Maya's Casa Linda — Restaurant in Dallas

I’ve had ‘Mediterranean’ food in Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon.. NY.. Chicago.. Dallas.. my own home, homes of my family/friends .. this place not really is not comparable to any places that are home/abroad but it’s not comparable to the Israeli restaurants in DFW either. If you want to have Israeli style middle eastern food in DFW go to Mizon, if you want Palestinian/Arab style go to Afrah. Either place is much better than this.

To be more specific, the recipes they’re using here are very off and are being passed off to a customer base I suspect doesn’t know any better to judge middle eastern properly due to a lack of better references. I really wanted to be fair to this place because the owner and small business vibes seemed sweet but this food is taking advantage of tbh white people who haven’t had real Arab/Middle Eastern and is low effort, I’ll go one by one from my order of 38 dollars:

1. Tahini sauce isn’t supposed to be pure sour, it’s nutty with hint of lemon squeezed. It tasted like you put a cup on lemon in it.

2. Your hummus shouldn’t be solely tahini flavor and watery — it’s supposed to be a balance of creamy, slightly tart, strong olive oil flavor, and have tahini in the background

3. Schnitzel … it should be CRIPSY.. with good crust and juicy on the inside .. the one I got here was mushy and overly sweet. The breading was non existent. It’s supposed to be a pinch of sugar in the coating mix .. not a full tablespoon which is what it tastes like

4. falafel.. no cumin, allspice, pepper or any flavor besides pure coriander and some parsley. Additionally, it was pure mush like the schnitzel. I didn’t expect this to be the best because it’s supposed to be ‘healthy’/air fried but there’s no excuse. It didn’t taste cooked.. it genuinely tasted like the raw chickpea mix before you actually cook it.

You can see the difference between proper falafel on the left and what this place sells on the right. The left is crispy, correct color, spiced, and soft on the inside. Maya’s on the right is undercooked, mealy, bland, and not at all a normal color for any falafel anywhere. Please fix your recipes!

There’s a customer market for everyone and I’ll narrow it down here, if you enjoy Trader Joe’s frozen interpretations of ethnic cuisines— you’ll be fine...

Came here tonight for the soft opening and was super excited to try this place! Being vegetarian our whole family loves falafal and we were excited that this was part of the menu. When we walked in the restaurant itself was extremely crowded and loud which I took as a good sign and was like wow it must be good! We went up to order our food around 6:30 PM tonight (they opened at 5 PM) and they are out of falafal! This was quite disappointing as that was one of our main reasons for coming, but we were decided lets give it a try and got the eggplant dishes instead. I got an eggplant plate which comes with pita and two sides and my husband got the eggplant pita which comes with fries. We also got hummus and baba ghanoush and our son shared all of our food. The food itself lacked in flavor and portions were very small. My "side salad" came in a tiny container that was the same size as the sides of sauce that the food comes with. My husbands pita was barely stuffed and he actually left somewhat hungry. The best sauce is by far the garlic and when I went to ask for more around 7:15 PM they had already run out. The food itself took quite some time to come out, we opened our own ketchup/salt/pepper (as they were brand new), and we had to hunt down forks. I think much of the service aspect is just as a result of going on the first day of opening, however I do think the flavor in the food and quantity could be improved substantially. I love that Lakewood is getting some cool places and I really am happy to have a non chain restaurant, but definitely think some improvements could be made. Added an extra start just because it was their first day and I hope it improves with time! I appreciate the effort they're putting on providing healthy, affordable food at a good price in a kid...

Pretty happy with this place. Some things are bland like the hummus, fries, and roasted chicken. I've seen people rave about the hummus here so maybe it is just me, it came with our garlic sauce you see in the pictures, maybe they have an appetizer of hummus that is different? Not sure. The beef kabobs are the best, full of flavor, also heavily enjoyed the falafel, highly recommend the balsamic sauce, honey chicken kabobs is also very good, if you're a garlic lover you'll also really enjoy the garlic lemon sauce, I was still tasting the garlic an hour after we left and the garlic lover in me was happy about that. They do offer salt and pepper at the drink area which would probably help immensely with the bland things, I just chose not to use them this visit. I think the sauces are really the forefront of everything, they are what will flavor your food or make the flavored things even better. They are also very open to suggestions and will probably get better with time, so I wouldn't hang too heavily on any negatives. I read another review saying the cucumber water was very good and I very much agree, they also offer 4 unsweetened teas that you can sweeten yourself. Our entire order of an appetizer, two entrees, and two drinks was $13 due to their soft opening, everything is 50% off and extra sauces are free right now, regularly would be about $26 and I think that is very affordable. The chef was glowing and appeared to be very proud of his place and made himself seen. All in all we really enjoyed ourselves, we really like Mediterranean food and enjoyed what they offer here.

Update: Try mixing the lemon garlic sauce with the...