El Omda Egyptian Cuisine

Never try their Kofta it’s a piece of rubber seasoned by some rotten parsley and painted with burnt fat. Bread is very old. I’ll never be there again.

I ate there before it was ok but not amazing. I decided to give it another chance. Boy was i wrong not a good experience. The food tasted bad and to top it off a roach popped up in my husband coffee towards the end. Needless to say we did not want to make a scene as the waiter was very nice and its not his fault. We paid the bill quietly and told the waiter very discreetly what happened than exited.

Very unique food and seems pretty authentic.

The food was 4 or 5 stars, the service 2. I hate it when that happens, because I really want to have more of the food but rarely do I want to sit around all day wondering when it might finally arrive!
Having said that, we really enjoyed the food we did get here. I got the Tagin Beef which was tender and came in a rich tasty sauce. The stuffed grape leaves were an appetizer I would definitely order again.
The ambiance is a little strange. They had a few guys who didn’t seem to be customers sitting around watching the Egyptian TV channel. You kinda got the feeling you were having a chilled out holiday at a family member’s house, while someone in the kitchen cooked slowly and people did their own thing until it was ready.
Give it a shot, but clear your schedule for the evening and bring a friend you can talk to!

My boyfriend & I came here a few months ago and ordered the Tajin calamari, fried calamari, and whole shrimp. They were all great dishes. But warning, there’s a wait! So don’t go in extremely hungry like we did and ate every piece of pita before our meal!

If you want authentic Egyptian cuisine this is the place to go. I had the koshari and mousa3a (moussaka) and both were delicious. I wish the koshari had more of the onions on top but the da2– the sauce that came with it was amazing I literally poured it all over my dish. The prices are reasonable (my bill only came to $ 15) and the portion size was pretty big.

I need to preface what I say with the fact that this place is where you go if you really want to converse with the person you are with, and have no worries about when your order arrives. I don’t think the slowness of the service isn’t a cultural thing as much as it is just that they are understaffed.
Now, with what I said before in mind, I can comfortably give this place 4 stars. Courteous workers, great dish choices, and very good quality food (meat was just a little bit on the dry side).
Come here if you want the real deal with Egyptian cuisine.

What I really want to do is give El-​Omda 4 stars, but I can’t. In all fairness, they are A-​Okay but not great. The main culprit being, the kitchen’s slowness in putting out food. Holy cow! The four of us all had cows, sitting and waiting for apps and main courses for over 1 hour. Is that not unheard of? Apparently not at this restaurant, as others have complained about the wait-​time as well.
On décor, service and flavor (at least for the particular dish I had), El-​Omda is easily 4 stars. But it is pretty inexcusable to have diners wait a terribly long time for their food. The restaurant wasn’t that packed on the night that we went there so it was shocking that the food took so long and that they ran out of hummus. To make light of the situation, someone joked and said that they are probably flying back to Egypt to buy some groceries for our meal.
On the bright side, my Kofta Kebab over rice was a very simple and elegant dish, but phenomenal in flavor. The meat was succulent and the rice was plain but marvelous. I could have had another bowl of just rice. Everything was seasoned perfectly and well-​balanced. I could not have chosen a better entrée.
Our entire meal took nearly 3 hours, boy were we glad we had cleared our schedule for dinner beforehand otherwise, it could have been even more frustrating.
To end, El-​Omda is a lovely and rare Egyptian restaurant, serving quality food but with unreasonable wait times.

Maybe my horrible experience of this place was a product of coming too late (we arrived at 9 and they close at 10) but my party of 6 had one of the worst restaurant experiences we’ve ever had.
The place has a nice atmosphere, dimmed lights and Egyptian TV give it a very authentic vibe. The waitress was for the most part distant. She came to get out orders, drop off our food, and we had to flag her down to get the check. The first red flag of the evening is when they told us they had no menus. She ten told us all entrees were $ 25 dollars despite the fact that on the online menu some were only $ 15. She told us that the portions were big enough to share so we reluctantly agreed to pay almost twice the price for our dishes. When they arrived however they were not as large as she made them out to be.
The good dishes were the shishkebab and the combo platter. The shishkebab was like any other shishkebab you would normally order. However with only 8 pieces of meat you are paying a premium of $ 3 per cube of meat. The combo had plenty of food and should be enough to warrant the meal a 2 star rating. However the last two dishes were borderline inedible.
The first of the bad dishes was the rabbit. Our $ 25 rabbit consisted of a leg and half of a thigh. The meat was dry and even more bland. It tasted like dry unseasoned chicken breast. The duck, our last meal, was perhaps the worst meal I have ever ordered from a restaurant. It was a sizable portion but plain and was so dry that it was almost impossible to eat. I had to chew a bite sized portion for over a minute and still struggled to swallow. Despite the price we couldn’t get ourselves to finish it. We realized in the middle of the meal that the duck and rabbit tasted exactly like someone over-​microwaving leftovers.
So my advice to people coming here: Avoid the duck and rabbit, argue the pricing, and do not come an hour before closing.

****Please note that this review is purely based on service — or lack thereof — to delivery clientele. Yes, this is a site where we like to find out about food. But we also like to find out about service.****
I’ve been wanting to try this place ever since I moved in around the corner almost a year ago. But it never seemed to have customers. And it never gave me the vide that I wanted to eat inside. So I figured I’d order delivery at some point.
This past Sunday, I placed an order for El Omda through Seamless around 6 pm. Twenty minutes later, I had yet to receive an email confirming that my order had been accepted. I call El Omda. I let it ring for nearly a minute. No one picks up. I call seamless. They tell me El Omda should be open. They try to call. They can’t get an answer.
My card has already been charged. So now seamless has to cancel my order, refund my card (said monies of which I won’t have for another 5 – 7 business days). And they shoot another email to both me and El Omda saying the order was canceled.
I now have to find another place from which to order. I do. It is now almost 7 pm. I get two confirmations: one from El Omda, and one from the new restaurant. I presume they’ll see the cancellation email next, and won’t fulfill the order. Around 7:15, an hour and fifteen minutes after I placed my order and 20 minutes after they accepted said order, El Omda calls me to inform that they don’t have the lobster soup… so will I take vegetable (this is a comparable replacement in cuisine and cost how?)…oh…and they also don’t have the lamb chop for the mixed grill… so what else would I like. So I inform them to keep reading through their emails, as seamless cancelled my order over thirty minutes ago. The response, «Oh.» and a hang up.
I cannot recommend ordering delivery from them. I cannot recommend eating in. I can recommend going to Favela Grill next door for phenomenal cuisine and brilliant customer service.

The bottom line with this place: it’s an Egyptian food place that’s convenient to Astoria Boulevard and they serve a bunch of unique Egyptian dishes that I’ve never heard of (and was curious about). To be honest, I found it to be a little bit pricy for what was served. The volume of food provided was good, but it was not as tasty as I would’ve liked. However, their hummus was pretty good. :)
The restaurant itself is pretty plainly decorated and there’s a prominent Middle Eastern vibe to the place between the Tahrir Square protests in Cairo that were on the TV (with the news coverage in Arabic). The waitstaff were super nice and they get an A+ for service. I ended up getting hummus and this like essentially ground beef macaroni and cheese dish, which was pretty good although very plain in flavor. It was a unique Egyptian dish that I had never heard of so I figured I’d give it a try.
I might go back again if I’m in the area just to see what else they’ve got shaking because some of their other dishes sounded pretty interesting. It might also be worth asking for recommendations since I have no idea what some of these dishes are despite reasonable descriptions on the menu more or less describing what’s in each dish.

Had delivery. Unfortunately the delivery guy smashed some of our food and it spilled in the bag. I’m not going to rate them based on this because it can happen to any delivery guy. My rating is based solely on the food.
Soup and Salad
============
Yellow Lentil Soup: B
A very nice lentil soup. Nice flavor. A tad uninspired. Maybe fresh lemon, bits of cooked lentil or cooked onion, or perhaps some watercress or cilantro would’ve made it more exciting. Still, it was a good lentil soup.
Special Dishes
===========
Tajin Rice: B
Basically rice pilaf with the cooked film on top. Better than the rice they serve with the platters, but only marginally so. It does go nicely with the foul, however. It was cooked «al-​dente» … some might say under-​cooked. Not quite crunchy, but not quite soft, either. I was expecting something a bit more ethnic. Maybe sauteed/​grilled onion bits?
Foul Medames: A–
A lovely foul: delicious and vibrant. I’m giving it A– instead of an A for being a bit too salty.
Entrees
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Kofta Kebab: B–
Tasty but much too overdone. Dry and overcooked.
Duck: A
Lovely. I got a leg of duck which was well cooked and well spiced. It was fatty the way you expect duck to be. Simply wonderful!
Dessert
======
Rice Pudding: C
Horrible. I liked the fact that it wasn’t sweet (just a very small hint of sweetness) but it was awfully plain. It should’ve made up for the lack of sugar or honey with something like cardamon, cinnamon or rose water. Much too plain. like eating very semi sweet white rice!

Overall, very tasty food but very slow service. Great when you want a leisurely 2-​hour meal.
I came with my friend on a Saturday for brunch. We couldn’t judge if it was authentic or not, but everything was very delicious. We ordered:
MISSAH — nicely grilled eggplant and pepper, but the tomato sauce was not infused into the vegetables.
FATA — A rice dish cooked in soup with beef on top and pita bread at the bottom. Very rich.
GRILLED BLACKENED WHOLE PORGY — although I disliked the black coat of seasoning, the fish was fresh. The rice that comes with the fish was very flavorful and yet not heavy.
RICE PUDDING — the most milky and liquidly rice pudding I have ever had, compared to Turkish, Latin and Spanish rice pudding. The lady told me they ran out of nuts for garnish. I wish there was some for more complexity and a kick.
SALLOP — like steamed condensed milk. Too sweet for me. Perhaps the missing nuts on top would have balanced the sweetness out.
The portion here is huge. I would come back again to try their meat, baklava and mint tea.
I read the reviews before coming and prepared myself for slow service. Our server didn’t come to take our order until 30 minutes after we have sat down. Yet, he was very friendly and patience and answered all our questions with Egyptian cuisine. Food also came quite slowly, but everything came together.
There was another lady who served us desserts. From the way she spoke, it seemed like she was the dessert chef. She was very friendly and she kept helping my friend and I take photos. My friend and I had a really nice, relaxing brunch here and look forward to the next time.

Overall some very yummy food and a nice experience.
We had a large group but the staff was accommodating and sweet, but as others have noted service was rather leisurely in pace. (I’m more generous than you, Rich lol.)
The pita they served with tahini was the most delicious, warm pita I’ve had in a long time.
The portions were nice sizes. Someone ordered the falafel and it was a large plate! They looked a little on the dark side, but had good flavor and didn’t taste burned. For my entrée I had the seafood rice and it was tasty, but very oily. Another person in the group got it as well and came across a grit from the shellfish. I lucked out and didn’t really have any in mine. Everyone else seemed to like their dishes a lot.
I’d come back, but definitely not on a day/​night where I have somewhere else to be afterwards.

2 Stars… sadly — i feel bad about giving them a 2 stars — the only thing that saved this place from 1 star is that the food was tasty. *Note* Immediately when we entered we noticed only one waitress in the restaurant.
So — to say that they are slow is an understatement. So my buddy decided to choose this place for a surprise b-​day party for his GF and since most of us hasn’t seen each other in a while, it was a nice get together with lots of talking.
We arrived at 8 pm, and was seated in the back table that was a floor seating. It’s not really comfortable, but it’s serviceable. We chatted, hung out, laughed and kept talking, but for 45 minutes… there was no service. No water, no plates, napkins or utensils, nada. Again — not really a big deal by itself — but we were all very hungry and at this point getting annoyed.
At the 45 minute mark the lone waitress brought over several baskets of nan bread and sauce (not even sure what kind of sauce b/​c i was so hungry i didn’t ask) and our party devoured it all. There was not one piece left. (It should be noted this was also the same time we got water as some of us were more parched than others) As we were eating the bread, the waitress started taking our orders.
So feeling something in the tummy again — we were satisfied for a little while then 20 minutes later salad comes out. The salad was alright — nothing special. And finally 30 minutes after that food came out. All the while we sat and talked and was in general jovial, and all the while we watched the waitress scurry about with the other tables.
The food — everyone’s food — the portions were pretty good — but at this time we were all ravenous and gobbled everything up. By the time we left it was 10:45, almost 11 pm. So that was a pretty long dinner.

I should probably have guessed a culture that could erect pyramids and perfect the art of removing a brain through the nose was capable of wondrous things. I wouldn’t have guessed that cuisine would fall into that category.
I was prepared to hate this place and was getting my bad review typing fingers warmed up after waiting over an hour for the food to arrive. Then something magical happened…
First of all, the portions are enormous. It looked like I had ordered enough to cater a party instead of dinner for two people. Second, this is some of the best food (if not THE best) I have had since moving to New York. The beef is slow cooked and you can cut it with a fork. The chicken kebabs, falafel and rice dishes are, likewise, incredible. The flavors were so unique and different– my mouth was literally being forced to learn a new class of food. And it was awesome.
I have never in my life said to anyone «Man, I could really go for some Egyptian food right now.» But I can tell you with all honesty, this is my new favorite restaurant in the world. Just think… the WORLD.
Just try it. And be patient with the slow delivery– it is absolutely worth it.

I loved El Omda even before the renovation when it looked pretty sketchy and there was no menu (you just had to decide between the specials of the day) and no one really spoke English. The food is so good that the renovation was totally unnecessary because I would eat here regardless of what it looked like. I went back yesterday with my mom and I was pleasantly surprised by how much nicer it looks now. I was afraid that they may have new management and the food wouldn’t be as good, but it is still great.
I had lamb shank which was tender and delicious, accompanied by bamia (okra in tomato sauce) and rice. They make the best bamia in NYC. I also had a lemonade which was done the Egyptian way, blended with mint I think. Try it! It is amazing and refreshing. The waitress was friendly and spoke English. That’s always a plus in Arab establishments. My mom and I had such a good time that when we were leaving, she said, «Make sure you write a good review on Unilocal.» I didn’t even know my mom knew about Unilocal lol. I took off 1 star because I was disappointed that they didn’t have the 2 things I went there for: The ½ chicken and the macaroni bechamel, my favorite Egyptian dish. I was curious about whether or not the chicken and the macaroni would be as good post renovation. I hope when I go back that they have it.

We went here with a
gift certificate. The reviews really had my hopes up high and while I thought the food was good, I don’t think it is omfg wowwwww good. I thought everything needed some salt so I added that to my food.
The water pitcher they leave on the table is sooo heaaaavy. Just saying.
Also, I got mosquito bitten a lot. Not their fault but still, I was itchy by the time we left and that’s not a fun feeling.
Also, our waitress lost our bill. Or something? So she just said an amount and we added up what we thought it should be and it sounded right. But still, random.
I got the sampler platter and my fiancé got a lamb kebab type dish. It was a lot of food. The potatoes that came with my fiancé’s meal were excellent. The rice that came with both of our meals was just plain rice and so I am not sure how exactly you are supposed to improve on it to make it delicious. I added the potato mixture to it.
We really enjoyed the pita bread and the free little platter of hummus. That was heavy on the tahini but really good even if I thought the flavor was slightly off from what I expected.
We both agreed we would definitely go back here. We saw the «cooks» in the back and that solidified in our minds that this is a family business. We are glad we came here and this is definitely among my top
finds.

This place was amazing! I also had one on the
certificates for $ 25 off, which I bought after I saw the positive Unilocal reviews. This really is one of my favorite restaurants in Astoria now. The prices are extremely reasonable and you get a ton of food. The staff was so friendly, and helpful when it came to questions about the menu. The place was pretty busy when we arrived, but the owner pulled out an extra table for us so we could be seated. We immediately felt welcome.
I went with my friend who I call my culinary partner in crime. We’re always up for trying new places, and we hit the jackpot here. We had Missah (cold eggplant stew), Baba Ghanouj and Fava Beans to start. The Fava Beans were by far my favorite — so briney and delicious, and perfect when scooped up with the warm pita. They also brought out two house salads which were fresh and tasty. We had lamb shank and rabbit for our entrees, which we shared. The rabbit was slightly overdone but still had a great flavor. The lamb on the other hand was absolutely perfect. These came with a nice rice pilaf and pickled vegetables. We both agreed it was one of the best meals we’d had in a while. I will definitely be back.
Oh yeah, with the
certificate, our whole bill (with tax) came out to a whopping $ 25. Seriously. Even without the certificate, it would have been very reasonable, and we ate like kings. One downside — no booze. However, they may have a BYOB policy but I’m not sure. We weren’t really up for drinking that night anyway!

Being determined to make the most of the April Unilocal challenge I searched (for hours) to find a restaurant that I a. wanted to eat at and b. had less than 10 reviews. I found the two in El Omda. It’s on 28^th ave away from the deluge of restaurants that saturate Astoria. This might be why it’s not as busy as it should be. Armed with my appetite for different cuisines and a $ 25 coupon from
I headed out on a Sat night with the girlfriend and high hopes.
The restaurant itself it on the smaller side. About 10 regular tables and some low tables in the back that have cushions for you to sit on. They have all sorts of different hanging light fixtures and the place is spotless. You can tell they take pride in their restaurant and it shows. An Egyptian soap opera was on in the dining room and i found myself watching it severak times. (it is my conclusion that soaps are bad in any language) We were greeted warmly and told to take any seat we liked. maybe 2 other sets of people were there while we dined.
They do not serve alcohol in this restaurant so if you like to have a few cocktails before you eat I’d suggest pre-​gaming at home. They also do not serve pork but the menu is vast and there are many many options so I didn’t find it to be limiting in any way. After perusing the menu over and over again (everything sounded so good) I decided on the liver to start and the capon, the GF had seafood over pasta. Each meal come with a salad which as other reviewers have noted was done really well. The veggies, crisp and the dressing light. It also comes with some pickled vegetables, tahini spread and some really delicious bread. A nice prelude to the rest of the meal to come.
In my food selections I take the road less traveled. Hell I’ll go as far as to say getting to my food choices involves needing a machete, a compass and a torch. No man’s land. I am often rewarded for this boldness with new and amazing tastes. And with that my liver arrived. sauteed in olive oil with cumin and jalapenos (how did they know I love them) It was out of this world. Really fresh (you know when you get bad liver) and seasoned perfectly. Next was the capon, «But Chris ?» you ask, «What is capon?» It’s basically castrated roosted. Yup I just said that and you can’t unread it. They do that to make the meat taste better, less gamey if you will. And apparently it works. It was about the size of a cornish hen and was basically like eating a chicken that was entirely juicy delicious dark meat. And they stuff it with rice and said rice soaks up all of the juicy goodness of the bird. Nicely done, probably could have been a little more meat but I was content. It came with the vegetable of the day which was okra in a light red sauce, also very very good.
My GF got the seafood over pasta, or as I will now refer to it as «12lbs of seafood over 2lbs of pasta» Seriously It was a huge portion. (I have a pic of it posted cuz I’m good like that) Pasta cooked perfectly, seafood really really fresh and a nice red sauce that had a little something extra to it. Very well done.
After stuffing myself on delicious eats we skipped desert and opted for some Turkish coffee and Egyptian tea. The coffee was great, gritty, but not too gritty if you know what I mean and the tea with it’s fresh mint added was a nice way to settle my overstuffed stomach.
I really really enjoyed my meal here. We were there for close to two hours. Just taking our time, never being rushed never treated like we didn’t belong there. The owner came up a few times and asked how everything was. Our waitress was really nice too. offering options and making sure we were well taken care of.
Our mission is to highlight the less reviewed, I’ve done my part, now it’s up to you to come here and enjoy what El Omda is serving up. I know you’ll be happy you did because as I’ve always said, when it comes to food, always trust the fat kid :)