Alwadi Mediterrenean Sandwiches

I was excited to try Alwadi given all the good reviews but was pretty underwhelmed. The best dish has to be the vegetarian platter, sad I am not a vegetarian. The shawarma was not bad, kofta pretty bland and the chicken under seasoned. Garlic sauce excellent and helped making everything a little better. A huge pet peeve was that the pita was served cold and therefore chewy and pretty much inedible. Better than fast food but not much.

I always order the shawarma sandwich with fries. Either beef or chicken. They also have reasonable lunch specials. Good quality mediterranean food.
It does get busy during lunch hour so perhaps for those who take out, Plz call in your order to preserve time.
Their shawarma and gyro sandwich is very tasty and flat out delicious. They also have free wifi so you can enjoy surfing while eating (if dining alone). They do have free drink refills.
The place itself is small and can get crowded. Please check out some of the coupons on their website.

Pleasantly surprised. I dropped by because I had some time to kill before my friends’ flight arrived at IAH.
I ordered the felafel plate. The felafel was freshly made and piping hot! Instead of the traditional ball shape, they were small flat rounds– kinda like a small slider burger. The crust was golden brown, crispy and chewy while the interior was soft and packed with garlic and parsley. The garlic tahini dipping sauce was a bit too watery for my liking but had a wonderful nutty and lemony taste.
Your standard Mediterranean rice and a somewhat chewy, not so fresh, pita came with the felafel. An oily cabbage slaw-​like side also accompanied the platter– this felt sort of out of place. The hummus was incredibly smooth and tasty.
I’m gonna have to come back and try the rest of the menu.

Nothing says «Authentic» ME food like 2 Hispanic workers manning the grill and register. Can’t blame them, as I assume the owner does not really care about putting out a quality product and blaming the cooks would not be fair.
There are so many things wrong with the place, I am not sure where to start, but here goes:
— If you post pictures of food being served on plates, then serve food on plates. When I just spent $ 23 for dinner, I do not want to eat out of a to go container with plastic prepackaged utensils.
— Speaking of prepackaged: Serving thin cold pita wedges in a plastic bag is plain lazy! While some places actually bake pita on premises, the least you can do is bring in fresh pita and warm it up before handing it out to customers.
— Food is barely edible: kefta was ok, but chicken and beef had no flavor and the beef was not edible and I ended up spitting it out; after giving up on trying to chew it. Baba app and humus tasted like they came from a store bought container.
— Service is a joke. I ordered a baba app and mixed kabob dinner. How hard is it to give me the app and not have me wait 10 min for the meal. Its premade and served in a plastic container; just hand it to me when I ordered it.
Overall:
I am at a total loss of how this place is this highly rated. I can only assume they do a lot of volume during lunch and the $ 9 sandwich combo wins over many fans.
I have spent less than $ 20 at many ME fast and sit down places and was served a much better meal.