Shahrazad Mediterranean Restaurant

The daily check special half chicken was really good falling of the bone soft. Seasoned to perfection with rice and i ordered tatziky sauce on the side. I killed the whole plate. One issue i had is the waiting… that made me want to leave but i kept my cool… they need to do something about that, honestly, cant have customers waiting so long, need to change that.

Listen, there is no such thing as the perfect falafel and shawarma; I learned that almost 20 years ago. They are basic dishes that don’t require much to make them average or good, sort of like fried chicken.
I tend to find good falafels and shawarma at grocery stores and restaurants like the old Salaam Market in Ballwin MO and the old Serrano’s in North Philadelphia.
Falafel: 1.5÷5 Ok my thing with this place is the price to portion ratio. it sucked …6 falafel about the size of a quarter?! I looked @ that ish and was like Ashton Kutcher come out… this has got to be a special edition of Punk’d. The falafel was average. The only good thing about it was the amount of cumin used. The lettuce was very suspect like even a homeless rabbit wouldn’t fool with it. Tahini sauce was average but im not big on the kind made with parsley.
Beef shawarma ²⁄₅ again the price to portion ratio was a huge issue. It’s the same size and tasted almost like Al Tarboush Deli in U-​City but higher $ and minus the potted oily can meat taste of Al Tarboush.
After this experience, I’m think I’m going to stick to what I know for these food items.

I don’t eat a lot of Mediterranean food but found everything I tried was great. The portions were so big we should have ordered half the amount. The staff was wonderful but greatly overwhelmed. Worth the wait though for sure.

Delicious Mediterranean food! I took this order to go however the atmosphere seemed to be very pleasant and relaxing. Nice patio option too!
The only thing holding me from a 5 star rating was the attitude of the male server that was there. I asked him about the Unilocal check in offer and he said it had expired even though it was clearly on my phone that the coupon existed.
The food when we got it back to our place was still hot and worth the wait!

This place serves fresh and delicious food. The hummus is so good, I took a to-​go order home. The menu has some American items like burgers and Chicago beef sandwiches to accommodate non-​adventurous eaters like my husband. This will be on our regular rotation.

Excellent humus. Chicken shawarma sandwich was good as well. Extremely friendly staff. Loved this place will go back again for sure.

We split a gyro and had the babba ganoush appetizer. They were better tasting than some of the other Mediterranean places nearby

Excellent food. They have the best hummus I’ve ever had. The lamb kabobs are wonderful. I am excited to recommend this restaurant.

From the tea to the dessert and all the appetizers and main courses in between… this place is the real deal when it comes to Mediterranean and middle eastern dishes. Great hummus. I wish they had a lunch menu though! And do not forget to order the Arabic tea… simply the best.
Had to lower one star from my original review. Service, by no fault of the server, is slow. Especially on Sundays. A single server is just not enough to cover all the tables. Looking forward to speedier service next time!

Went there to pick up food 3 times. All three times my order was messed up and they did not give me full entrees that I ordered and paid for. I called to complain, but they just yelled at ME! Food is great, but Staff is careless and rude! The place is always empty. I am sure they will be out of business within a year. I will never go back. What a shame.

pictures worth of thousand words: good food, pleasant atmosphere, and the best tea in town!
Will be back to confirm…

Great little place. Stopped for a quick lunch and had an amazing array of authentic dishes. Staff was friendly and gave us a complimentary dish. Perfect lunch

Food when it arrived in phases was very good. Wife had the fallelful, son had beef kabob sandwich, other son had lamb gyros and I had lamb dish with rice. Everything had great flavors. Hummus was also very tasty.

2.5÷5
Severely mediocre Mediterranean. Located in Lafayette Shopping Center just a few doors down from Dierberg’s. The place is spacious enough to accommodate small and large groups but not sure there’s enough staff to make any group experience go off without a hitch. I was 1 of 2 tables and it took a little longer than anticipated to get my simple order. Although, the young lady serving was very nice she was often M.I.A.
The hummus was decent, the baba was on garlic overload and the grape leaves were just OK. Nothing knocked my socks off so I definitely won’t be back for a second visit. The most disappointing thing about my visit was the luke-​warm pita bread I had to keep asking for after 2 bites of hummus because I refuse to eat cold/​crispy pita.
The décor screams Middle East, there is outside seating and a TV that displays a repetitive slide show.
~Christy reporting live, ²⁄₁₀₀

Unbelievable. I placed my order 50 minutes ago, they said 15 minutes. I show up twenty minutes later, and stand at the counter for ten minutes waiting for someone to even say hello. Then, they greet me and bring me the receipt for my food, and are missing half my order. I say that’s fine, just bring me what you do have. I have now been waiting twenty minutes for half or my order. There are four tables total here.
It’s honestly insulting. Prepare to get upset if you come here.

We went in here hoping it would be amazing. It was anything but that. When we called they said they had seating available. We showed up about 20 mins later and it took about 15 mins for us to get sat. We actually had to put our own tables together because the host/​busser didn’t have a clue on what was going on, there were 9 of us. After putting our tables together we sat for about another 15 mins without any menus or drinks. After asking another server we finally got to order our drinks and a couple of appetizers. Only after about 30 mins we got our warm water, flat soda and still no appetizers.
Finally, the appetizers arrived and quiet surprisingly they were pretty good. Very small portions but pretty good. Our food finally arrived literally 60 – 75 mins later… we were just starving by this point. I ordered a lamb kabob sandwich and honestly it was terrible. The meat wasn’t even warm, it was all falling out from the bottom. We ended up getting a different server half way through, she was nice but it really wasn’t her fault. The kitchen failed to please our palettes, service was poor and EXTREMELY SLOW, and food was bad besides the appetizers.

Let’s get this straight. 4 stars for food only and 0 for service. We arrived at 6:30pm. Got seated at 7pm not because there was a wait, because tables were not clean. They had two servers and one cook working!
It took 10 mins for drinks about 45 mins for appetizers and an another 30 mins for dinner. After hour and a half we all finally got our food. Unless they make these improvements ASAP I don’t think they’ll last. The waitress was nice and friendly and it wasn’t her fault for lack of manpower.
For appetizer we ordered Hummus, Falafel and Kibbeh. Hummus and falafel were both good. But falafels are much smaller in size compared to other Arab restaurants.
We also ordered Kibbeh — a torpedo-​shaped fried croquette stuffed with minced onions and finely ground beef very good, delicious and flavorful. It almost reminded me of a smaller hot pocket but WAY better.
The chicken kabab sandwich — grilled on skewer and stuffed inside of white pita bread with fresh vegetables was pretty good. It was priced well at $ 7.99 but it was small with no sides. The Lamb sandwich cooked same way as aforementioned was also very good but again no sides and priced at $ 8.99.
My friend ordered the mushroom swiss burger and she said it was very good. The sandwich was huge with a thick slice of beef patty served with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and fresh fries.
An other friend ordered the kabab entrée which came with bland yellow rice and juicy five pieces of grilled chicken. Same type of meat this is inside the chicken kabab sandwich.
For dessert we ordered Kanafeh — made from long thin noodle threads, spread with soft white cheese and topped with thick syrup of sugar and diced pistachios. It was the closest to the authentic Kanafeh I’ve had so far. Very very good and fresh.
I would only visit this place after staffing is fixed.

Traditional décor, good prices, good service, and better yet the food.
For anyone stumbling over the name, it is Shahrazad — the story telling queen of 1001 nights aka Arabian Nights.
With greek, mediterranean, and middle eastern food, St. Louis has a lot of great food like Shahrazad. Somehow they still stood out.
Out in Manchester in the middle of the afternoon, most of the fun places I’ve been wanting to try were closed. Unilocal always seems to get hours wrong or not specify, so I was even calling ahead. Shahrazad was miraculously open, and had a giant parking lot out front next to the grocery store. Apparently they’re also open late!
It had so much atmosphere that I knew I needed to try something here I hadn’t had before. I went with the beef shawarma because somehow not growing up in St. Louis, I hadn’t tried that dish before. Shawarma is wonderfully spicy (more spiced than hot). The server brought out a sauce she thought I might enjoy with it. The dinner plates came with some different salads like tabouli or I just got the hummus. I really enjoyed the pita that came with it. It was much thinner than you find elsewhere and very soft. Unlike some of the cheapest places I enjoy, this place gave a more upscale dining experience. The presentation of the food and the fresh ingredients implying everything here is home made from scratch. Delicious!
The highlight of the meal was the Arabic Coffee. It came out in a very ornate set and the flavor was great spiced with cardamom and possibly more.
The service was perfect and I definitely enjoyed my meal here. If I’m out in Manchester, I would not hesitate to return. They’re open when nobody else is!

In the book One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, Shahrazad, the new bride of the King tells her husband a new story every night for 1001 nights to put off her execution. She must be pretty good at story-​telling because she survives at least 1001 nights just because he wants to hear how the stories end. I wonder though if she makes a mean hummus? Shahrazad is a very popular female name in the Middle East and probably where this restaurant takes it name for those of you who like trivia and were wondering about the name.
Because this is a new restaurant in West County I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they will improve the service and staffing. I have dined here twice in the past week because my husband & I loved the food. The one server they do have handles everything in the dining room and she is a sweetheart. But, she is only one person, and they could really use two or three.
What I do love about this restaurant besides the delicious food is that its very small and has a nice family friendly feel to it. The owner comes out of the kitchen and talks to you and even brings you stuff to try just because. This is a nice touch.
My daughters were with us and ordered double cheese burgers. New Flash! These are the biggest burgers ever and they couldn’t even bite into them without first taking them apart! These came with fries and a soda so it was a very good value at $ 7.99 because they were basically two meals. My daughter ate the rest of hers the next day for dinner. They were tasty burgers made from Halal meat and the fries were really good too. (I know because I ate some of them :)
Their Falafal, Hummus and Baba Ganoujsh are all wildly delicious.
I have ordered the kabobs both times and chose 3 different meats, kafka, lamb and chicken. These are served with a generous portion of rice and its all very flavorful and filling.
If you like Mediterranean/​Middle Eastern food or are just curious to try it you should stop in Shahrazad. They have a nice size menu with a good selection, including burgers and italian beef sandwiches if you are dining with picky eaters. They also have a kids menu that includes a hot dog and fries. With my picky teenagers we were able to eat Mediterranean and they were able to have an American cheeseburger. Win/​Win!

I have not gotten a chance to try Mediterranean cuisine not as much as I would have liked too. In fact this is my first time. From what I can tell it is pretty good.
The building is nice and clean on the inside, looks a bit different and a bit dated inside, but decent. I just love the outside patio, would be so nice to eat out there and enjoy a great meal.
I ordered the Classic Mansaf; which was the Lamb Mansaf — Mansaf is a traditional Jordanian and Palestinian dish made of lamb or chicken cooked in aged yogurt, with rice and pita-​bread served in a rich sauce made of cooking yogurt. It had a good taste to it, sort of tangy and creamy together. Think cream lemon and dill sauce.
I will have to say they have some good lamb and the Mediterranean pita bread in that yogurt sauce was delicious. I could have just ate the rice and the bread alone.
I really enjoyed myself here and I would love to go back, this is the sort of place where you have to try everything on the menu to really get an idea of the best of the best!
The service here was good, you can tell they want you to be happy with your meal and the water tasted good, I can’t recall getting any chlorine type taste, nice fresh clean water, I like mines with lemon in it.
When my plate came out of the kitchen it had great eye appeal, beautiful large lamb shank with lots of meat on it, in a bead of rice with a dish of the yogurt to put into the rice and plenty of pita bread on the side. I started making little lamb sandwiches… mmmm…delicious.
The flavor of the lamb was so good to me, I love how it tastes, and sort of lamby… gamy…but not overbearing and succulent meat off the lamb bone makes you want more. The flavor of the pita bread was great. It was light golden brown not chewy… just the right texture for this dish and went so well with it. Even after I took the rest home, as I couldn’t eat it all, it warmed up real good and had great flavor. The rice alone, is just rice, but add that yogurt cream sauce with the tang, and it is a unique excitement in your mouth. I love trying new foods and shocking my palate.
The smell of your food when it gets to you will be better than the taste almost, you may forget to say grace as it has your mouth watering from when you first lay eyes on it and get a good whiff into your nostrils.
This spot was a 60 mile round trip for me, so I am hoping to be able to try it from time to time when I get to the area. It really gives me something to think about when I am near… this will be my place to stop and I am not eating when I know I am coming this way!!!