Aladdin's Natural Eatery — Restaurant in Town of Pittsford

Not all bad, but the cons far outweigh the pros.

Short version: intensely rude hostess, oddly inflexible table count limits, burnt (not charred) chicken. Polite waitstaff, comfortable atmosphere, nice view of the canal, and all food other than the chicken pita was good.

Long version: Hostess was inexcusably rude; she would not seat us until our party reached some asinine threshold of six people, despite us having a kid with us and pretty much everyone being tired after a long day of work. Her favorite sentence is, "This was explained to you," which is kind of an idiot thing to say; we knew the things we had been told, and didn't dispute them, but there was a chunk we had not been told, in particular the "we won't seat you until you have six people here and will not budge or accept any form of compromise." To be fair, we had a large party with a flexible head count -- which they said they normally don't do -- so that was admittedly likely stressful. We were told they would try to put us at tables close to one another if they could, but they might not be able to, which we all understood going in and were fine with. What we didn't understand was not being willing to let us sit when we arrived despite literally begging to be allowed to. The table was bused and waiting for us, we just couldn't sit there.

As more people arrived, we were firmly if politely told that tables have headcount limits, and that instead of just seating people where they should go, they would overfill us at a table and then had to break us up, citing some fire-code they had been themselves informed of after a recent fire they had had. We knew that we weren't all going to get to sit together, but their handling of it was utterly graceless; don't put a mom and daughter at a table and then five minutes later tell everyone, "Some of you now have to go to a different table," only to then tell those that leave that the new table they prepared is once again too small. Seriously. This is ridiculous. I can't speak to whether or not having seven people (two of which are infants) that fit perfectly comfortably at a six-person table actually breaks a fire code, but I can tell you that it's absurd. Or, maybe not? I guess they did have a fire recently.

Things after this are pretty simple. The chicken in my pita was burnt and it ruined the whole thing; it tasted entirely like char. The rest of the food was fine, though, and to be fair, if they hadn't burnt the chicken, I wouldn't have a poor word to say about it.

The service (aside from that awful hostess) was generally polite, though the reshuffling of who was sitting where staggered it enough that one table completely finished eating by the time another had just ordered their food. I can't say that's unforgivable though, because we were warned about that ahead of time.

The view off the balcony is pleasant enough. If you chose to go here, I recommend you sit there.

Overall, I came away with a very negative impression of the place, and do not plan to eat...

This was an extremely disappointing experience. When we entered the restaurant we were ignored, although staff members were standing around near a counter and no one acknowledged our arrival. When the host came he quickly seated us and we waited a very long time we finally asked a wait staff member that was walking by to get our waiter. Our waiter came over and we gave our order, within a few minutes our drinks arrived and then our appetizers. In the midst of eating our appetizers the soups arrived, there was barely any room on our table for anything else. To our surprise the entrees arrived. The food runners were trying to place the entrees on the table where room was limited and a salad dressing fell off of the plate as well as a cup of hummus to the left of me on the table and floor. To the right of me the food runner dropped another salad dressing. When it fell off of the plate, it opened up and fell on the table spilling everywhere and onto my Birkenstock clog. The food runners were in shock and froze and didn’t know what to do. My family members threw there napkins over the spills before the dressings got all over my clothes. The food runners got towels and wiped the floor. When she realized that my Birkenstock clog was layered with dressing she said she would tell the manager. We moved to another table ourselves nearby, our waiter didn’t come over for awhile. We moved all of our foods to the other table. As we ate our meal our waiter informed us that the meal would be on the house. No manager ever came over to check on us nor apologize for what took place. There was no mention of my oil soaked shoe. As we were finishing our meal our waiter said that since our meal was covered by the restaurant that we could leave whenever we wanted. Quite an awkward statement. Some shrimp were undercooked , some chicken was dry and tasted old. The restaurant was not very clean, the silverware was undesirable, the windows in the doors were covered with handprints and the men’s room was filthy according to my husband. It was an unpleasant experience and we do not plan...

I'm giving this place 3 stars because honestly it's been one of my favorite places to eat during the summer to be alongside the canal and the food is great. I would give it a 5 star, however, tonight I had an awful experience with the staff, one in particular.

I always request to sit along the canal and it's never been a problem. I'm always with one other person so it's a party of 2. When I requested tonight, the hostess sat me at a table along the wall and I politely asked if we could sit on the canal in the sun. And she said oh of course! And proceeded to help me gather our things to sit at the other table. She walked away and I no longer start to set my stuff down when another waitress approaches the table and says, "sorry, we reserve these tables for bigger parties". And I said oh ok and proceeded to move back to the table I was just at. No big deal, I understood. BUT what came next was just rude and unacceptable and I know the other tables who witnessed this all unfold felt the same way as I did and understood why I would be upset.

2 minutes later that same waitress sits a party of 2 at that table that my party of 2 just had to move from because our party wasn't big enough!!!!

I was shocked and when she came to take the drink order, I questioned her about it and she cut me off and said that I'm not supposed to move myself and assume I can take the table. Which isn't what happened at all...the hostess helped me move and I tried to explain that to her and she cut me off and proceeded to say that it was already claimed. Bullshit.

Like are you kidding me???!!!! Awful service due to a very rude and inconsiderate waitress. Such a shame, because I really do love this place and always recommend it as a #1 stop.

Oh and my salad was supposed to have dressing on it. It came without the dressing and I had to ask for it. The little bit I got wasn't enough to cover the salad, so I asked for a bit more. And I was charged for it!!!! $1.25 extra for something that was supposed to be on my salad...