Neomonde Mediterranean Durham — Restaurant in Durham

I'll pick up Neomonde maybe once a month for the family, and it's normally great. Tonight, unfortunately, was a big surprise. It's almost like they have different cooks in or changed recipes on things.

We had a large order, I'll put below what was good and what was bad:

Good: Vegetarian Lasagna was the same, and still really good. Beet Salad seemed the same and was good. Chicken Salad seemed the same and was good. Mjadarah was excellent, as always.

Bad: Chicken Shawarma was entirely different. Instead of the chopped tomato mixed into everything, it just had 3 extremely thick slices of tomato on top. First bite was just a mouthful of raw tomatoes. The chicken was overcooked and dry, and there was barely any sauce included. To make things worse, we asked to add hummus and they didn't.

French Fries. Normally the fries are nice and crisp. These were completely limp and soggy.

Tomato Olive Man'oushe. Zero care was given to the tomatoes and olives. They were thrown on and all grouped only in the center. Olives were literally piled on top of each other, and not how we normally get it.

Green Beans. The sauce the green beans normally come in was the same and great, but, oddly, there were no green beans in the green beans, and, instead, had eggplant. Nothing was said to me when I picked up the order. Maybe they ran out of green beans and had to make a swap, but this should be said to the customer. They also gave us an extra container of french fries that we didn't order, and I'm guessing this was because they were aware of some of the problems and trying to compensate.

Couscous salad. Normally, the couscous salad is very flavorable and has some diced cucumber in it. This time, there was no cucumuber. It was a pile of garbanzo beans that tasted straight from a can, with a dusting of couscous on top, almost looking like bread crumbs. I feel like whoever was assembling this dish just doesn't understand the recipe.

Falafel. The falafel was actually burnt, to the point that the inside was hollow. It was so overcooked, the fallafel actually formed an airpocket in the center, and what was left was basically a shell of fallafel. I've honestly never even seen this before, anywhere.

Pita bread. We were supposed to get pita bread with every meal we ordered, and we got none. This oversight I can understand, as they were busy, but it's just another issue piling up with the others.

It's a shame. We really enjoyed Neomonde, but $70 is a lot to risk in the future to see if this was just a bad night. Two meals had to be entirely thrown out, and most of the rest just...

Neomonde offers a fantastic view of Bull Square, eclectic and foreign tastes mingled with fresh ingredients and topped with warm smiles. Cleanliness 5/5: Servers were gloved, and whenever performing different tasks they were quick to change out and re-glove theirselves. Much appreciated in cold and flu season and to the average germaphobe among us (me). Service 5/5: Servers were very generous with my order, so much so that by the end of my meal I was so full I had to take half the plate home. I love that, because I get to enjoy the meal, twice. We were met with smiles and information when addressing what side item was comprised of what. Price 3/5: The prices were tolerable, however I've never understood the concept of "tipping" when I'm called up by name to carry my own meal to the table and then bust down my own table, dishes and trash after I've finished eating. Am I tipping the servers 20% of a $40 meal to simply scoop sides onto the plate? If so, the consumer is seriously being ripped off in this regard and if the servers are being paid waiters/waitresses pay ($2 an hour, living on tips) then they're potentially being exploited in my opinion. For two Lamb & Beef pita pockets w/ 2 sides each, two desserts and two drinks we reached $40 not including 20% gratuities. Not sure what I was even tipping for, I did the work myself. Quality 4/5: The food tastes especially fresh, aside from the hummus. Ours had a refrigerator-air-hardened section that literally lifted away from the rest of the hummus as a chunk; almost as if it hadn't been wrapped and stored correctly in the days it had been created before. No naan bread or even crackers were offered with it which may be an Americanized tradition but one that should at least be acknowledged and offered by CHOICE should you want some to accompany your...

I ordered almost $200 worth of food from Neomonde for a birthday party. I had it delivered by Door Dash, and after they left we realized that we only got half of the food we ordered. We had to make due and split dishes amongst us. I called the next day as a courtesy to let Neomonde know that that had happened. I figured they would want to know, and would at least be apologetic, if not offer to refund me for the food I did not receive. Instead the person who answered the phone's response was "I wasn't working yesterday so I couldn't possibly know what happened." And when I said that's not the kind of response I was hoping for, she just repeated herself. They just lost me as a customer along with everyone who was at the birthday party.

Update: I’ve changed my review from 1 star to 4 stars. The manager reached out to me the day after I posted this to apologize. He said that he was very sorry that his employee had reacted like this, that he was going to train all of his employees about how to handle this kind of inquiry properly, and that he wanted to give me a gift certificate to cover the costs of the food that was not delivered. I was very impressed by this! I’ve put Neomonde back on my list of...