Food: Good Lebanese tasty food. \r
Presentation: No professional Restaurant’s menus or napkins. No beverages menu handed, only one small page for the food.\r
Customer Service: below average. Their host (who handed me his business card in a pompous way -it says that he is The Founder & Director of Operations of Layaleena=their entertainment) is an alpha male type, not warm and welcoming; but aggressive, tense and not forward about explaining the cover charges to the first time customers.\r
Charges: $15 cover charge + plus whatever you consume at the bar or + minimum of $20 if you choose to sit at a table + 18% gratuity that they add for you to your bill.\r
Space: average, nothing special, an open square/rectangular room with a bar, below average furniture and below average decoration with a back door in the middle of it of it, opening on a non-heated hall where their restrooms are located. Plan to have a sweater or your coat on as it is freezing when they leave the back door wide open\r
Entertainment: Their website says that the entertainment starts at 9 pm, I arrived there at 9:15 pm, (I asked the host and he said that it would start in 5 min) their entertainment never started until around 11pm. They had a band with 3 musicians/back singers: two of them were lousy and the one awesome musician, who played Darbouka! He was excellent; he played terrific rhythms and was spectacular when he did a solo with the belly dancer. They had young lady who was the main singer: she has a beautiful powerful voice but her outfit was not. They also had a belly dancer: she is a beautiful young woman and a talented dancer.\r
Ambience: Poor and stiff, for some reason the energy of the whole place was off. Not one customer got up and danced.\r
I personally don’t mind a pricy place that is classy and has character but this one is not.\r
Would I go back? NO. It was not fun!\r
On a funny note: The place was not busy but for whatever reason, there were few men working there (doing I don’t know what), including the tense host, all spiffed up in business suits and running around the whole evening!
Pros: Example: best croissants in town
Cons: What are the drawbacks?
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