Grill 212

I heard a lot of great things abut this place. Went here about a year ago. Ordered schnitzel and falafel sandwich. Food was freshly made in front of me and pretty good. Came with sauces and hummus (gave it for free). Guy behind counter is really nice. Would definitely come back to give other food a try. Small seating area in the back. Not too loud. They also serve chulent for those UWS’ers who are craving that snippet of Jewish culture.

I had a great experience here. The food was delicious — very homemade taste. And the service was wonderful. They went way out of their way to make me happy. Went away totally full and satisfied with food to take home. Huge portions.

This is a non-​pretentious, very authentic, very teensy Mediterranean joint tucked semi-​underground. The portions are enormous; you can definitely split an entrée and both end up quite stuffed! This is doubly true if you go for the salad bar, which is magnificent — especially the eggplant dishes. Yum. It would be nice if the food had a bit more salt/​herbs/​spices, but if you’re ordering for home use you can just drown it in your favorite hot sauce. It’s supremely affordable.

Great salad bar and delicious laffa wrap. Plus the staff there was very friendly and amenable to my family meshigas! Great place to go for out-​of-​towners looking for a cosy environment, and very convenient to the Natural History museum. We accidentally left something in the restaurant and the owner ran 2 blocks to catch up and give it to us! Super nice, and we really appreciated it.

This time I went on a weekday evening and the flavor of the food, although still decent, was way less satisfying than last time when I went at opening time. The pita itself was quite cold, and the shawarma picked up a lot of lamb flavor from being grilled on the same surface. Most importantly it didn’t have that crisp or char that I tasted the last time.

Fantastic kosher food with israeli and yemenite flavors. Super fast takeout, generous portions, even free sufganiot on channuka. These guys saved me with their yemenite chicken soup when i was sick last winter (comes with a huge, delicious Kubana bread) and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Best kosher takeout on the upper west side hands down!

Great food and value. I’m always torn between the schnitzel and the falafel sandwich — both are enough for two meals. I get it on the laffa. With Hanukkah approaching, I can only hope for the seasonal jelly donuts. They are the best. Yemenite soup is wonderful especially on a cold night. And they deliver.

A very special experience. We got to have the salad bar before our food. The vegetable was well flavored and unique. Nice food and great friendly services. Accidentally found out check in on Unilocal get a free soda! Love this place :)

The meats are fatty and you feel it after you’ve eaten.
No bathroom, but there is a sink to wash your hands. The dining area is divey.
No wine, and you’re not allowed to BYO either.
Really there is no reason to eat here unless you are Glatt Kosher, and that appeared to be the appeal for the other customers seated around us and discussing why they were eating here.

Authentic Yemenite food at a great price.
Small, ethnic hole-​in-​the-​wall, offers takeout and a small room with a few tables where you can eat in. You don’t go for the décor, you go for the food and the price.
Order the calf’s leg (foot) soup for an honest broth, or the beef or chicken (which include meat and vegetables) soup for a taste of Yemen. Soup comes with fresh bread hot-​from-​the-​oven. I like to order with a small dish of homemade, garlic-​infused hummus to scoop up with chunks of fresh bread.
They also offer familiar Israeli/​Middles Eastern grilled meats, pita bread, salads, falafal. These are nicely done. I go for the Yemenite soup served with choice of laffa or loaf bread. And imagine that I am in the Yemen — and wish that flying to Yemen for the food was imaginable.

I was a little daunted coming here — we’d just got to the hotel and were looking for something to eat. It came down to between here and the Mexican place nearby — but this one won out. We were worried that we couldn’t find it, but there was signage on the street and once down the few steps, we were in.
We at in — I had the kofta pita sandwich and my wife had the falafel platter. The staff were super friendly, and the food was excellent. Honestly the best kofta’s I’ve ever had — and I’ve eaten pretty good ones in Istanbul. The falafels were also the best I’ve had, light, crunchy and lots of little crispy edges. So good.
What was unexpected was the after dinner show — but one which was thoroughly enjoyable. Just watching the chef operate was entertainment of the highest degree — he starts taking an order, then shouts at a delivery driver, then he’s sorted out some salad. Complete bonkers, but it works!

A quaint little place that provides just what you’d expect — well-​cooked, tasty food at a reasonable price!
I very much enjoyed my falafel plate, which came with chips, a whole wheat pita, and a little plate of salad that I could choose. My only negative was that I needed some sort of sauce, but I realised after that they had loads of sauces by the salad and I bet if I had asked, I would have been able to help myself.
My husband had the lamb kofte sandwich, and it was delicious. He couldn’t finish it (and I left loads of food behind, alas!).
It was the perfect meal to have on our first night in New York — local, different from what we normally have in London, and at under $ 30, not too extravagant.
There was a little problem with paying but we weren’t in any rush and watching the chef cook and deal with his staff was a complete hoot! It’s the kind of place that after a couple visits, you’d be a regular and be remembered when you came in.
The Seamless orders were flying out, too, so it’s deservedly popular.

Great food: we had home made hummus, shawarma and schnitzel all were delicious, highly recommend this place!

I come here on a regular and finally decided to leave a review.
This is one of the rare NYC kosher gems.
Incredible food and even better service. I highly recommend the yeminite soup. It is extremely fairly priced as well. I just can’t say enough. Can’t wait to stop by again this week!

Delicious food, not-​so-​delicious (i.e. ghetto) atmosphere.
The Good: Food is flavorful, customizable, and reasonably priced for New York kosher. I came with my brothers and girlfriend, and we ordered an appetizer platter (felafel, morrocan cigars, and another dish around some hummus and tahina). We also ordered shnitzel, shawarma chicken, another chicken plate, and Moroccan ground beef. Our sides were rice and fries. The dishes were large and tasty — it reminded me very much of the good food you get at little off-​street shawarma joints in Israel. Prices were pretty low (well under $ 20 per platter), which was an added bonus. Finally, the people working there were also friendly, which was nice.
The Bad, the Ugly: I would not recommend taking a date here. You descend some ladder-​stairs to get in, and the interior is cramped. The walls have exposed wooden beams on them (and not the cool hipster kind of wooden beams, but actual construction beams), adorned with a small, solitary picture on an otherwise bare wall. These bros really need to up their interior decorating game, and I mean that in the manliest way possible.

Food was okay. Kinda pricey. The seating is rather small, and a sewer kind of smell permeates the room every time the back door is opened. I tried the falafel platter. Not much to say. Not getting lucky with food this New York trip :(

Grill 212 is one of the rare places that truly embodies what I think deserves 5 stars on Unilocal.The food portions are huge; my Shakshuka was especially flavorful as were the Kubana and Hummus. The free salad bar that comes with some of the entrees, like the Shakshuka, is fresh and offers so many different deliciously seasoned veggies.
But what I think makes them really stand out is their outstanding customer service. For instance, they gave us a side of free fries so that the child in our group could nibble on something while we waited for our food. They were also so accommodating when my check-​in wasn’t working and gave me a free coke anyway and said that I could check in later.
They made us feel so welcomed and special, we’d definitely put this little gem of a place at the top of our list when it comes to Upper West Side restaurants for the amazing food and phenomenal hospitality.

The place is a very small and quint, very cozy. Staff was very friendly, the shwarma is very sizable (you can share with someone and be totally satisfied) and comes with the salad bar buffet (that is small but was fresh and pretty good). You can also make half and half (shwarma and baby chicken), the place is Kosher and checking in u get a free soda can.
Those are all the good points about the place.
What I didnt like was that the onion was very very very burnt and made the whole thing taste like burnt, and when the burnt taste wasnt there, the rest was just kinda blend.
But, even though I didnt have the best experience ever, I guess I would return and try it again but ask them not to burn my onions.

Please pardon my loose and insensitive rendering of a particular term, here, but this place is schizophrenic, precisely the kind of insanity I love to dive into in NYC. Only in this city, people. Only in this city could an underground closet of a restaurant, one that is not handicap accessible, get this kind of following. The owner is a riot. One minute he’s taking an order, the next he’s telling his delivery guy to get in the kitchen, the next he’s dropping a batch of French fries in the fryer, the next he’s ringing you up. It’s schizophrenia, pure and simple, and that’s a big part of the fun.
The food will win some and lose some, honestly. My shwarma was succulent, not terribly flavorful and chock full of somewhat nasty chicken fat that I spent a fair amount of time removing. But as I made my way toward the bottom of the cold pita, I was rewarded with a big wet kiss of cucumber and tomato and a smattering of spicy sauce. My wife absolutely raved about the falafel. I heard the lamb was good, too.
But go for the show. Grab something pickled while you wait, and make sure you don’t bring more than a few guests. This place only exists here, and in tiny villages in other parts of the world. Get a free Diet Coke by checking in on Unilocal

I set out to try to understand the difference between Yemeni and Yemenite food and if they are the same. Previously, I asked one of my Arab Yemeni friends and he said that «yemenite» is the feminine version of the word «yemeni.» I asked a Jewish friend and she said that «yemenite» and «yemeni» are the same. So what is it?
To try to get some clarity, I decided to try out a Yemenite restaurant, Grill 212. According to their website, they serve a «specialty Yemenite Soup, made with only the finest fresh ground spices from the Middle East and guaranteed to rock your palate!» They use «ancient family recipes infuse you with a taste for Old World Yemen where Jews have lived for thousands of years unchanged.» Their menu lists some Yemenite soups, including one called «Yemenite Marak Regel,» which sounded suspiciously like the Yemeni maraq soup that is a starter at Arab Yemeni restaurants.
I was lucky to be able to visit with an Israeli friend which made everything much smoother. She explained to me that the soups are the main dish of Yemenite cuisine. This seems to be a major difference as in Arab Yemeni food, the soup is just a small starter.
Anyway, so we tried to order the «Yemenite Marak Regel» soup at Grill 212 but it turns out that is just a winter specialty. Instead, the kind woman recommended the «Yeminete Meat Soup.» We decided to split the soup since we didn’t know how big it would be. That was a good call as the soup was huge! The soup was thicker than the Yemeni maraq and also contained meat and vegetables. Clearly, this is a meal on it’s own.
We also got some salad with tahini dressing, hilba schug, and kubana, a Yemenite bread. The hilba schug seemed to be hulba mixed with sahawiq. The kubana bread was soft and fluffy.
Since we weren’t sure if the soup would be enough food, we also got some chicken shawarma which was yummy. It came with beans and rice and ensured that we had leftovers!
As we were leaving, I also asked the kind woman working there what the difference between «yemenite» and «yemeni» is and she said it is the same. So far I think there is some overlap regarding the maraq soup, hulba, and sahawiq.
The staff we very kind here but I thought this place was a little pricy.