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| - We were visiting family in Scottsdale and they took us to dinner at this location, because they like Pita Jungle and because this was supposedly one of the original, non-franchise locations. In their words:"this is the best Mediterranean food you'll have. And their vegetarian food is amazing." Maybe I'm spoiled with Greek, Lebanese and nouvelle Mediterranean food establishments on the East Coast, but I was prepared to be amazed. No such luck! The Patio was full on the lovely evening we went there and inside was cold and very loud, with the industrial decor doing nothing to make conversations easy. The friendly hostess made sure we had our own nook (can you please re-upholster the banquettes or change the seats, they are uncomfortably worn out) and left us to wait for our server. It took a long time for water to appear and even longer for our server. We ordered drinks and a plate of what is commonly known as meze (appetizers) with warm pita to share while we were deciding what to get for dinner. Amazingly, they charge for each pita above the two that come with the platter. And two is not enough for a shared plate. Our wine finally came out, gingerly carried by our server with fingers on the bowl - yuck! The platter of appetizers was underwhelming: 2 falafel, deep fried into oblivion, some passable tabbouleh, slabs of feta, 2 rice filled grape leaves, which were so uniform that they must have been industrially made and finally spoonfuls of hummus, tzatziki, baba ghanoush and ratatouille (?). The dips were okay, nothing you couldn't buy in any decent grocery store these days. The ratatouille was a far cry from it, and not even close to the Mediterranean "Ghiveci" you can get in Greek, Turkish, etc. restaurants or make at home. The chunks of zucchini were big, the rest nonexistent and in a thin, bland sauce. No sooner had we dug into the appetizers, that our main dishes show up and the server and busboy hustle to make room for them. In other words, say goodbye to whatever you wanted to mop up with pita on the appetizer platter! Our serve got half the orders wrong, but by that time we were really hungry. Not only did the server argue with us about what we ordered, we were cowed into eating what was placed in front of us. The vaunted Shrimp Paesano special was one pound (yes, one pound!) of noodles with four measly shrimp on top and shreds of some vegetables. The fish on the salad was raw, not seared and my lavosh portobello pizza deserves a sentence of its own. Nice crisp crust, good mix of cheeses and tomato slices, basil (not herbs, as in the menu) sliced and not chiffonaded, but here was the kicker - the mushrooms were in thick slices, they were raw and the olives scattered on the pizza had pits in them! When finally summoned over, our server offered to have the kitchen cook the mushrooms. Having read about what might happen to food that goes back, I politely declined. In the end we got free dessert, a nice touch and both the rice pudding and the baklava were tasty, albeit run of the mill. We like our family, so we agreed with whatever they said, but even my husband who will pretty much eat anything shook his head.
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