Balagan Kosher Mediterranean Cafe

Located in the student union, Balagan offers decent Mediterranean food at a fair price. The shop is small, and the choices are limited, but to the point. You can choose from various gyros and shawarma. I love Mediterranean food, and strangely enough, there is another joint right across the hall inside the Mrs. Fields. I believe their food is better across the board, and that directly affects my rating for Balagan. Even though Balagan is just OK, it’s tough to recommend considering what you can get just 10 feet away.

This review is for the location inside the UCF arena– there’s another inside the student union that we haven’t eaten at.
Granted, this is a fast-​food place inside an arena. And we should probably rank it higher because it offers the only vegetarian food inside the arena besides french fries (falafel). Food was OK, but service was awful. The person ringing us up kept giving us the total before we’d finished ordering, and acting irritated when we added items to the list. Two people standing there together and chatting probably means both want to order, right? And they will probably both want beverages. I could understand this if there was a line behind us and she was trying to be efficient, but there wasn’t.
Oh, and it was like pulling teeth to get her to explain the options for veggies/​sauces that we could add to the falafel. «What kind of sauce is the green one?» «Hot sauce.» …no further explanation, and a flat stare for wasting her time.

This is the first Kosher restaurant that I have been to, and I will be back… many times. The shawarma was fantastic. It was super fresh an filled with so many different flavors. The staff /​owner was very friendly and helpful and explained all the dishes to us.