TL;DR/food in order: Musakhan, Mixed Mezze, Maqluba, Bedouin Zarb, and then Mansaf. 4% addition for…read morecard usage. I'd probably leave them a 5 for portion compared to price and quality, but the service wasn't good for multiple reasons.
I went to this Palestinian restaurant, open since late last year, with a group earlier in the evening. The food overall was very tasty, but I found the service at best inept. I understand that it's a casual spot, but there were multiple issues throughout the evening with the two female servers. We were first without napkins, had to ask for more silverware, and had to repeatedly ask for spoons to share, so we eventually just reused things and moved them back and forth between dishes. There was also the fact that they don't serve tap water here even when asked, so it's a $1.45 minimum unless you want one of their drinks. I got a mint lemonade for $4.95, which was decent, and others got water, a hibiscus drink for the same price as mine, or a malt drink. They also brought out a ton of dishes while we were still having appetizers and eventually just put stuff on another table as we obviously didn't have room, so I guess order the appetizers only to begin with unless you want an overcrowded table. There were also issues with the bill, but I'll bring that up later.
We started with the excellent Mixed Mezze for $29.95, with hummus, baba ghanoj, labneh, olives, pickles, salata tahina, tabbouleh, falafel, makdous, and fresh Soul of Palestine bread. The portion was large, with the dish reminding me of the old portion size from Ayat or Al Badawi before either expanded. The mixed mezze were all tasty and went well with the warm bread, with particularly good falafel (3 pieces) and hummus, but the baba and salata tahina were tasty as well. The only thing hard to split was the makdous, which came with one eggplant, but the inside was tasty. As mentioned, as we were plowing through the appetizer, our entrees started to arrive.
First to arrive was the Bedouin Zarb for $31.95, listed as a traditional Bedouin method of cooking meat in the pit oven, served with rice. The meat in question was lamb, and there was a pretty big chunk that was very tender. The rice was the highlight, as it was nicely spiced with some slivered almonds. The dish reminded me of a slightly weaker version of the Hadramout Lamb from Yemenat nearby, but it was still tasty.
Next to arrive was the best dish of the night, the $24.95 Musakhan, listed as the national dish of Palestine, made of roasted chicken over taboon bread topped with onions, sumac, and nuts, served with yogurt. I was originally going to get the Ouzi, but I went with this instead as they were out of it, and it was a blessing in disguise. Compared to the other Palestinian spots, the chicken was much more tender here, and they put a lot more sweet onions on the bread. The only complaint I could make is that I wish there were more nuts and sumac.
Also, for the same price, there was the equally excellent Maqluba, listed on the menu as Jerusalem Flip, with spiced rice, half a chicken, eggplant, cauliflower, potato, and salad. Like the other dish, the chicken itself was very tender, with the rice being a bit less spiced than the Zarb but still flavorful, with a couple of crispy pieces. The various vegetables were very tasty, and I particularly liked the cauliflower, which I wish there were more of. The yogurt with cucumber on the side reminded me of raita.
Finally, there was the $31.95 Mansaf with lamb cooked in dried yogurt/jmeed, over a bed of saj bread and rice topped with nuts. As with the other dishes, the portion was quite large, with a giant amount of fluffy rice. The lamb was very flavorful, but not nearly as tender as some other spots, with a bit too much rendered fat. This made it a bit harder to split compared to the better version at Al Badawi. The jmeed added some nice sour flavor and helped with the richness.
We were planning on trying their $9.99 knafeh/chnafa (a new spelling for me), which is one of my favorite desserts, but they were out of it along with the other halwa. That was unfortunate, but it made the bill a bit less annoying. Speaking of which, they weren't able to separate the drinks from the bill at the end. They also auto-built in a 4% card usage fee and couldn't print a bill for cash usage to save on that fee, so I had to calculate it all, which was a pain. Eventually, we left with plenty of leftovers for around $40 a person, minus drinks.