Lebanese Taverna — Restaurant in Washington

I have come to this restaurant many, many times with my family and have never had a poor experience. I came here in march with a group of friends, after heavily lobbying for this restaurant because of the food. However, our waiter (middle aged bald man) was probably the most unprofessional waiter I have ever had the displeasure of engaging with. We came in at 1:30 and were maybe one of three parties in the entire restaurant. A group of 12, we asked the staff if they wouldn't mind pushing a few tables together. They reluctantly obliged, for ten of us, asking two of the group to sit separately for no explained reason. Only half of us were served water and the other half had to repeatedly ask to get water, which was only met with mediocre success. Our waiter was unpleasant, rude, and showed his distaste of our group (who, though college-aged, had been nothing but respectful). Our waiter began vacuuming right next to our table after our orders were placed, and I mean within two feet of me personally, and only vacuumed that section of the restaurant. Seemingly to try and bother us. I ordered one of the sample plates, and when the waiter put down my food his finger slipped into my yogurt, leaving a finger mark in my food that he apologized for before licking his finger and disappearing without offering me another yogurt. Bewilderingly unprofessional. He refused to do separate checks, which I guess is fine but granted we were the only table he was serving appeared to be more out of laziness than anything else. I was shocked to see the level of service change between when I went with my parents vs when I went with some friends, but this restaurant showed their true colors I suppose. It's a shame too because the food, as always, was excellent (even our waiter seemed to enjoy my yogurt) but this level of "service" was utterly disgusting. I truly lament writing this review but the waiter managed to ruin our lunch. Great food, great location, terrible service. Very...

Dont waste your money!!!!

My have been to this resturant before, and my first experiance was OK, food quality was lower than medium for lebanese food and the price is way over board. Few days ago I was passing by and thought to give it another try and here is what happened. By the time we got to our seats the waiter asked if we want to order and when we requested 5 minutes to take our breath he kinda got mad and left the table and no body showed up. After 15 minutes we got ANOTHER server asking us if we were ready so we gave the order we asked for a side of fries fatoosh and grilled chicken. After 20 minutes we got the worst fatouch i have ever eaten in my life ( just bunch of vigges with crumbs of bread on top) no sauce was provided, and they got us the fries, tried to ask for garlic sauce which is the only reason why we asked for fries and we got it after 10 minutes when our fries got cold.

Later on i got the grilled chicken (the $20 plate worth of chicken ) and while i was eating that i felt like i was chewing gum. it was very chewy, very oily and when i tried to cut it open i found out that it was still raw from the inside. With no complaints i asked for my check and when i got it this food cost me about $50. I gave the money and got out disgusted.

This resturant is a shame for any middle eastren resturant in terms of hospitality and food quality and service.

Worst...

The food and the service was good. At first a nice Arabic music was playing it could’ve been a notch softer, but we didn’t mind. After 30 minutes or so, I noticed that the same music was playing over and over and over again and again...by this time, I asked a staff and was confirmed that the owner of the restaurant loves the song and is a famous Lebanese music and is playing the same song everyday as long as the Restaaurant is open. I told the staff to ask the owner to play other beautiful music from his country. The same music still was playing after an hour. I had to request it loudly to change the music for God sake that enough is enough. I has lost my appetite and couldn’t stand the music anymore. Finally a guy comes to me without introducing himself asking me what is wrong. I told him the he’s been playing the same music for an hour and that isn’t fun anymore that he needs to play verity of music not repeating one single music all day long everyday. He said that probably it’s stock. He changed it to another song for a short while but went back to the same old song repeating it again. I will never go back to this dysfunctional place ever again or recommend it...