Tarboush Mediterranean Grill

We ordered 2 gyros, grape leaves, and red pepper hummus and lentil soup. The gyros was very salty. We didn’t like the grape leaves appetizer at all. The filling had no flavor and had the consistency of watery mashed potatoes. The only good thing was the soup.

New restaurant in the area. I like them a lot. The food seems super healthy compared to the other options in the area.
I got the meat mix platter and the baba ganoush which were decent. Will definitely go back to try other things.

Six Words: Everything but baba ghanouj is bland
I have been searching for a new go-​to Mediterranean delivery/​takeout place ever since I moved from Hyde Park to Wicker Park in July. When I was in Hyde Park, I had my place — I would order from the Nile on 53^rd at least once a month. But they don’t deliver 50+ blocks. So I decided to try Tarboush for kicks.
I ordered delivery via GrubHub and my delivery estimate was an hour but it arrived in 30 minutes on a Sunday evening. That was nice. The food that arrived wasn’t as nice.
I ordered the Veggie Sampler (hummus, baba ghanouj, dolmas, falafel, Tabouleh salad) and the Meat Assortment Plate (chicken kabob, beef kabob, kafta, basmati rice, house salad, grilled onions and peppers and grilled pita).
The chicken kabob wasn’t seasoned as much as I would’ve liked — it just tasted like boiled chicken. The beef kabob wasn’t seasoned as much as I would’ve liked and it was chewy. The kafta was seasoned well but it was chewy. The basmati rice was on point … but that’s rice. The house sald was annoying because it was mostly the veins/​white part of a lettuce head — very few leafy greens. The grilled veggies they dumped on the meat tell you that they suck at cooking meat. Because my meat was covered in a thin layer of grilled onions and peppers, which somehow were also bland.
The hummus was bland — there were spices sprinkled atop but they did nothing to help the flavor. The dolmas were weird — the leaf didn’t break apart in a bite so you had to stick the whole grape leaf in your mouth at once and the innards were bland. The falafel was okay — not perfect, not horrible. The Tabouleh salad had no flavor. It was just chopped up lettuce with other stuff. There may have been some oil or dressing but they weren’t at all generous with it. The baba ghanouj was good. I actually liked the baba ghanouj.
The saddest part was the tahini sauce — the most flavorless tahini I’ve ever tasted. It was a chalky flavor — I think they used too much cream. It just tasted wrong. Which made the whole meal worse because you couldn’t just dump tahini on everything.
To be honest, Naf Naf Grill (you know that chain that’s everywhere now) is leagues ahead of Tarboush in terms of flavor for everything. And Cedar’s from the grocery store makes Tabbouleh salad that actually tastes like something. I can’t believe I just typed that — but it’s true. Grocery stores and chains provide better tasting food than this place. I gave it two stars because it was edible and I have enough leftovers to last for at least 2 more (bland) meals. But I’m never spending my money here again.

Food is very good! Restaurant is clean and people are nice. Delivery is too expensive or I would have given 5 stars.

The food here is really fresh and delicious. The chicken shawarma plate is my favorite. You can tell that the ingredients are super fresh by the taste. I have dined in and ordered pickup and delivery before. All experiences have been very pleasant and service is very friendly. The delivery time has also been very reasonable and sometimes even quick! If you order for pick up, it’s always ready when you get there. If dinning in, I would say it takes about 10 – 15 mins for the food to come out.

Based off of my delivery experience, Tarboush’s take on Mediterranean is not quite what I was hoping for. I’m an ardent fan of the regional dishes, but I’m interested in learning the origins of Tarboush’s version as not all regions deliver the same in terms of spices and quality. Iraqi tends to be the most flavorful, Turkish takes my heart, Lebanese if you please and you can’t beat Greek, but Tarboush? I’ll imagine Persian, my least favorite take.
I ordered a beef kabob, salad, rice, pita and a side of feta cheese… simple. I was hoping for a bounty of flavor but instead received a heaping portion of blah.
The meat was chewy, dry, sans flavor, cold and indistinguishable from liver. The vegetables, while fresh, were plain and overwhelming. Overwhelming would have been welcoming if the content was at least flavorful. The rice? Bland. Could have boiled some Uncle Ben’s and came out on top. The Jesus bread was cracker crunchy, and I call it Jesus bread because it definitely wasn’t pita and should have been in an archeological museum and not on my plate. Lastly, the meal was accompanied by Thai hot sauce and this strange white sauce evocative of condensed milk. All together, wrong!
I attempted to mask the lack of flavor by pouring the entire content of my feta cheese onto my meal. But even the feta was subpar, void of moisture and choppy (out the Athena container) versus blocky and straight from the deli.
The delivery service was quick, that I’ll commend. But the meal leaves me likely to order Chinese somewhere during the course of the night as this did not suffice. Perhaps dining in the restaurant would have been a more remarkable experience. Maybe next time as I’m more than willing to give almost anywhere a second chance. But as for delivery, I’ll be trying elsewhere.

The best takeout option in Chicago. Strong statement, I know! Go to menu items include:
— the hummus
— Jerusalem salad
— chicken kabob platter (I always sub quinoa), which comes with the best unmentioned pleasant surprise of a ton of deliciously grilled veggies and salad
Best tip for ordering: you can add a ‘side kabob’ to your order, which has everything in the platter version except the salad. It’s a great deal and addition!

Combo platter. No flavor yuck — lamb yuck. Chicken yuck. Soupy rice with no flavor. Falafel way too crunchy with weird flavor, super greasy seemed as if it had been sitting all day (yes I know it’s fried). Tahini sauce bleh. Salad bleh (not sure how you make a bleh salad, had about 5 olives in a large salad) dressing had NO flavor, not sure where the lemon was… Babaganoush very oily and way too smokey. Pita tasted like cheap pita they’d sell at the dollar store. I believe the cause of all of this is that they use the cheapest ingredients which causes the shitty quality food to taste worst. I’ve never had a bad pita before. Yuck. Would not go back. Ever. Waste of $ 30.

Terrific food! Fast delivery as well. Highly recommend this place!

Ordered Delivery: plate of chicken shwarma and kafta plate. Both meats completely dry, not enough seasoning. Salads were not good. Rice was flavorless. Even the pita was bad. How do you screw that up.
Absolutely terrible. $ 26 wasted on this. I’ve had bland mediterranean before, but this was absolutuely unacceptable.

The restaurant is clean and welcoming. The low rating mainly comes from the meat quality and the length of time that it took us to get our order (Mediterranean Salad with Salmon and a Salmon Wrap add rice and tomatoes).
The salmon on both items was rather dry. It had a good flavor but was over cooked and dry. I wouldn’t recommend getting the salmon items but will possibly give the restaurant another and try one of the chicken items.
Service was just okay and the rice came in a bowl on the side rather than in the wrap like we had asked for.

This place is AWESOME. Their salads — both entrée salads and the little side salads they toss in with every entrée — are seriously tops. Big chunks of crisp cucumbers, and yellow, green and red peppers. Flavorful tomatoes. Fresh romaine. These are salads worth whatever money you pay for them — investment salads. Happy-​you-​ordered-​here salads.
And their chicken is good. Not weird. Very very good!
Trust me — I was a vegetarian for 13 years. So I know salads. And I know when meat is freaky.
This place is doing the right thing — a great product at a good price.

Very pleased another good, healthy and cheap lunch spot opened near my office. Been there 3 – 4 times in the past couple weeks and everything I’ve tried is great.
Only been open a couple months so service is hit or miss (as I would expect from a newer place just getting its footing). But for a great meal for under $ 10, I’m happy to overlook it.

Well Unilocal,you’ve done it again! You helped me find my new favorite lunch spot.
Despite the great reviews, I wasn’t expecting much. That all changed when I took the first bite of my chicken shawarma sandwich. It was dripping with flavor and full of fresh, hearty vegetables.
The tabbouli salad was tangy and crisp. And for $ 3, the small portion was more than enough for me. Great value!
The washrooms were super clean and the staff was über friendly. I can’t wait to bring my best friend here. She’s gonna love it!

WOW! This place is delicious and filling all for about $ 8 – 12. depending on what you get.
Really quick service too!

Delicious and fresh food. Have only had the chicken kabob but I def recommend it. Place is small inside with a few tables. Good lunch spot!

It’s a small spot but it’s pretty tasty.
I stopped in here for lunch with a friend and we both got shwarma, him chicken and myself beef. We did the old switch-​a-​roo and swapped halves so we both got to try chicken and beef.
Both were great and very filling with veggies and tasty sauce. The service here is also quite fast and friendly. A good spot for a quick bite to eat.

Came here as Louie’s Pub didn’t have any food. We hardly come to the area, but me and my husband spotted this cute place amongst diner food, and we thought this would be the healthiest option.
We decided to both share the beef kabob plate (the lady at the front told me the difference between the shwarma and the kabob plate was that the kabob plate had bigger pieces of meat. $ 10 I thought was a good deal, spotted the $ 15 for lamb chops and think that is a GREAT deal. Also, get your own plate, they aren’t big enough to share if you both are hungry. But, I hadn’t eaten and my husband was a bit hungry, so it was a good meal to share.
First of all, we eat VERY light. We don’t like these that are too saucy/​too salty. This place was perfect. Everything had flavor through spices, but it wasn’t super salty. The plate came with rice, sauteed peppers with beef, and a side salad. Really good flavors, without being salty is hard to find.
Also, this place is nice and clean. One star off because I just wish they made their own baklava! I asked if they made their own, and they told me” no one makes their own baklava.” Actually… Shawarma Garden in Wicker park totally does and it is amazing. Just a suggestion.
Also, the clientele was mostly take-​out, there is not a lot of seating.

My first experience with Tarboush was both hit and miss. I ordered online via GrubHub — I think theirs was a sponsored link. The delivery all the way down to where I live took a LONG time (more than 40 minutes after I was notified by GH that my food was out for delivery); I think that may have been a part of the issue in terms of food quality. Maybe they should not deliver to places that are too far from their location?
Good:
The hummus was good
Dill rice were good
Not:
Falafel — dry
Pita Bread — dry, stuck, broken
I paid for extra bread, but I don’t know if it was provided. I know with a falafel plate and large hummus, I ran out of it. They did provide a two mini-​containers each of tahini and hot sauce.

Just walking in you know it’s going to be good. The décor is very creative and inviting. It’s also says «authentic Mediterranean», and NOT in the way those taxi stand felafel stands do where you don’t really feel welcome if you’re American.
The service was great too. I was welcomed right when I walked in by the two people working the front, even though they were busy taking orders and making sandwiches. The owner was even there making dishes and taking orders too. What owner does that except the Hot Doug’s guy?
I just had a felafel sandwich, but they threw in a baklava for me anyway, and I might just have to get that every time I go now. You win Tarboush!
I’ll be back to try out the rest of the menu, that’s for sure. This might just be my go-​to pre– or mid-​six corners stop in Bucktown from now on too.