Baladina Mediterranean Restaurant & Cafe — Restaurant in Toms River

Food was great but the service was horrible! My husband and I came here to eat and after we got seated waitress (I think her name was Michelle) asked me what I want to drink, so I said just water for both of us (my husband was in the bathroom). She was like "you mean bottled water?". I'm like "no, just regular water, the one that is free". She got really surprised and said that they don't have a filter (oh boy, just like all the other restaurants in America). Clearly, she wanted me to buy a bottle of water. When my husband returned she pointed at me and said to him "she said to bring tap water". It gets even better... So I don't eat a lot and wanted something small and of course she told me that they don't make that dish today. Of course, after I didn't buy her water. Then, I ordered appetizer as my main course, she was confused once again. Before she took menus back, I counted how much our food would cost and when we got the bill, it was $10 more expensive, so I started comparing prices and apparently prices in the bill were $2-3 higher than on the menu. I asked her about that and she said "we're waiting for an updated menu, we raised our prices since COVID". It's fine if they raised their prices, it's not fine to not let customers know! That lady was trying to scam us every...

Wow! Just had our first experience of this spectacular Mediterranean restaurant on Fischer Blvd in Toms River...it is amazing!!! First of all, they have a really pretty and cool outside seating area so we dined outside. The waitress Michele was sooo nice, and sooo helpful! She explained all the dishes and made us feel extremely welcomed. We tried the dish called KOSHARI (which is a huge portion of a delicious combination of chickpeas, macaroni, black lentils, and rice all melted with fried onions and tomato sauce, all mixed with a special Egyptian sauce. This is the national dish of Egypt and it’s awesome!). Next we tried the BALADINA MIXED GRILL PLATTER (a generous sampling of chicken, Kufta, lamb, Gyro and lamb chop, all grilled to perfection... also came with a large portion of saffron rice and a delicious chopped cucumber with tomato and red onion and fresh mint and lemon juice salad). The lamb chop was off the charts delicious, I had to fight my girlfriend for a bite! We also had the stuffed grape leaves which were authentically perfect. Try the refreshing home made unsweetened tea with fresh mint...yum! We can’t wait to come back, and we highly recommend you come out and have a delicious meal, it’s like going to the Mediterranean right in...

This was the first time at Baladina Mediterranean Restaurant. The food was excellent. The service was fantastic. The atmosphere was wonderful. Don't judge a book by its cover. The restaurant is in a strip mall but once you go inside you would not know it. Micho was our server. She was very helpful in suggesting items on the menu and explaining what different dishes were. For an appetizer we shared a Baba Gannough. For entrees my wife had the Ouzi with chicken and I had the Chicken Shawarma Platter. For dessert we had the Om Ali and the Makroud. Everything was excellent and perfectly prepared. We will definitely come back and bring friends and family with us. They even gave out red roses to the ladies for Valentine's day. Thank you for a wonderful meal and a relaxing time. We haven't had a meal out like that in...