Cedarland Bakery & Restaurant — Restaurant in Riverside

I had very little experience with Lebanese food, but my wife wanted the falafel. So we went to Cedarland on Saturday. It's a Lebanese restaurant and bakery combined. Despite its negatives and my initial trepidation, I really enjoyed my time there.

The ambience is... well, confusing. From the outside it's not horribly clear that there is seating inside, and the booths are not horribly comfortable. There are a bunch of figures (salt shakers, statues, etc) that my wife supposed were supposed to be Lebanese chefs, but I thought were more iconic of Italian pizzarias.

My uncertainty about the menu was both helped and hurt by the pictures; but eventually my wife guided me to the meat sampler platter (there is a vegetarian one as well). Tabouli salad, meat-fried-meat (I kid you not) and some other stuff that I simply didn't remember the names for because I snarfed it all down.

I might have liked it less before I started introducing myself to cuisine from the Middle East and Asia, but now that I have, I was thrilled at the freshly made foods and wonderful seasoning.

Aside from the platters, there are also lots of appetizers that are very cheap - and yummy! The stuffed grape leaves, and small meat, cheese, and thyme pies are all only $1, making it easy to try new things.

And then, there is the bakery.

I had tried baklava (sp?) in the past. I didn't care for it then.

I have found that this was because I had tried CRAP baklava in the past.

The bakery at Cedarland gets this official rating: "nom nom nom nom"

Did I mention that I love honey?

There is a wide range of prices, with many small items and most things in the bakery as low as $1, and the large sampler platters ranging up to $9. Despite the flaws in the ambience, the food more than makes up for this, making this a great and unusual dinner...

It's ok...nothing to write home about. I had the chicken kebab and beef shawarma. The beef was 1/3 grisly...uneatable. The chicken was slightly pink and on the tinge of under cooked. The sauce for both was BLAND. I also had the tabbouli, which was bland unless you stirred it up with vinegar. I put this on the sandwiches to give them more taste. The pitas are not what you might be used to. They are thin, more like a wrap--like a large flour tortilla, but a little thicker...or may be a pancake. The so-called kebab & shawarma "sandwiches" are a long, thin wrap filled with some veggies and bigger-than-bite-size chunks of meat of choice--is it really that hard to cut them into smaller bite size pieces; and, you eat it like you would a wrap. The bottom of the wrap is just bunched up wrap that you probably wouldn't eat. The wrap itself is pretty much tasteless. The walnut and pistachio baklava were good. I found a black hair in the container. Gross. The small cheese pie was no-bueno. It was filled with hardened mozzarella cheese. I just threw it away. The lebanese coffee was strong and had a very odd taste that I can't quite place. $2 for the size of an espresso. The location isn't that great and parking is limited. The entry door had a huge crack in it. The interior is clearly run down. Would I order again? Nope. I've definitely had...

Pies are great. The beef Shawerma sandwiches are the worst so far.

Update as they responded:

I DID NOT ASK FOR FREE SANDWICH AS THEY CLAIM. I changed the review to 1 star because of the lies in their response.

I order 6 Beef Shawerma sandwiches from this restaurants. I used for that 3 coupons from Groupon and they accepted using them in one day as it was my last day in Dayton! The Beef Shawerma was the worst I have ever seen... It was not even Shawerma. I called them over the phone and asked them if they did it in the usual way, and they said, no, it was done on the grill,, then I asked to replace 4 beef sandwiches (out of 6) with 4 chicken sandwiches and they said "Okay". I returned, gave them 4 beef Shawerma sandwiches, but they REFUSED the exchange. I did not ask for free sandwiches as they claim.

They said because you used Coupons, the maximum we can offer is 2 chicken Shawerma Sandwiches instead of the 4 beef Shawerma Sandwiches they TOOK. I am not really sure why coupons should affect the service quality ... I told them okay, but I WILL LEAVE A NEGATIVE REVIEW.

Finally, as I am a middle eastern and very well familiar with the Middle Eastern cuisine, believe me, I tried this restaurant two times and it has nothing to do with the Lebanese cuisine.

Very unprofessional response...