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| - I was going to start this review off by saying, "If you ever have the chance to eat at Zanzibar in Shaker Square, DON'T!" But then I realized, I can't tell you what to do; but I can give you insight into my experience and let you decide if you'd like to waste your hard-earned money and/or time dining at this establishment. The food was terrible and the management is a disrespectful joke!
If you're going for something light and or healthy, this is not the place for you. Granted, this is a "soul food" restaurant, so that comes with the territory. There are virtually no real options for the health-conscience. Even the "Vegetable Platter" - which can be assumed to be the only "real" vegetarian option, aside from a salad - is a bit laughable; the choices being an a la carte mash-up of their starchy sides - only one of them being of the green variety.
If you get an appetizer, I suggest you DO NOT get the Soul Rolls. (Again, just a suggestion.) They were sold to us as, "It's like having all of Thanksgiving dinner in one roll." They are greasy, not appealing to the eye, and not appealing to the taste buds either. How something can be overly salty yet spicy at the same time is amazing, but it's pulled off in this dish.
The main dishes were the biggest disappointment of the night (other than the management; but I'll get to that in a second). First of all, each meal has this pre-planned side dish, that you cannot change unless you pay an extra charge; and an additional "free" side dish. Why you cannot sub out a side dish of equal price without paying extra is baffling, and the reason was never actually clarified. And the way it was explained, even if you opt to only have one side dish, you still can't have the side dish you want unless you pay an extra charge. (So say your entrée comes with the Cajun corn, but you want the yams instead without the additional free side. You'd still have to pay extra to make that happen.)
I had the "Bar B Qued Braised Beef." The sauce was nice and tangy, but the main star - the beef - was dry as chalk. Somehow, it was fork-tender, yet lacking any juiciness or flavor. The Mac-n-Cheese, which had an additional charge tagged onto it, tasted like the equivalent of licking a salt block. Someone ordered the Half Baked Chicken and had the same complaint of saltiness.
On the menu, there is the Half Baked Chicken, mentioned above; and then directly below it is a sampler entrée called something along the lines of Feast of Zanzibar. It gives you the option to try two of the following in one dish: a Walleye cake, salmon croquette, something else, and ¼ chicken. It fails to mention what kind of chicken, so one would believe it would be the baked, if it's a sampler of something that's already listed on the menu. Someone ordered this dish with that assumption, and when it came out as fried chicken, the true disappointment came. It was addressed as soon as the food hit the table, and that's when we were finally informed that that's the only option because they don't bother to prepare the baked chicken as quarters as an option. When the person who ordered it didn't want anything else in its place because the only other options too were fried, but wanted keep the plate for the other protein and the side (she had to pay extra to sub out), the server offered to send the manager over.
This is when the whole experience became utterly disgusting. The manager on duty at the time, Christine, didn't so much as apologize for the confusion or inconvenience. She came up and half-heartedly asked about what was going on, tried to push some other dish on us, and disregarded the suggestion given that the servers should make the facts known about the dishes when they're ordered. She was supposed to be making it right with the person who was unhappy about their meal (not me). But when I had jumped because someone had laughed real loud (don't get me started on the acoustics of this place), she stopped midway through "problem solving" and tried to make a joke about how she had to look too because she didn't know what could be going on these days (in her own restaurant, mind you). When it was thrown out there that that particular meal should be discounted because it was now incomplete and missing one of the main components, this woman didn't say anything at all. NOTHING! She just rolled her eyes and walked away. She could have even said, "I'm sorry; but I can't do that;" and that would have been at least respectful. But, then again, she didn't even apologize for the menu being misleading, the fact that they couldn't make a simple thing like cutting a piece of chicken in half happen, or anything else; so what else could we have expected?
The only redeeming thing about this visit was the server, Joseph. He was fun, personable, charismatic, and he (at least seemed) to show genuine concern. If you still have to check this place, make sure he is your server.
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