Mediterrasian Bistro and Catering — Restaurant in Durham

Tonight I visited Baba Ghannouj for the first time. I was very excited to find and try a Mediterranean restaurant closer to home, hoping to be a regular. However, my experience was extremely disappointing. My experience was VERY similar to Romeo's. First, the man who took my order was extremely rude throughout the ordering process. As I stood at the register (the only person in line) waiting to place my order the man looked at me and sternly asked if I was ordering. I told him I was and when I asked a question about a couple of menu items he grabbed a menu and circled the items and told me to read it. It was the same information I read on the wall board and my question was still not answering. Deciding not to aggravate the situation further I decided just to pick something and try it. Still as the only one in line, I waited a couple of minutes for him to finish his task and come back to take my order. He turned around and looked at me. I told him I was ready. A man then walked up behind me. The man taking the orders looked away from me and assisted the other gentleman. At this point, I considered leaving but decided to wait it out as well all have bad days. After helping him, he came back to me. I told him what I wanted, verbatim to what the dish was titled. It was a platter. Sternly, he opened the menu and demanded, "Which platter?" At that point I pointed to the one I stated. He responded, "Oh" and took the order. I told him at least twice that I wanted chicken and he repeated it back to me. When I got home I discovered that the meat wrapped in foil was lamb and not chicken. Needless to say, this visit left a bad taste in my mouth (no pun intended) and I will not...

Ordered drone delivery. That part was flawless. Haven’t had food from here in years. Remember it being really solid. Got some old favorites. Here’s a breakdown:

Chicken spring rolls - as good as they ever were. Get these, they’re crispy, tasty, and really satisfying. The sauce is from a bottle, but that was always the case.

Potstickers - these are frozen pre-made and not very high quality. Frozen and premade can be fine (this is a casual joint in a strip mall, after all) but these were poor quality.

Falafel - ok. There are better in town, but these do the trick.

Pancit - wow…such a disappointment. Got three orders; veg, chicken, and shrimp. Overall, these dishes were tasteless. No real seasoning, nothing distinctive, just bland. Veggies were totally overcooked. Snow peas had not been stopped of the fibrous string. The chicken was chunks of breast meat (obvious fresh chicken!) but they were just boiled. No seasoning of any kind - none - and just mixed with the noodles. Same with the shrimp which were obviously of a low quality (but again, strip mall casual, wasn’t expecting fresh from the coast) and absolutely no seasoning, just boiled and added to the noodles.

Apps were good to passable. We basically threw the noodles away - they were that bad.

I’m not saying don’t go, I’m just saying temper your expectations and lower the bar all the way down.

I’m bummed. This used to be...

ATTENTION GROUPONERS. I'd like to give an account of my first time and last time at this restaurant. My girlfriend and I were standing at the counter at 8:55PM Monday night, deliberating over which buffet items we would take home for our late dinner. There are about 8 nearby patrons chatting and finishing up their meals. About 5 minutes go by before we ask the cook to take our order. As I pull out my Groupon, the cook takes notice and promptly informs us that the restaurant is now closed. We point to the sign out in front of the store, which clearly states that the restaurant is still open. He rolls his eyes, walks over to the sign, flips it around and simply says "Closed." Appalled and starving, my girlfriend and I end up scavenging the neighboring Harris Teeter for our evening meal.

I probably would have given this place a much higher rating had I actually been able to try the buffet-style food, which I can only assume was subsequently thrown in the dumpster after we were embarrassingly escorted out of the restaurant, but unfortunately the cook denied me that opportunity. Oh well.

tl;dr Arrive well-in-advance of the restaurant's early closing time and don't show your Groupon until you're...