La Kasbah, Drummoyne ($$)

Address: 190 Victoria Rd  Drummoyne NSW

Tel: (02) 9719 9261

Website: http://www.lakasbahdrummoyne.com.au/

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Atmosphere

We bought a Groupon deal for La Kasbah and after weeks of trying to find a suitable date for the four of us to visit, we finally locked in a Friday night.

I had called to make a booking and the man who answered the phone (who I am assuming was the owner, Mohammed), was nice but not too friendly and I was a bit surprised to hear screaming kids in the background.

When we got there, we walked through a bit of a corridor until we reached a sliding door with glass windows. To our left was an open kitchen in which we could see a lady (which the website tells me is Siham, Mohammed’s wife). Once we got through the doors, we came to a medium sized room with chairs all around it and some purple and green patterned cloth hanging from the walls.

To be honest, the place is quite dated. The patterned fabric is not very attractive and the walls and decor look old. The kitchen area is very easy to see from the dining room and there are all sorts of ornaments and messy bits and pieces everywhere. It really does feel like you are eating in someone’s house.

My dad used the bathroom and said it was OK but there was a bathtub in there as well, which sort of reinforces the whole “eating in someone’s house” thing.

That said, it wasn’t as though the place was dirty. I think if they removed the curtains, painted it a nice Moroccan-y colour and put some nice mosaics on the wall it would look a lot nicer and cleaner. Also, covering up the kitchen area would make a huge difference!

Service

Service was very average. The owner is not very friendly at all, in fact when mum and I walked in to meet my dad and brother who were already seated, we weren’t even greeted with a “hello”.

His wife however was very pleasant and always had a smile on her face when she came to serve us the tagines.

My brother and parents thought food was a little slow to come out of the kitchen, but I didn’t think it took that long.

Overall, service was not that great. I think if the wife had been out greeting people it  would have been a lot better!

Food

To start with we each got to choose an entree.

They were all pretty similar, some sort of skewer with salad, each costing between $9.50 to $10.70.

I ordered the spicy sausages. I expected the sausages to be like those at Twelve Spices Lao & Thai Cuisine– large, generous and very spicy. However, I was surprised to get three skinny sausages with some average salad.  While the sausages were tasty, they were very small and didn’t look nice on the plate at all. The salad had a nice dressing but was just an average salad which we could have made at home ourselves. There wasn’t anything Moroccan about my dish.

The bro ordered the beef skewers which were a little tough and hard to eat, but again had an OK flavour to them.

My mum’s mince meat kofta skewers were tasty, with parsley, onion and herbs. She enjoyed this part of the meal and said it was probably the best out of the three courses.

Finally, the chicken brochette with olive oil, onion, parsley, garlic and lemon juice, was probably the best looking entree out of the four. It also had good flavours and a nice breast bit of chicken.

For mains, we all decided to order a tagine (costing about $17.90-18.90) which, looking back was probably not the best idea. We should have instead tried the cous cous dish to see what it was like.

First out was my honey chicken tagine with cinnamon and sultanas. It contained two chicken legs with some mixed vegetables including carrots, courgettes and potatoes. All in all, I was disappointed as I had expected chicken breast pieces marinated in a thick and creamy sauce. What I got was a water, flavourless sauce, some boiled chicken leg and vegetables with a sprinkle of raisins. Very disappointing.

The other dishes were no different. All were cooked in the same yellowy tumeric sauce. The bro had a lemon chicken dish with preserved lemon and stuffed olives, but everything else about his dish was the same as mine.

Mum had a beef tagine with olives, tomatoes and a palm sized piece of beef.  The beef was tender and cooked until it was soft, which made it easy to eat.

Finally, my dad’s lamb tagine with prunes and honey was again, the same sort of thing.

While each dish was slightly different in terms of toppings, the vegetables, flavours, presentation and appearance were all the same.

In terms of portions, my brother was still hungry and we were quite disappointed with the size of the tagine and the entrees.

Still, we held on with some hope for dessert!

I ordered a lemon crepe, with honey and cinnamon and a side of whipped cream. This was probably the best thing I had there all night. Although again, the serving was stingy (one pancake for $7.50- really?), but the flavours were amazing.

I had never used lemon with cinnamon and honey before and I really liked the combination of flavours.

My bro’s picked the chocolate crepe which had a drizzle of a sort of sundae sauce. It was pretty average and could have done with a scoop of ice cream, a side of strawberries and another pancake.

My parents both ordered the only other dessert available (the briout was not available)- the creme caramel. It was quite well presented and my dad said he enjoyed it, but when I tried some I thought it was a little watery. Overall, not that bad as far as creme caramels go, but not amazing.

Overall a very disappointing experience.

While the lady was friendly and the entrees were tasty, the portion sizes in general left you feeling as though you had been ripped off. The decor is very dull and dated, and the menu options are limited.

Cost

We used a Groupon voucher for this deal.

Rating:

I would rate my experience (out of 10):

• Service-4.5
• Food- 4
• Ambience-4
• Value –4