Babylon Restaurant — Restaurant in Johnson City

Their shawarma isn't shwarma. Thick chunks of low quality beef barely marinated or spiced. This is not what shwarma is at all. Very low quality food. Wish they would try to do better. Baklava is nearly stale; ordered, not made in house. Hummus was not flavorful. Low quality olive oil. No shatta or harissa, just Sriracha on the table? The salt in the shaker was clumped together from humidity and unusable. You can tell very little pride is taken in the running of this establishment. Like many East TN ethnic restaurants, the bar is set so low, and unrecognizable from authentic counterparts found elsewhere in the U.S. A large problem is their patronage knows nothing better due to lack of experience so the bare minimum gets regarded as a standard.

If you're going to source poor quality beef to make your shawarma, it should at a bare minimum be sliced thin. That is what the dish is about. If you can't even do that perhaps source premade frozen shwarma and throw it on the flat top. Somehow this shoddy excuse for shawarma would be an upgrade to this imposter shwarma you currently sell.

Unfortunate and sad. It isn't difficult nor expensive to make beef shawarma properly. Even without the access to a rotating flame spit, this dish can be made better or at a bare minimum, adequate. Take some pride. The current representation reflects either a lack of care or acknowledgement of the local populaces ignorance of what the food should be. I'm not sure which is worse but neither should be acceptable to an establishment that cares.

I was shocked to find other middle Eastern people eating here. Usually that can be an indicator the food is good. I guess when options are limited, you'll accept anything. Two stars is a generous rating. Last time I came it was...

The dining room is filthy. There is black crud all over the salt and pepper shaker lids. The menus are sticky. The water glasses have visible gunk stuck in the crevices on the bottom. My friends and I debated whether the gunk was on the outside or inside and concluded it had to be on the inside of at least one glass. The credit card holders had sticky brown fingerprints/ goo all over the outside.

Lastly, my dinner had a hair in it. I found it immediately after he set the plate down and I tried to take my first bite of rice it was right there. When I told the server he said they all had dark hair so it wasn't theirs , that it must have been mine. He did not offer to replace my plate. He just stood there blaming me for the hair. I was waiting for him to at least offer to replace the rice on the plate but he didn't. He was being very rude so I told him I didn't want the dinner. As I sat with my friends while they ate,(but didn't drink out of their dirty water glasses)

he came back 2 more times to tell me the hair was mine. the last time he told me I must have a dog and tracked the hair in with me. that's when I told him to just stop. I told him his restaurant is dirty and needs to be cleaned.

They couldn't pay me...

Alright, we waited almost 3 years to try this Mediterranean restaurant since moving back to the US after living in the Middle East for 8yrs...because we didn't want to be disappointed with the food. Our gut was right. The food was awful! I ordered the mixed kabab, which is normally in the Middle East it comes with hot, freshly made arabic bread, and this one came with a half cold tortilla lol...my rice tasted like leftover rice and it was cold. The beef pieces were chewy and hard to eat. The chicken tasted bland. My husband didn't like his Dolma dish much either. He said I can make them better at home. My daughter ordered chicken tenders. They were super hard like a rock, and we could tell they were not fresh. The only things that were fresh and tasted good were the French fries and the lamb kabab. The place is rundown and needs a serious makeover. The only server there wasn't friendly and seemed annoyed by the customers. We complained about our food, and he ended up giving us the kid's meal free. It was our first and last time going there. If you have ever tried authentic Middle Eastern food, you will be...