Oh Mama Grill — Restaurant in Rockville

I hope this review will help the restaurant improve. This is my third visit to Oh Mama Grill, and I only came here this time because my friend likes their Shawarma. The first time I thought it was a fluke, the second time I couldn’t believe it and the third time I just felt compelled to write a review. Let’s start with the good: I bet most of the good reviews here are about the Shawarma, and everyone agrees it’s one of the best in the area. The pitas are always fresh and delicious. The humus is good, and the salads are usually fresh. What’s consistently not good is (third time I tried it) is the fries. Always oily and soggy, charred on the outside but raw inside. The next two items are personal taste – everyone can have a different opinion, but I think their falafel doesn’t have enough taste, and it’s a bit undercooked on the inside. The tahini is also bland, but again – this can be a personal taste issue. What is unacceptable is the service my friend and I received and the fries, that this time we couldn’t even touch. I waited a day to cool off to write this because I wanted to be fair and stick to the facts, and I truly hope this will help the owners improve. We visited Oh Mama on March 15th at 2:30pm. We must have gotten there right after the lunch rush, so I’ll ignore the mess that was around the kitchen floor and the prep area, but the salads looked very tired and not fresh. There was only one person ahead of me getting one pita, and I ordered two pitas and fries to take outside to their nice outdoor sitting area. From the moment I got in to the moment I got out it took twenty minutes - no exaggeration(!) I can’t explain why it took so long, but the cashier and the man preparing our food seemed interested in other things other than serving the person ahead of me and then myself. They traded places numerous times during the prep where at one moment the cashier was making half of the pita, getting on the phone, and then the man taking over again. It was strange to watch, and quite amusing too if it wasn’t for that long... When I finally took the pitas outside I confirmed what I already mentioned above. My friend did like his shawarma, but both of our salads (that are usually very good) weren’t fresh, and after tasting one fry each, we couldn’t touch the rest of the fries they were inedible. I really hope the owner takes notice of this because these are simple things to fix, and overall Oh Mama can easily be excellent. It won’t take much, and I’d love to come back and give it five...

Ohhh mama is right! Let me start by saying the cashier is so freaking sweet. Her warm spirit and down to earth personality compelled me to leave a tip AND I WAS DINING OUT!!

Moving forward to what you really came here for... the FOOD. I decided to go against the famous Shawarma and opted for their House Kebab with lamb on a pita. (The Kebab is lamb and beef mixed)

I like that they provide a small array of toppings for you to choose from. Not enough for you to stand in line for hours while the person in front of you takes foreverrrrrr to decide what they want, but enough that you don't have to settle for just meat and bread.

Upon my first bite, my taste buds immediately sent juicy burger signals to my brain. If I was blindfolded during a test taste, I would have failed. The meat was succulent and cut into bite size pieces that melted in my mouth. I kept moving my toppings around to ensure I saved enough meat for my last bite. The toppings tasted fresh and I could hear the crunch in my cabbage. Now that it's gone, I'm a little sad.

I will defiantly be making this place a staple on my...

The bread is cold. The food was okay. Very expensive. 63 dollars wasted... I thought I could rely on the fries to at least be decent, but there were random unchopped potatoes... I thought it was a meatball! And also the staff seemed as if they had something better to do. The cashier seemed distracted and was unfriendly. The atmosphere was extremely uncomftorable. Everytime I got up to get ketchup or any other reason the chairs didn’t have stoppers and everyone looked at me weirdly. The place is extremely claustrophobic! There are tables near the door and I was sitting on one of them, and everytime someone came in or got out my mother got elbowed or shoved by people passing by. Overall waste of money, uncomftorable, and claustrophobic. And don’t bring your kids, they’re definitely not welcome because this was my first time here and seemed annoyed when I asked how everything worked considering the line was confusing, and made no sense. And also not very clean. Will...