it. 10 minutes later, server finally came back again and we asked for bill. Took another 15 for her to get back with the bill. And please be aware that we got there after 7:30pm, after everyone left to the event center. The restaurant was maybe half full.

And belly dancing… god damn I’m sick of typing but I have to mention it. It wasn’t real belly dancing, it was a woman just moving around on a stand, occasionally playing with some toys. Music so loud you can’t hear yourself think, let alone the others at your table.

Very unfortunate first experience here and will definitely...