Flame Kabob — Restaurant in Raleigh

I start this review by saying we spent many years in Texas were you can get some of the best middle eastern food on the planet, next to being there, (160+ cuisines served in Houston nightly, not kidding), plus my husband was born overseas and we have traveled overseas, so to say we live and breath Mediterranean / Middle Eastern food is putting it lightly.

In our search for the best Iranian / Persian food, we drove 2.5 hours specifically to dine at Flame Kabob. The restaurant was clean with a pleasant atmosphere, but some of the furniture was in disrepair, so our evening started out with my husband badly injuring his finger on a poorly maintained chair. Although the staff didn't mention it, I am not sure how they could have missed the incident, plus us examining the broken chair. They could have at least offered him some ice.

Our waitress was polite, and the food was freshly cooked. While most dishes resembled traditional Middle Eastern cuisine, some did not meet our expectations, possibly due to regional taste differences. Notably, the koobideh dish needs improvement, as the uneven spice distribution resulted in inconsistent flavors. However, the chocolate mousse was excellent.

Initially, our experience was peaceful and enjoyable, but it quickly declined. After our meal, my husband approached the counter to order tea and encountered an extremely rude older woman who told him to get it himself. This exchange caused significant upset, particularly since it was our first visit. To make matters worse, the kitchen staff began yelling in Spanish, like children in a school yard, followed by a loud gathering of staff and visitors, having some sort of family reunion. I urged my husband to pay the bill so we could just leave.

Our $47 unitemized check also left us frustrated, as it exceeded the menu and dessert menu prices. Our order consisted of 2 kabob koobideh, 1 kabob chicken breast, 1 chocolate mousse, and 2 complimentary teas. Upon checking UberEats, we discovered considerable discrepancies in online and in-house pricing, validating previous reviews highlighting unexpected price differences. Photos from past menus also revealed a pattern of price inflation at the restaurant. Thus, it remains unclear whether we were overcharged or if the restaurant's menu prices are wrong.

This restaurant, small as it is, has the potential to be date night worthy, even with its well worn furniture and average food because of the atmosphere. But overcharging, rude service, and the sporadic taco truck ambiance is not going to get you there. This is a consistent theme in many of the reviews for this restaurant, many starting after the business changed hands.

WE DROVE 2.5 HOURS TO EAT AT THIS RESTAURANT, only to be treated rudely and then overcharged. The food is below average by our standards, and, honestly, we get better and cheaper food at the two fast food Mediterranean places, and one Greek place, we have here locally in our town. We will not pay over $20 a plate, only to be treated like an inconvenience, especially when we are the ones that had to come to the counter to order something, because your staff couldn't be bothered to ask us if we needed anything or if we would like self service tea.

Notwithstanding, if you are an upscale, $20+ a plate restaurant, I should be able to trust the prices listed in your restaurant. I would have given three stars for the food and nice atmosphere, but screaming cooks, overcharging, and rude staff earn you one star, which would be zero stars if I could rate...

Flame kabob has been in Raleigh for a long time and I would have rated my review as a 4 out of 5, however we have heard that the ownership has changed. Now I would give an 10 star review if possible. Our family comes from highly experienced cooks so for gatherings we usually prepare the food ourselves. We had a service the first week of 2024, with couple of gatherings with family from different states ( including Los Angeles and Dallas) and no time to cook. We and our guests all agreed that for us all the flame kabob dishes were the best we have tasted in Persian cuisine in A VERY LONG TIME (for both gatherings we had the ground beef kabob ( kubideh), Barg Kabob (filet kabob), ground chicken kabob, ghormeh Sabzi (Persian herb stew), chicken kabob . Sides of cucumber yogurt ( mast khiyar) and eggplant (kash bademjan). For desert we served their Persian ice cream.) Everything was delicious, fresh, healthy and tasted authentically great. The owner (we did not meet him in person but talked to him on the phone when ordering), was knowledgeable, professional and very nice. I am very glad we have a marvelous Persian restaurant now in the research triangle area, I can refer people to when they ask me. We have not dined in yet so I can not review that aspect (we plan on dine in next) I highly recommend the place.

Update on my review: We tried the dine in option at Flame Kabob. We loved it. The place has an authentic Middle Eastern vibe. It is cozy and welcoming. The space is not that big so sitting is limited. Having the food freshly made right there is even better. Make sure to try their tenderloin kabob which is my favorite (very difficult to make, but they do a great job) Only drawback: Persian cousins can be pricy but they have recently updated their prices (I think the previous listed prices were much more reasonable and competitive not only to the RTP area restaurants but also much more expensive places). With the current pricing , unfortunately, they may lose some of their...

When we got there, the server wasn't even interested in showing menu to us. When we asked she just said I can tell you what we have it here even though we see the menus on table. She wasn't very helpful and took our order anyways. We asked one question and she ignored it completely. Since it was take out order, we asked for forks, spoons and water with lemon just in case if they forget plasticware. We also asked for hot sauce packets and requested to make our dish extra spicy. Then we waited for about an hour in the car, yep that's true for an hour. We saw people who arrived after us were leaving with their food and our food was still 'being prepared'. When they finally gave us food, no fork, no spoon, no napkins, no water either. We had to go back inside again and ask for it. They gave us water with no lemon for which they said they don't have lemon. While ordering the server said they have lemon but second time, the owner lied and seems like saved 10 cents of lemon. The butter which comes with bread was not included in the package which we had to ask for. Anyways, when we eat our food, we realized that spoons were not there which we had asked and they pretended like the pack has both spoon and forks. The yogurt dish Maast O Museer was just half filled while my friend had visited this place earlier and it is supposed to be filled more given its price. They just gave us one bread although we ordered two take out orders (we know that there's unlimited bread if you dine in). When we ask they tried to charge for extra bread. The main dish was missing onion, lemon and parsley which is usually given in the past but since we didn't check while take out we couldn't ask for it. They didn't even gave us hot sauce neither made food one bit spicy. Overall, they just ignored all the instructions and requests, took forever to prepare the food and gave us worst customer service experience. Not...