Luna Cafe — Restaurant in New York

Very friendly and accommodating! Lovely 3-wall, covered outdoor dining with decorative greenery. Apparently the area has a lot of Albanian and Turkish cuisine (Cakor, Çka Ka Qellu, No Fork, and Gurra Cafe to name a few with outdoor dining), so even though the place has a large assortment of food including sandwiches, pasta, and salads, I really wanted to try from their traditional Albanian section, since I've never had any before. The waitress was really nice and patiently did her best to walk me through what everything was when she saw me trying to look up pictures of the food items online 😂. After we finally decided to order (was waiting for a friend to arrive) they asked us if we each wanted a cup of traditional soup on the house! It was yummy, but I didn't catch the name. Surprisingly, I think the complimentary Samoon bread didn't arrive until the entrees did. It was great with the soup, of course :)

I decided on the "Banja Luka" / "Bunja Luka" (Samoon traditional bread, pulled filet with mushrooms & onions, with sour cream) which from the waitresses description I summed up, "So it's like a sandwich?" She wasn't sure. "Uh... It's not quite like a... Philly Cheesesteak." But at the end when I had finished thinly sliced steak (actually, yeah, like in a Philly Cheesesteak) with mushrooms and onions in a giant, wide and tall, puffy, airy samoon bread sliced she asked, "So what do you think? Is it a sandwich?" I said, "Oh definitely! An Albanian Sandwich!" So if you hear it being described as such at Luna Cafe, know that I was the one who coined it!

My husband had the Mixed Combo from the traditional Albanian Menu section. It included 5 kebap, 2 qoftes, 1 sausage, and 1 pc. grilled chicken. It's a bit of an appetizer sampler plate with sausages, fried patties, chicken, and a small side salad. He said it was good!

My friend ordered the penne a la vodka which came with a side salad in a bowl with...

do not even bother giving them your money! The employees at this restaurant added a $25 charge to our card after we paid for and signed the check. after giving them a 4 star review I had to change it. THIS IS UNNACCEPTABLE. Times are tough for everyone right now and for us to give them business and they try to rip us off is insane. there was already a tip included in the bill, So for them to add more money is not cool at all!

Outdoor seating available, three of us were greeted by a young lady with not much expression, she took our order and about 10-15 minutes later a gentleman named Joel (who was very nice) brought us a bread basket and some salads. That helped to hold our hunger until the entrees arrived about 30 mins later. The steak and salmon arrived first with no potatoes (as advertised) and 10 minutes later the penne arrived. When we asked the server about the potatoes he went back and asked the chef but the chef said that they ran out of potatoes.

The rib eye steak was amazing, the broccoli was also good, it had a light flavor and nice crunch. The salmon was average could have used more flavor. The penne was also decent, the flavor on the chicken was pretty good. We also ordered a New York cheese cake that was average in flavor and an iced caramel macchiato that was good!

Before arriving to Luna, I expected to have a bad experience because of the reviews but it wasn’t terrible!

I would just suggest for the searing area to be cared for a bit more and a little more consistency when it comes to the menu offerings, if the menu states that the meal will be accompanied by potatoes and vegetables but there are none that should be communicated by the server and some sort of compensation or accommodation should be offered.

Besides that the experience was decent, Joel was very nice and the food was...

We were a group of 13 who had to sit separately because the waitress was confused on how to move the tables together I should have taken pics the service was horrible although she was very nice she lacked the skills to waitress, the food was even worse cold ketchup like sauce served with overcooked Calamari, two of us didn’t even bother trying entrees after the terrible appetizer . We were a large party but it was me my husband and kids and grandkids and gratuity was added so we didn’t leave anything more they loaded the food with pepper my daughters chicken Parmesan hero was chicken fingers with their ketchup sauce and cheese it was horrible I ordered pasta primavera which stated broccoli spinach carrots and peppers it was shredded carrots like on a salad no spinach no peppers some other weird thing and loaded with black pepper and dry the mozzarella appetizers were served with overcut tomatoes and drowned in balsamic and the cheese did not taste fresh the pizza was the only edible things we had ,avoid this place , never again the bill was also 355 dollars because the sodas were about a 6 oz bottle and way over priced also my husband asked for orange soda and she brought him orange flavored water can’t tell you how much that was but it was also a can it was a very expensive mistake eating at this place!!!ALSO NO SALAD AND BREAD WAS EVER BROUGHT WITH THE ENTREES and my other daughter ordered penne vodka it was not vodka sauce we also had Alfredo they said was decent and my step daughter had lamb chops she enjoyed but unfortunately bad outweighed the good definitely avoid unless you like overpriced bad food...