Mediterranean Food (Falafel , Shawerma , Kebab , Hummus ) in Austin

[texantodd]

Originally Posted by centralaustinite

I lived and worked for many years in the Arab Middle East, sigh, such good food! Short of driving to Houston, the best I have found in Austin is Arpeggio Grill. Great buffet, great fattoush, etc. Not perfect but reasonably close to the real deal.

http://www.arpeggiogrill.com/

I am sorry to bring up an old thread, but I had to reply to this. Based on this here recomendation I went to try this place out. I also have spent alot of time in Lebanon, Israel and Jordan among other places and middle eastern cooking is one of my favorites.

I was so disapointed with this spot. It was just absolutely awful. Here is a brief review I wrote for my blog:

I love Lebanese/Middle Eastern food, and have spent alot of time in that region of the world and so I know what it should be like. This place came highly recomended from some others, and I have to say I was so disapointed.

My date and I began with two starters, the hummus and an order of tabouleh. The hummus was very 'thin'/runny which was not a good consistency. It was then covered in about 3 times more oil than was appropriate, and served with thin, bought in, poor quality pita bread. And this is the pita used for everything. And let me stress once again, it was very bad pita bread. Awful.

The fatoush I will say this for - it was not traditional in any way, it seemed like a fusion dish, but it was actually really enjoyable to me. I would eat that again, and was very happy with that dish - despite a clear lack of authenticity there.

For her entre my date had a beef shawarma plate, and the meat was just sort of there; it wasn't terrible, it wasn't tender or tough but rather somewhere in between. It had some seasoning, but did not register as middle easter/lebanese spicing. It was like someone was trying to make a McDonalds, american style of the food.

I ordered the Mashawi platter which came with chicken shawarma, koufta kabob skewer and gryo meet. The chicken shawarma did have the proper seasoning palate, but it was so dry and hammered it was like eating sawdust. Terrible texture, beyond dried out and just inedible. The "koufta kabob skewer" was neither a koufta, nor a kabob, nor skewered. It was a flat, thin patty of meet, underseasoned, tough, overcooked. The gryo meat was the best thing on the plate, and it was below par as well.

There were two other elements that I can say good things for - the rice was very nicely cooked and good; the tzatziki sauce was also very good. But that brings me to another point - EVERYTHING here is served with tzatziki. That is so wrong ... shawarma gets a tahini sauce, tzatziki is a greek sauce. Shawarmas and falafel should never, ever be served with tzatziki sauce which is what is happening here.

If I can add something else nice I would say that I like the atmosphere of the restaurant. They have a section of tables where you sit in carpeted areas on the floor, with a low table as you might (and I have) in tents around the region. It made for a nice interesting atmosphere.

But that is where more frustration comes from for me. The atmosphere here would be a great place, somewhere I would like to come back to. Unfortunately the very poor food makes that a strong improbability. I work too hard for my money to come back to this poorly cooked, bland, and very inauthentic food.

[centralaustinite]

Too bad! Frankly outside of Detroit, there is so little really good ME food anywhere in the US. I will say that I have never eaten off the menu at night, only the lunch buffet.

If you ever find a decent place in Central Texas, let us know!