Reza's Restaurant- Evanston

Gave this spot 2 chances, nothing here really impresses my palate. My latest plate was the salmon & chicken dish, it left me wondering why I just didn’t go home and cook myself. Dessert was a cold piece of chocolate cake, which the waitress claimed was baked on premises, highly doubt that. Customer service was good, 2 stars.

The service was excellant. Our waiter was very good and knowledgeable about the food. The barley soup was delicious. The baked feta appetizer in the cooked tomatoes, red peppers, and onions as well as the grilled mushrooms were amazing! Their hummus is delicately seasoned and the warm persian flat bread was perfect with it. The ground beef kebabs with the dill rice were tender and moist and very flavorful. There was almost no difference in flavor between the ground lamb kebab and the ground beef kebab. The carrot cake was dry and crumbly by itself but the cream cheese frosting was rich and decadent. I liked the persian touches in the decor but the spray paint on the upper part of the walls seems out of place. I will definitely be going back and definitely recommend this restaurant.

For my son’s birthday we decided to order food from Reza. I ordered the food online. The total was over $180, which included 20% tip and taxes. I live few miles from the Evanston location, so I requested delivery when placing my order. The food arrived on time, and was delicious. I responded to text I received to write a review and I did, but it was through their website. I gave them 5 stars for my order, however 2 days later I got a text from them telling me that my credit card was charged $10 for delivery. I called the restaurant and requested to speak to the manager. The woman who answered the phone said she’s the manager. I told her this was an unethical practice to not state the charges when I ordered the food. She promised to credit me for the charges. 2 weeks later, the charge was on my credit card statement. I called again and the same woman answered and said the charge were for future orders. I said I’m not ordering from them again and decided to call my card company and dispute the charges. I ended up getting the credit back. I decided to go back and edit my 5 stars review but couldn’t since it was through their website. I told them they gained $10, but lost a customer.

Horrible horrible experience!!!!!!!! I ordered 2 plates of keboudieh kebab with dill rice and I got the wrong orders. I came back to speak to the waitress and she said the chef must have been confused so there’s nothing she can do about it. I was shocked!!!! I said I didn’t drive 30 mins to eat plain rice. I didn’t order this. The girl who took my order was hiding at the back and refused to come out. So this rude waitress told me to come back when the manager comes back. She said I can’t do anything about it. I have never experienced such horrible service ever. I was so upset, the food was soooo disgusting as well. Please don’t waste ur time of money going here

Not impressive at all. Their menu says you can substitute rice with couscous or grilled vegetable. The waitress response to my choice of grilled veggies to replace rice was NO!! It already comes with grilled veggies so she forced me to get cous cous. Also cold served food. Not a good atmosphere. Fridays are not good to be in this place. Bad service and lack of options. BTW: grilled vegetables are : burned ONE SLICE of green pepper. A quarter of tomato and quarter of onion. Will not return. Noon-o-Kebob beats this hands down

I understand completely why my friends and I were the only people in the restaurant. Service was adequate. Barely. No offers on refills for drinks and never came to ask how anything was but did the basics OK. The food, however was pretty bad. I've eaten a LOT of Reza's in my lifetime and have always enjoyed it. The Reza by me has closed so we went to Evanston. My friends, who I took out for their birthday lunch, also love Reza's food. Maybe not so much anymore though. Let me start. We got hummus and the feta cheese plate for apps. The hummus tasted like it was out of a Saba container, not made fresh. It was grainy and just a little off tasting and really thick. The feta tasted like the brine it was stored in had been around for a while. The veggies on the plate were...sad. The parsley was wilted. The onions and radishes looked as though they had been around for a while, accidentally frozen and then tossed on the plate. You couldn't have paid me to eat them. One friend got the beef koubeideh (sp). She said it was dry and pretty tasteless. The other friend got the chicken kabob and shrimp combo. She felt her chicken was better than the other Reza's we used to go to so that's a plus. I got a veggie combo with a skewer of chicken kabob on the side. The chicken was good and my dill rice was OK. The rest of the combo was not. All of it looked and tasted as though it had been around too long. The veggies were almost ready for the compost pile. The dolmeh weren't terrible but were about the size of my little finger. The falafel seemed as though it was made another day and just dropped in the fryer to put another layer of crunch on it. It tasted of old oil and crispy bits but nothing like falafel. I was never offered a refill on my iced tea and my friend had to ask. All in all, as I said, I can see why no one else was there and I will NEVER go back. I am really disappointed as I used to be a real fan of their food. There's just too much really good middle eastern food out there to waste your money here. Oh! and it was freezing in there.