Earlier tonight I decided that making dinner was too much trouble and we decided to try Zooroona’s again, at least for me, and Scott’s first time. I enjoyed the first time I went despite the botch in the appetizer order the first time, I figured it was just a simple omission.
After this subsequent time going to Zooroona’s on West Main in Kalamazoo we discovered some pretty obnoxious errors. After we were greeted and seated by the host we looked over the menu. I selected a Chicken Schwarmah as my choice. The menu indicated that it came with a complimentary salad. I selected the Tabbouleh. Scott tried to select a combo plate with half Chicken Schwarmah and half Biryani with the first salad on the menu for his side. The waiter informed us that the combo plates were only valid for the leftmost column of dish choices, but neither of us noticed on the menu whether or not that was how it was supposed to actually be, so Scott changed his selection. It wasn’t what he wanted, it’s what Zooroona forced him to select after rejecting his initial order! If you are going to do these things, here’s a hint: Design your !@#$ menu properly!
We waited for our first dishes to arrive and Scott got his salad, for which he enjoyed and I got the Tabbouleh. I didn’t know what to expect. What I got was probably one of the single most unpleasant thing-on-a-plate that I’ve ever had to endure. It was a shot in the dark, so I didn’t complain and because the ingredients were technically good for me I grimaced and tried my hardest to swallow without tasting. The Tabbouleh was just a plate of coarsely minced parsley with very small bits of onion and tomato topped with two un-unpitted Kalamata Olives. I took one bite and a part of me deep down declared that it was utterly inedible. The social monitor in me forced me to squeeze the slice of lemon out onto the salad thinking that perhaps rough-green-sour had a missing something that lemon could bring and it would transform the dish into something edible. Turns out, no. But I was good, I didn’t complain, I sent what I was given down to my stomach as quickly as I possibly could. Each bite was a cringing body-wracking “Oh God please not another bite” but to be a good guest I endured it. When it was over I squinted my eyes, thanked my stars that *that* was over and tried to wash the unpleasant everything downstream with water.
We got our meal and that came out reasonably well. The sauce for the Schwarma wasn’t as good as the last time I was at Zooroona’s and that was a disappointment. I can only assume that the Tabbouleh I endured must have set my palate off so badly that *that* is the reason why the rest of the meal was somewhere between meh and blah. Oh, and one thing else to mention, the Batata, which we got as an appetizer was a different experience as well. There is a particularly strong component to classic chicken wing sauce that you get when you order them from Duff’s in Buffalo, New York. This component is the hot sour stinging of the hot sauce that goes into that preparation. The Batata was just that. Little chunks of potato covered in this hot, sour, monotonous sauce. The only thing that helped, and only very sparingly was the thin-as-water yogurt sauce that was the accompaniment to the Batata. It’s something I won’t eat again.
So throughout the meal we soldiered on diligently, trying to be good guests. It became really awkward when there was a huge crash near the bar and someone became so enraged that they screamed several very inappropriate phrases as clear as a bell. For the customers in the restaurant we turned and all we noticed was one of the people near the bar get up and just stand hulking and stoic quite near where the loud crashing sound came from. It came across to me as “There is nothing to see here, pay no attention to what you just heard, everything is fine.” I turned to Scott and we both said pretty much at the same time “What do you want to bet that was our waiter and he just snapped?” Which lead us to our other big problem with Zooroona’s. Beverage service. We both had accepted the complimentary water and Scott had exhausted his cup about 5 minutes into the meal. These cups are smaller than a collins glass but bigger than a wine glass and I’d estimate they hold anywhere from six to eight ounces of water. Our waiter ignored us pretty much up until we asked for water and even still we didn’t get any. It wasn’t until right before he dropped off the bill that he came around with a water pitcher and refilled our glasses. Now I don’t want to be a pain in the ass about this, but this is one of the most basic elements of running a restaurant. If you do nothing else correctly, at least make sure your customers have an adequate supply of drinking water! Come on!
After we were done and he hauled all the plates away he dropped off the bill. I was expecting two dishes and an appetizer, somewhere in the high twenties to low thirties for the total. I was apparently charged $2.50 extra for the Tabbouleh! It wasn’t enough to throw a fit about, but it did vex me strongly. It would have been nice for the waiter to have INFORMED ME that my salad selection carried an extended price! The menu was mute about it as well! So it’s a trap. Not only did I have to suffer through the awfulness of that Tabbouleh but I had to pay $2.50 for the … pleasure… of it. I still cringe when remembering it! So when we cashed out I was pretty much done with Zooroona’s. Terrible menu with zero guidance in it, a waiter who was just there to occupy space and treat his host role as a boring chore, food that was not consistent and a salad that was a crime against humanity. I paid my bill, I gave the waiter a 10% tip. He earned a minimal tip for being minimally effective, at least at the start.
It’s going to take a very long time, if at all, that I will return to Zooroona’s. The first time the waiter completely botched our appetizer order, the second time, well, that’s above… even if I were to give them another shot, and they aced that one, that’s only an overall success of 33%! I would have been better served by simply skipping dinner altogether. Not enduring that experience is preferable to enduring it. Going to bed without dinner actually may have been better for me in the long run. Because of these experiences I cannot recommend Zooroona’s to anyone else and my advice is to skip it and go somewhere else. Really, my advice is to skip going out altogether and cook at home, but if you *must* go out, there are better experiences elsewhere. What’s the scope of elsewhere? Paw Paw is a good start, but to really be honest, it’s best to skip the entire state of Michigan and try somewhere else, like Illinois or New York. Really.
