Tahina's, Owings Mills

Dan's chicken pita with all sorts of toppings

Dan and I had a coupon to Tahina's, a fast casual Mediterranean restaurant in Owings Mills, that we were really excited to use since the menu looked so great.

However, there were some oddities about the place that may prevent us from returning. For example:

1. The menu looks simple enough online and when you walk in the shop, but it is NOT complete. They don't explain that you can make your sandwich into a "meal" by adding french fries and a drink, but it only applies to SOME sandwiches or even some type of bread. You are also limited to three types of toppings, unless you get some other kind of deal. Basically, it gets confusing once you start asking questions.

2. As soon as we walked in, the server behind the counter immediately apologizes that she is sick, but then starts preparing our food......

3. Another server then comes out of the kitchen to help her with our order and he has a hard time with the lavash bread (a flat wrap) because it keeps falling apart. He then tells us that the bread must not be so good today.

4. ANOTHER employee sat in the restaurant with her boyfriend/lover/boytoy having a serious discussion about who knows what. Regardless, she didn't help a bit and was ENTIRELY unprofessional.

5. Luckily the restaurant was quite empty because they were slow in getting our order and making our food. We felt like all the employees were new, though we're not sure if they were.

Anyway, all of that is a shame because the food was surprisingly good. Thought the lavash bread was quite flimsy, I liked my sandwich combination of zesty garlic sauce with hummus, chicken, feta and cucumber/tomato salad.

My flimsy wrap

Dan got the pita bread sandwich with chicken and other various add-ons, and we both definitely agreed that the pita was the much sturdier choice of bread. There are a lot of toppings with which you can customize your sandwich (or platter, if you're not interested in bread), such as feta, cucumbers and tomatoes, cabbage, chickpeas, red onions, lettuce and others that I may not remember.

Sweet Potato fries and a side of Falafel

Our favorite item was the side of falafel ($2.49). Nice and crispy on the outside with a strong taste of cumin. I loved it especially with the tahina sauce they had on the side.

I can't imagine that Dan and I are going to return to Tahina's. There are far too many places for us to try, and we had such a weird experience that it really turned us off. Though I must note a friend went there recently for lunch, and he raved about the place and said the service was friendly and helpful. It's always so funny when people's experiences are so different!

Have you been to Tahina's? Have you ever had such a weird experience at a restaurant that it completely turned you off, despite liking the food?