REB and I made our second visit to Taza yesterday, and our initial feelings about the place were confirmed. The breads are very good, but the food is mostly unimpressive.
We picked up a few things for carryout on our first visit a few weeks ago, including a beef schwarma sandwich, a lahmajun bread, some hummus, a spinach pie, a potato pie, and a 4-pack of the tannur bread. By the time we got it home, the schwarma was bland and dry and the only thing we could do to make it palatable was to add a ton of hot sauce. The meat on the lahmajun bread (described as "tri-tip" on the menu, but more aptly explained as a "ground beef spread") was too mushy and earned an unfortunate textural comparison with cat food. Hummus was sad and needed a citrus and tahini boost. Spinach pie was edible, but was bland and boring compared to the wonderful version at
Sanabel. The potato pie was too dull to bother eating.
The tannur bread, on the other hand, was excellent (and has a surprisingly long shelf life). Nice char, good chew, and
quite versatile. We finished the 4 large pieces over the next several days in various applications. That tannur, as well as the GNR nomination, motivated a return to try Taza again.
This time, we decided to eat there so that we could eat everything fresh. This time, we went for the zaatar bread, a beef schwarma sandwich, and a falafel sandwich. We also grabbed another 4-pack of tannur to go. The zaatar bread was excellent, with wonderful crunch, chew, and sumac tang. The beef schwarma, though far more enjoyable hot and fresh than after making the drive home, was still bland and somewhat dry. (We asked for hot sauce and received something resembling Frank's. Turns out, you can put that sh7t on everything.) The pale, yellow falafel was too bland and mushy to compete with better versions all over town. Once again, however, the breads (this time we tried the samoon as well) were fresh and generally excellent.
We also had a couple of service gaffes. Taza's paper menu lists that sandwiches come with drinks (from 11:00 am to whenever) as a lunch special. We asked the employee that took our order and she said that we should grab any drinks we want. When the gentleman that is presumably the owner or manager saw us taking a few cans of pop, he stopped us and said that only the schwarma, but not the falafel comes with a drink. I pointed out the language on the menu and offered to pay for an extra can if it was a problem. He refused my offer of payment, but grumbled about the menus being printed incorrectly. Not my problem and I don't really care that much. Next, I was summoned to the counter to pick up
two falafel sandwiches. I said we had only ordered one, and the second one disappeared. We added up our order and compared it to the receipt, and it turned out that we paid for both falafel. Since we didn't want to have another disagreement with the boss-man over a $2.99 overcharge, we let it go. An itemized receipt would have been nice and might have avoided this in the first place.
I just noticed how many times I've used the word "bland" in this post. I guess that is my bottom line about Taza. Bread excellent, food generally bland and somewhere south of "meh," and service unimpressive. This doesn't make it a GNR in my book, but instead a decent place to pick up a few pieces of bread if I happen to be driving by.
--Rich
I don't know what you think about dinner, but there must be a relation between the breakfast and the happiness. --Cemal Süreyya