What a disappointment this place was! I walked inside and it oozed excellent presentation; it looks great: there's a lovely fountain just before you descend into the restaurant proper in which the furniture, tables, lights and floor are all just very polished looking. The tables are set out so that it does not feel at all cramped and all of this combined leaves one feeling comfortable and causes one to have a high level of expectation. The staff appear presentable and helpful, even welcoming… but it is all, sadly, a CHARADE!
You see, these Maroush restaurants seem to be missing the point. People look at the presentation and it makes them want to sit in there – they expect the food to match the restaurant's appearance. But in this case it doesn't! Oh no, not even close! Order your food and you visualise whatever it is in its most delicious form imaginable; you wait for it, dream about it melting in your mouth – just like I did. I ordered a “Lamb Shawarma” on a plate – I visualised well cooked, beautifully presented lamb with bread and nice salad all over… But what I got was vile. Absoultely VILE. Vile because I was expected to pay some ridiculous sum of money for something which looked like it had been brought in from Ranoush Juice a few doors away – and do you know what you get in THAT place? I'll tell you! You get meat covered in FAT – the white variety which makes you feel sick, you pick the white bits off and you notice the meat is pink inside because it is not cooked properly; reason being, they are always really busy so they can't keep people waiting for meat to cook! It seems to me that a lot of people either don't have any tastebuds, don't care about food poisoning and certainly don't care about money. In fact, I suspect most Ranoush Juice customers are just random drunks on their way home from the local pubs because you couldn't possibly go there twice having genuinely tasted their food as there is always something wrong with it! The food in Ranoush Juice is of a poor quality, yet it is quite cheap so you kind of have to accept it – but HERE??? It simply WON'T do.
One really does feel conned, I'm not just talking about one dish either, I was with a party of 5 and no one liked what they got… Which brings us to the point at which the staff begin to get stroppy! When you point out that your food REALLY does not look like it is worth anything like what they will be asking for it monetarily and made you expect, they offer to change it – for the exact same thing! You try to explain what I just did and you just gradually realise that all your talking is falling upon deaf ears because they know BETTER! You are just a tasteless idiot who hasn't a clue what (s)he is talking about, you are therefore the enemy and must be ejected as quickly as possible. But you still have to pay a service charge even though you resent paying EVEN MORE for substandard food.
There is only one way to avoid the disappointment, DON'T EAT at Maroush Gardens! If you must taste what is on offer, walk a few doors down Edgware Road and get the same food for half price or less and enjoy your couple of days off work after you've begun digesting it! Honestly, there are better meals to be had at McDonald's for far less! Avoid like the plague!