Ali Baba Mediterranean Cuisine

Wow! I was surprised by all the positive reviews. I won’t offer any other comments other than to ask, «Why did we get French fries with our take-​out shawarma sandwiches? When I go to an ethnic restaurant, I expect side dished that mirror the cuisine. The menu didn’t indicate any sides with the sandwiches but who would have expected French fries — which were not very good, by the way.

Well made Kabobs, nicely cooked and taste great. The side rice that comes with kabobs is delicious too.
Our server was excellent.
I just wish they had homemade bread (the pita they server is not bad but is of store-​bought kind).
Decent portions and reasonable prices.

I don’t know where this place has been my whole life! I feel I was scared to try this food for so long but WOW! My husband and I have ordered takeout from here 3 weekends in a row and we are more impressed with each order!
They have great customer service skills on the phone and help answer your questions and also threw in a free dessert for us to try! (not that we needed a dessert but hey its free) haha
I have tried the chicken kabobs, Iskender Lamb. The sauces: yogurt sauce, garlic sauce? and hot/​tomato sauce on the side is TO DIE FOR!!! OMG wow. The shawarma was okay, kinda dry on ²⁄₃ occasions.
Pros: hot, fresh, fast delivery. The portions are large! The food is delicious!
Cons: not open on Mondays :(
Now I’m getting hungry, maybe ill order here for lunch!

The location is convenient to Philadelphia but the food is not the best. Shawarma was dry. It was supposed to have tahini sauce but sauce was too little that it was barely there. We had to ask for more sauce. Also ordered the Ali Baba cold appetizer platter to share but were surprised by how small the amounts were. Salad came without dressing. We asked for dressing but it never came.
Service was slow. When we asked for more sauce we had to wait really long then reminded the waitress about it again before we got it. We also had to ask for ketchup twice before we got it.
I asked the three other people sitting at the table with me if they would come back and all said no, which I agree with.
Three stars for the overpriced tasty yogurt drink.

Just recently went here for the first time and was pleased with my experience. I ordered the Iskender Lamb with Yogurt and Tomato Sauce which was delicious, being a fan of manti this filled that tomato sauce with yogurt craving from Turkish food wonderfully. I also ordered the mix of hot appetizers which ranged from more common foods found in the states to more Mediterranean items, the common food items were alright, but the Mediterranean dishes were quite tasty.
Portions were quite large, the left overs easily became my lunch the following day.
The only minor downside of my experience was ordering online, unfortunately the order did not go through (things happen) but they more then graciously made up for it by providing me with a free desert and a drink while I waited which was graciously appreciated.
In the end, my only suggestion is to remove the American dishes from their menu as they were the weakest dishes, but then, if you are going to order American dishes at such a a place, why even go?
Oh, and also add extra bread on the online menu as an option.
Will definitely go again!

What a treat! We had a great experience. This was our first time dining here, and thanks to a Unilocal search we were introduced to Ali Baba. The service was excellent and the owner treated us to a free appetizer and dessert because we were new customers. We had the falafel sandwich and the lamb shawarma sandwich, both came with fries and we enjoyed every bite. For me, the highlight was the hummus. VERY good! Very fresh, topped with great olive oil. The baklava was also fabulous. We will absolutely be back again, everything is priced well and we were thankful to not have the 18% gratuity automatically added, as mentioned in a previous post. We were actually happy to tip even more than that, so they’re doing themselves a favor by not auto adding a tip. After a few more visits, if all stays this well, I’ll be bumping this up to 5 stars. Only thing that was missing for me was some music. I would have loved to dine while listening to some authentic music. Don’t let the location turn you off, some of NJ’s best restaurants are hidden in small strips of stores.

We stumbled into this place, after being disappointed with quite a few Mediterranean places in Philadelphia. The restaurant is a little ways off the beaten path, but well worth it. We were welcomed into the restaurant by the hostess/​owner and immediately felt a good vibe and were hoping that the food lived up to the hospitality. The falafel starter was on point, freshly made, and was followed by a chef salad that contained grilled eggplant. I am not a big eggplant guy, but the salad quickly changed my eggplant stereotypes. Our entrees were a chicken shwarma platter and an adana kabab sandwich. I have spent a lot of my childhood in the middle East, and the shwarma got me reminiscing, it really was that good. Perfect grilled/​charred meat and just the right amount of seasonings. The adana kebab sandwich was a hit as well, and all in all we were fat happy campers by the end of our debauchery. But wait, the owner was kind enough to present us the last 2 pieces of baklava he was slaving over for the last 5 hours, and it was game, set, match.
Unassuming place with great food in a strip mall in Jersey, what’s not to love?

Great hidden gem! The owner was so attentive and offered us free appetizer and dessert since it was our first time visiting the restaurant. Food was fantastic

Few items were good. Eg: spicy hummus and falaffel. I ordered Lamb shawarma. Meat was served cold and rice smelled really bad (older than 2 days).

This place is the definition of a hidden gem. It’s Ina random strip mall on route 73 that you would never expect to have great middle eastern food. The place is large, clean and friendly. Most importantly the food is outstanding. Both the shwarma and kabobs were awesome and cooked to perfection. Highly recommend.

Perfect service, great food, and vibes!
Iskandar Lamb is excellent! Even the labneh is better than most!

Just left the Ali Baba. The ambiance was nice, with one wall lined with houka’s. (turkish pipes). I got there about 5 PM and the place was empty. Had to ask if they were open, but, yes I was there early. I had my choice of seats.
Lots of choices on the menu, but I ordered a ‘known’ item, mousaka. I asked about soup and was told all they had was lentil. As I generally don’t like lentil, I turned them down. The waiter said it was really good, so I caved in.
Never had lentil soup like that. It wasn’t that thick brown mess with a bunch of hard lentils. This was creamy and light and quite tasty. Also came with slices of pita bread and slices of lemon.
My mousaka arrived with another surprise. Not that square Greek mousaka with the béchamel on top. It was ground beef and egg plant mixed together in a sauce. It was good but could have used a bit more spices.
With the mousaka came a cup of rice with a really nice sauce on it and a nice green salad.
By the way, don’t bite into the peppers on the plate. Kind of lights you up for a second.
So when you visit Ali Baba, bring your appetite. You get plenty on the plate and leave satisfied.
BTW: It’s nice to see that Emre Y. the Ali Baba Mediterranean Cuisine Business Manager cares enough to follow Unilocal and respond to the reviews, good or bad. Shows they care about their customers.

I like Ali Baba. The shish kebab sandwich was good and the waitress was polite and friendly. Portions are small, but it’s still a great place and their food is fantastic. It’s nice to have a Mediterranean spot in the Maple Shade area.

I always passed by this place on Route 73, and finally decided to visit with a friend on a Saturday night. We had a great experience from beginning to end. The waitress was a sweetheart, the food was cooked just right (did take half an hour to serve), and the sweets were delicious (just a bit more honey would have made it even better). It wasn’t too crowded and the décor inside was that of a typical Arab restaurant with Arab music playing in the background. I will definitely be making a return trip.

Today (May 30^th 2015) I went to this restaurant with my wife and a 2 year old toddler and ordered Chicken cops, Chicken Shawarma Sandwich, and Chicken Shish Kabob Sandwich. Here are my views on the food and the restaurant:
Good Things
Ambiance of the restaurant was great and the owners have greatly improved and upgraded the seating arrangement as compared to the last year. Chicken chops are wonderful and had a real good balance of salt and spice. The portion was generous and can be shared by two people, who don’t eat much or are on a diet control. Chicken chops were served with white and brown rice, salad, yogurt sauce and thin pita bread. The sandwiches were served with freshly made fries. The food was
served rather quickly, unlike the last time when we had to wait 1.5 hours for our food. This might have happened because we were the only customers in the restaurant at our time of arrival around 5:15 PM.
Not so good things
Chicken in all the three dishes tasted alike, so, it seems that the same marinated chicken is being presented under different names, which is not authentically Mediterranean. The sandwiches were dry with little or no sauce in them and no separate sauce was provided. The restaurant needs to work on its condiments. Also, there was no fountain drink refill for such drinks as Pepsi, Sprite, Coca-​Cola etc.
Worse Things
This is really weird, awkward and might me illegal. The restaurant charged us 18% in tip and when I asked our server why is that, then she replied «it is just in our system and automatically prints». What a dumb and stupid reply. Does it mean that you can go put anything in the system and make a lame excuse. Why not charge us 100% in tip, who is stopping you? This just ruined my experience with this restaurant today and I don’t like their shady practice. 18% gratuity is generally applied on larger parties and there is no point of doing that with three people. So, to avoid any bickering discussion I paid them $ 4.29 under this shady practice but in reality they lost the $ 15 tip I was actually planning to leave with the check. I suspect that this SURPRISE 18% tip was a result of using a
coupon as I have read similar reviews for other Mediterranean restaurants in NJ and PA. This should be put in the terms and conditions of using such discount offers. As a proof I am attaching the picture of my check with this review. Basically I paid $ 4 to
for $ 10 coupon and the restaurant charged me around $ 4 in its shady gratuity, which left me with no saving from the coupon. So, my recommendation is to not worry about finding an authentic deal for this restaurant anywhere.

Staff was knowlegable and very nice. Had the Ali Baba combo and took half home. Very tasty– will go again.

We came on a Saturday afternoon. Nestled in an awkward plaza off of 73 (easy to miss), and coming into an empty restaurant, we got nervous. We had decided on Alibaba because I had a
certificate and we wanted something different than the usual and the Mediterranean place near us that I have always wanted to try is always closed (we tried 2x!) I had called prior to coming to Alibaba to make sure they were still accepting the
certificates and was glad to hear they were.
Our nervousness was completely wiped away after we got the mixed grill platter which was a mixture of chicken and different meats with rice. After judging this restaurant by its cover, we were glad to find the food is good. Towards the end of our meal, larger parties started coming in, so it confirmed that Alibaba must be good.
One thing I probably wouldn’t recommend was the fried calamari. It tasted like freezer food that was just deep fried. Had to drown it in the red sauce to make it more pleasant but overall everything including service was good.

Great service!!! For my first time visit the food was awesome. We ordered so much food it was hard to list them all. I litterally finished my plate leaving nothing behind. The staff were very friendly and patient in explaining the entire menu to people unfamiliar with the food. «Every place should have such good servers. Our server came back many time to make sure the food was to our liking and to see if we needed more drinks.» The environment was warm and well decorated. Finished off the party with some Hookah which was also another first time experience. My party of eleven enjoyed themselves very much. Would definately recommend this place and come back in the future. The experience was worth every penny. We didn’t even bother with the coupon. Kudos for such good service and delicious food.

Food was excellent. Great flavor. Finally found a good Mediterranean restaurant near Moorestown. Will come back.
Inside of the restaurant is very nice as well. Nice Xmas music playing. Not the easiest place to get to on 73 in a strange shopping center. Why couldn’t they put this place in Main Street moorestown. It would be perfect to walk here

Stopped in for lunch and glad I did.
Really delicious!
I had the chicken shawarma platter
Came with babaghanouj tabulch salad
and hummus for dipping
The shawarma came with 2 types of rice and 2 sauces a one red hot n spicy beware.
As for dessert the finger baklava is a must
Worth a visit