Kasbah Garden Cafe

The atmosphere was relaxing, food was delicious, the restaurant is on my top 5 of New Haven CT. I look forward to my next time. I loved the inside decor. I met the owner/chef so nice.

We went in with a lot of expectation. We LOVE Middle Eastern food. The place looks overall very unmaintained - the building, the outside etc. The only part of the decor that we liked were the charming, oriental lamps. The service was polite but careless. She forgot our tea. We had to remind her after waiting for 30 min. The food took another 30 min. We ordered chicken couscous and kefta tagine. The couscous, the vegetables that came with the couscous, the bread and the tagine were all mediocre. The chicken itself was tasty, but it was basically spiced adobo rub. The price was very good. We had a pot of tea, and our dinner. The total bill was $33+. We are probably not going back. But we did see the place has a fan-following. In our opinion, it had potential to be a charming place, but turned out not to be so.

This place redefines falafel to be this fried yellow tasteless goop that is not the Lebanese, middle eastern variety. Tahini is ok and likely out of a can, Dolma is good and likely out of a can, Babaghanoush is a tasteless blob. Had to abandon and go to another dinner place. The only saving grace is the backyard setting with one (only one) friendly, fast staff.