O'Falafel Middle Eastern Cuisine — Restaurant in Salt Lake City

The young man at the register was so kind! But unfortunately that's the only positive I can say about this place. We ordered a chicken shawarma sandwich, fries, grilled chicken and basmati rice, and veggie pickle. I've noticed the owner from at least one year ago replied to a poor review, reacting pretty poorly. I understand it's your livelihood, but it's our money and I owe it to you and other customers to be fully honest. Please take the feedback, because we love the idea of the place, but the food is inauthentic and executed poorly.

The shawarma sandwich on their website shows a lovely bed of lettuce under the sandwich, with a side of sauce and basically a salsa. We received a sandwich, that's all. The chicken was cooked well, but it was seasoned with a bland seasoning that was quite grainy on the texture. It held a decent spice (fairly mild) but that's about all the flavor I got from it. I expected a depth of flavor :( They also put that salsa, some unidentified white sauce, and some shredded lettuce inside the sandwich that absolutely reads more like a Mexican restaurant.

With the grilled chicken and basmati rice, my husband said it was incredibly bland. Like they maybe put passata on rice with grilled chicken. Unlike the website description, we could taste no onion and no mushroom, let alone find any evidence in the sauce.

The fries were just store bought frozen fries and definitely not made fresh. Just standard, bland fries.

The pickled veggies weren't actually pickled? I'm confused because they basically chopped a few veggies and threw them in a take away container. Bland.

We asked for sauce, and both sauces (one is a cilantro thing? But very bland), horribly bland.

Overall this was a 0/4 success of the dishes. Would definitely not recommend, and will not be going back again. There's literally no flavor in this food. I almost want to say that Mexicans are (poorly) running this restaurant and don't have a clue about authentic middle...

I’ve driven by a million times. Finally set out to try it with some friends. We settled on this restaurant for its high reviews. I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I was quite glad we stopped by!

They have great appetizers! I ordered an appetizer plate which consisted of Jerusalem salad, hummus, falafel, and basil labaneh. Vegetarian meals/food aren’t really my forte. But the meal left me delighted, and I didn’t miss meat at all! I’m always looking for tasty ways to introduce more veggies into my diet. Falafel: TO DATE, best falafel I’ve ever eaten! It had just the right texture: nice and crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside. Break it open and it lets out steam.🤤 I loved dipping the crunchy falafel into the tangy labaneh; or topping it with the light and refreshing tomatoes/cucumbers of the Jerusalem salad. Basil labaneh: the flavor was amazing! I took an olive oil tasting class once; they taught me that real olive oil should be peppery/spicy. Maybe it’s my imagination but the olive oil, in the crater of the labaneh, had the slightest hint of pungency. Either way, the olive oil tasted high quality, and I loved it! The BREAD though!!! It was also fantastic! Nice and chewy and soft! 😍 I was very impressed.

I decided to come back and try a tin plate since I loved the appetizers so much. I ordered the makhshi plate. It was good, but didn’t quite uphold my feelings for the appetizers. This time around I noticed they offer soursop juice! I’ve made it my next goal to tackle the grape leaves, and to try more tin plates. The falafel and labaneh were tasty enough to keep me coming back again and again; especially when I have a Greek craving, or when I want a delicious way to enjoy my daily vegetable intake. This restaurant is wonderful, and I can’t wait to help keep it...

My husband and I ate dinner here last night and were very impressed! The food was spectacular! We had the Falafel tin, the gyro tin, grape leaves, lentil spinach soup, hummus and batklava. The lamb was So tender and soft- pretty sure the best lamb meat I have ever had. My husband loved the falafel tin. The hummus was out of this world amazing! You can tell this restaurant takes pride in their homemade cooking!

The place itself has cute wall paintings and pictures of the Mediterranean. Super cute!

The service- we had a young gentleman that you could tell was new. He was super cute and very accommodating. We asked questions and he used the POS( the computer) to help him answer our questions- which is totally ok!! Very nice manners as well.

There are only two critiques that my husband noticed and are not a big deal at all! 1) we didn’t know if we were to leave the dishes on the table or bring them back up front( we just brought them up front) and 2) my husbands falafel tin had a lot of rice. This is a hit or miss with him as he likes more salad than rice but nothing bad on the restaurant’s part!

I am a restaurant manager and again- I was thoroughly impressed and we will definitely be back!

Thank you so much!

On a side note- I LOVE that the owner writes back to the reviews. This shows he cares about...