Baghdad Restaurant — Restaurant in Denver

I tried visiting this restaurant for the first time and it was the second Iraqi restaurant I visited but it wasn’t my best experience.

I was browsing the menu for five minutes before I closed it and then signaled to the only two waiters who were serving also as cashiers to tell them I was ready to order but the kept ignoring me just because other customers are coming and they want to lead them to their tables and take their orders first.

The fist plate of my food came out to the table 40 minutes after I stepped in the place. However the whole order took more than an hour to be fully served. When I asked why was it like that they said because they’re are lots of customers and we’re only two people and we brought you appetizers for free! That honestly meant one thing for me which’s that they’re cheap and they don’t want to bring employees to work with them and I said if out loud.

After asking for the bill and asked the waitress to put my Southey in a cup to go she just brought an empty cup and made me pour it myself as a signal of dissatisfaction with my expression of how poorly the treatment was and how badly the roasted onion looked as they’re placing it unpeeled while in addition not bringing forks and knives to eat the grilled meat with.

I don’t recommend this place and certainly won’t...

I’d seriously come back just for their iced chai!

As far as the food, I loved the mixed kabob plate. The chicken tikka and lamb tikka were excellent. The Iraqi kabob was great too, and tasted like beef and lamb mixed, not just beef. I definitely prefer the mix but the menu does just say beef. The kabobs were seasoned just right and grilled perfectly.

The kabobs came with white rice and a seasoned rice that was more orange. I’ve had much more flavorful rice at other Iraqi restaurants (it’s usually yellow) but I was coming for the meat and didn’t plan to eat all the rice anyway. Not bad at all just not super flavorful.

Their hummus and tzatziki were both good and the little olive and tomato salad went great with the hummus on pita bread. I think they put some mint in the tzatziki which is different but I really liked it. The pita bread is the thin kind not the thick fluffy kind and I’m not sure if that’s normal for Iraqi food but worked fine for me since it’s less filling and probably a lot less carbs but still tasted great.

The Turkish coffee after the meal was nice and strong. Surprisingly the real star of the show was the iced chai. It’s blended not just poured over ice and is honestly the best iced chai...

The girl who welcomed us never got us menus and we had to pick it up ourselves from near the counter. Pita bread was thrown at the table instead of being gently kept. Same with rest of the food. Throughout the dinner, the same girl kept shouting 'All good?' from at least 7 ft away and kept asking 'for here or to go' although we had clearly indicated that we planned to dine in. My wife ordered vegetarian platter which was great. I ordered Pompano which was terrible. The fish, considered the king of the ocean, is also called butterfish because of its delicate meat. Last night, I realized that there is a way you can mess up cooking of this fish. It was literally placed on a charcoal or gas grill until it burned completely. It was burned on the outside and dry on the inside - the absolutely worst way to cook this delicate fish. If this is how Iraq cooks Pompano, please do your guests a favor and remove it from the menu. Why the 5 stars? You are trying your best, working hard at what you do. Just improve the service a little, tell your server not to throw food at the guests like treating dogs and change your pompano grilling method. We will visit again hopefully to a...