Maha’s Lebanese Cuisine

Food was good! Service could be much improved. It’s irksome when people who arrive after us gets serviced first.

Service was fine — our server was pleasant. I’ve been here a few times and always leave wanting more. The food is fine (perfect portions). The hummus was good with warm pita bread as were the spinach cakes. I wish the flavors were more memorable and they should accompany most of their dishes with some type of dipping sauce to add visual and flavor interest, in my opinion. Still, they’ve got a great location, maybe good for college students… I’m rooting for them…

Mahas was great but unfortunately their downtown location is closed :(
Looks like they lost their lease at that location but apparently they’re still catering.

Nice little place. We had a larger group (12 or so?) and the girl waiting on us knew the menu well and could tell us about dishes that were unfamiliar to us (ie. ALL!). The samboosik and hummus were delicious. The chicken schwarma sandwich was pretty good, and at $ 7 I was happy with it.
I’d be happy to return again if I’m in the area.

The service was good, the food nothing special, but good.
I got the lunch special and my main gripe with that was pita was supposed to come with it to dip in the hummus. And it did, but it was little shards that you couldn’t use to get a good amount of hummus so you had to mix it with your food and it over powered all the other flavors.
But for $ 10 it was a good sized meal, even with a lot of rice included.

Very nice surprise dinner! Got in late to a conference, and had been craving good food and followed Unilocal to Maha’s.
Ordered an assortment of meza (spinach turnovers, samboosa, grape leaves, hummos) and kefta and shush tawook and was very pleased with every bite.
My only critique would be that the rice needed salt, and the meat was slightly dry.
Almost as good as my Mama’s cooking growing up!
Thank you!

Another weekend to be a tourist in Monterey to check out the Monterey Museum of Art in DT Monterey. Considering it was a weekend, DT Monterey was strangely quite. Most of the crowd seems to be at the oh-​so-​touristy tourist trap at Fisherman’s Wharf. Seriously, what’s up with that? Ok, save that rant for another post. So Maha’s.
Scanning the menu, the lunch special was only $ 9.95 and had 7 items! You choose from Falafel or chicken/​beef Scherwerma. The other items included salad, grape leaf, hummus, pita, etc. This seemed to be a good way to sample the food for not a lot of $.
The chicken Scherwerma was not the best I’ve had. Chicken was ok but the wasn’t as grilled as I liked, i.e. not enough smokiness, burnt bits, etc. The other items on the plate were ok too. Again, I’ve had better.
Considering it’s relatively inexpensive for the lunch special and lack of wait, it’s worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Maha started with great plates. However, lately the hummus is not the same taste. Neither are the dalmas. The pita bread is not a lebanese pita. Service is very low.
I wish this restaurants will go back to the initial taste.

Stopped here on the way back from Carmel. The ambiance was alright — nothing exciting.
We started with the pita and hummus. The pita was not that fresh, but served warm which helped (until it got cool). The hummus was pretty good though, probably the best part of the meal. Overall, the food was quite bland and it was difficult to eat the chicken, which was rubbery. The falafel sandwich was okay — rather uninspiring. We ended with the baklava which was vegan, but I know understand why baklava shouldn’t be a vegan dessert.

Went here for a light dinner tonight and it was delicious! I had just a couple of appetizers (so I’ll probably return another night when I have more of an appetite) and everything was tasty and fresh. The server was friendly and efficient and the atmosphere very comfortable. I will most certainly return!

Why would I eat at the same place twice a day for a week straight? Probably because I couldn’t go three times a day since it wasn’t open for breakfast. How awesome is All You Can Eat for less than ten bucks? I don’t know, but it’s even more awesome when literally every dish is your favorite. My grandmother would probably not be too happy with me if I told her Maha’s had better Lebanese food than she makes.
I don’t understand why this place isn’t packed and overcrowded, because it should be. Maybe it’s because it’s in quaint little Monterey where you can get stabbed outside the movie theater by Salinas gang members (I actually witnessed this one of the nights I was there) or maybe because people just don’t understand you don’t need a fancy tablecloth, high price tag, and trendy music to experience fine dining.

If you want a healthy start to the day — then Maha’s is your place.
The Maha Salad is excellent and is made with avocado, fresh greens, cucumber, spinach, tomato, romaine lettuce, and more. It comes with a side of a glorious balsamic and olive oil dressing, which is infused with garlic. The whole dish is simple, but excellent value for $ 6.95 and the staff are extremely helpful and will check in on you throughout your meal. The Maha salad paired with a hot cup of green tea is one of the best ways to fuel yourself up for the long drive back to the city.
Trust.

Everything tastes like nothing. Service is non existent. I’m thirsty and hungry as I sit here waiting. They forgot my brothers order. The best thing were the fries. I hope that this isn’t real Lebanese food because to me it seems that they hate flavor.
Save yourself time and money and never come here.

I always have a soft spot for people who are willing to feed me on Thanksgiving day. Especially when they don’t try to rip you off with some over-​priced special holiday menu. Unfortunately I still have mixed feeling about the food here. Ordered two of their lunch combo but I wasn’t very impressed. The beef and lamb shawerma tasted very bland. I actually had to season it with bunch of salt. That was a first. I had slightly better luck with the falafels. They were actually fairly flavorful with a nice soft texture. The domas on both were painfully dry. They were either stored too long or not well made. The highlight of the meal was actually the Turkish coffee. It was Rich with great aftertaste.
My experience might not apply to you. Try them out on a regular day and be your own judge.

I ordered the chicken kabob. The rice was bland, the chicken was dry and bland, the grilled veggies were bland. The garlic sauce that came with it was really the only flavor that was on the dish.
I came with 5 other people, and my friends ordered the kafta kabob (nothing special), and the beef and lamb sandwich (not much flavor). French fries was the only dish we enjoyed that meal. We unanimously agreed that this restaurant was not impressive.
The service was also very questionable. Our waitress forgot one of my friend’s orders, and so he had to wait a good 10 minutes after we had all started eating before he got his food. Our water cups were empty and the waitress didn’t take much notice — we had to ask for refills. On multiple occasions.
I kept trying to think of what the redeeming value of this place was. Clearly, some people like it, or else it wouldn’t have good reviews. I just couldn’t find anything to work with, though. The portion size for my chicken kabob was generous. But I’d rather have a smaller amount of tasty food than a large amount of bland food.

Maha’s is family-​run establishment with an infectious warmth and happiness, serving up some coloful heart-​healthy dishes made with passion and love.
I started with a popular Lebanese tea, the Jallab, a syrup infused with molasses and rose water, topped with pine nuts and raisins. It’s a very natural, refreshing beverage. I enjoy the unique collison of flavors in this beverage — it’s my chemical romance!
We thoroughly enjoyed our complimentary antioxidant-​rich fattoush salads (comprised of mixed greens and vegetables and fried pita bread chips). For our entrees, we ordered a couple of shawarma plates– beef & lamb for me and the chicken for my mom. Generous portions of seasoned meat (I needed to a add couple dashes of salt and pepper to draw out the inherent flavors) layered with grilled onions, tomatoes and lettuce, served over a most fragrant saffron rice. No pellet was left untouched!
Maha’s offers a weekday (M-​F) lunch buffet for $ 9.95, which I can’t wait to try out soon.

I heart Maha’s!!!
This is Lebanese soul food. Good for the soul, made from the heart, easy on the wallet and healthy for your figure. I’m a fan, a big fan. I’m so excited about this restaurant because they made it an experience for me and not just good food. The owners Suhail (I hope that’s how you spell it) and Maha have both come over to my table and told me about various items on their menu. I have received an education and fantastic meals from them.
Their Turkish coffee is heavenly. Watching Maha make this and serving it in the traditional ibrik has inspired me so much I started googling how to make Turkish coffee and ordered one online to make at home. I’m hoping I’ll be able to make it as well as Maha does. Once you try her Turkish coffee you will never be able to go to Starbucks again.
I stock my refrigerator with her homemade hummus (she sells it and many other homemade goodies at the farmers market on Tuesdays)
On weekdays they do an outstanding lunch buffet for under $ 10!!! Seriously, how can they afford that? Everything is so good, I stuff my face and the only bad thing about it is the guilty pleasure I feel afterward.
Make sure when you go that Maha is cooking. When she is there everything is amazing and her service is first class. I have never met a kinder person in my life and her husband is the same way when he is there to help out.
Don’t leave without dessert. Yes her baklava is fantastic but branch out and try some of her other phenomenal desserts. Her semolina cookies I tried were like nothing I’ve ever had before.
Go support this local gem on Alvarado, I would be heart broken to see them leave like the million other places that have come and gone from there. More of our locals need to get out and try new things. It’s not a tourist trap, it’s a family doing what they love and hoping we will love it too! Like I said I heart Maha’s, five stars all the way baby!

Picked up a quick dinner from their stand at the Farmers Market. I got the cheese pie as a dinner combo with hummus and a side salad. Everything was very delicious and a deal at $ 10.
They make the cheese pies to order so you will have to wait a little longer for that option versus the spinach or potato which were already sizzling away when we approached.

Don’t believe the hype. I’ve been eating Lebanese food for 10 years. While living in LA, we had some great options (Sunnin!). We moved to Monterey and came across this place, hoping it would be good (the reviews made it out to be a pretty good spot).
Much to our dismay, we got punked! We ordered stuffed zucchini and shish kabob — the zucchini dish was cold in the center and the kabab tasted like something my 4 year old niece cooked in her easy bake oven.
I informed the waitress that the food was cold, she asked if I wanted it warmed up — there’s nothing worse in a restaurant than hearing the cook in the back say «add one more minute» followed by high-​pitched beeps, then some fans, and then the sound of a beeping timer (yeah, they microwaved my food to make it more pleasant).
Needless to say, the food came back a little dryer and a lot worse tasting that it had before.
We left this place in agreement that it should close down.
Good for: Nothing

So the fact that it was a Saturday night, and Valentine’s Day the next day, and a three-​day weekend all meant that nearly every restaurant in Monterey was packed. After a search for a table, we ended up in Maha’s, which was, happily, a great choice.
Perhaps our favorite part of the meal was the bargain of the $ 12.95 dinner special they had going that night. For the amount and quality of food we got, that was an incredible price! Soup/​salad, entrée, and dessert were included. Friend and I had the mixed grill, and Husband had the lamb. I think that he was more pleased with his meal than we were with ours, but overall everybody was satisfied. I found mine to be just a little dry and the rice to be somewhat bland. However, there were a few things that really made up for the minor problems with my entrée: the lentil soup was AMAZING! I could have easily eaten just a big bowl of that. Also, the spicy olives we had as an appetizer were SO yummy! The dessert pastries were perfect.
Toddler was particularly fond of the «dancing princess» (belly dancer), and perhaps if you have a dancer to distract you you won’t notice the sloppy service that many others have mentioned below. The service and the entrée together make a 3.5 star experience, but the rest of the meal and the price was so good that I am willing to round them up to 4. We would definitely come back!