Shadi's Restaurant and Lounge

My family and I took my sister for lunch at Shadi's for her birthday today and being of Middle Eastern descent, we were disappointed. To start, our waitress seemed put out because we asked for a table that had enough light to be able to read our menus and she did not hide her irritation at our table change. When she came to take our order, she was so rushed and stressed, despite a lack of crowd that she instantly had us all feeling just as stressed, and she couldn't seem to understand the most simple request. We ordered an appetizer of grape leaves, which arrived surrounded in what looked like tomato juice. Our waitress left so fast that we didn't realize that there wasn't any yogurt or laban brought with it. Laban, like syrian bread, is eaten with almost everything, and for us to have to ask for it, and to have to pay extra for it was, in my opinion, an insult to Middle Eastern dining.

The grape leaves had the right tang and they weren't mushy, but there's a very important spice missing and the tomato juice-no, no, a really big no, it ruined them and gave them the flavor of stuffed cabbage instead. The leaves were also stringy and tough.The laban, once brought, was like cream cheese, it was far too thick. Laban is supposed to be thicker than yogurt, but not so much that it takes muscle to scoop it up!

Upon delivering our meals, our waitress uncomfortably squeezed through my sisters to deliver some plates where she could have had more finesse than to just shove them aside and joke about it. She seemed to try to be making up for her earlier attitude, but I have to say, she was a terrible waitress. She also blew the secret about the birthday cake, which was supposed to be a surprise.

Some positives were the lamb on the stick, kibbee balls, and hommus dip as a hot appetizer, which were all well-prepared. The atmosphere was nice when we switched tables from the dark corner; but more lighting would certainly be welcome.

Our dining experience rates a 2 out of 5, due to the fact that the grape leaves were the one dish all of us were looking forward to and were most diappointed with, but also because dining is more than just consuming food. Equally as important as the quality of the food is the quality of the overall experience itself, and a less-stressed, less chaotic, more gracious server would have made all the difference.

Nice change from the previous restaurants at this location.  Food was pretty good, but not exceptional.  Few things keep this from getting 4 stars.  Please don't serve me pita bread in a plastic bag in a basket with a paper napkin.  Please bring my food to table while it's still hot.  Plenty of wait staff, but wasn't very fast or warm, though they said all the things they needed to to be polite.  I will give them another try.

I did another review on the other listing for shadi's, but figured i'd update over here since this one is popping off a bit more. What the hell happened? I hadn't been to the methuen location in quite sometime so maybe this happened a while ago. I had lunch here a while ago, and it was alright, grape leaves a little bland as my review on the other listing stated. I figured i would try again for dinner, one night about two weeks ago, got essentially the same order as last time (arabic platter with salad and fries) again, the grape leaves were tasteless but even worse everything about my previous visit that was at least okay was awful. My fries were soggy and not at all seasoned, my kibbeh was dry, as was the chicken my girlfriend ordered. Sultan's right down the street is far more affordable and a lot tastier.