Al Mounia

As you can guess from the title of this post, today I will be talking about the absolute disappointment that I felt when eating as this very well-known restaurant in Madrid city centre.

For those of you who are lovers of exotic food, specifically Arabic food, you will surely know of this restaurant.

Below, you can see just how incredibly beautiful its interior decor is.

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In all honesty, it's something magical and incredible and it makes you feel like you have travelled to Morocco just by looking around you.

But, it's a shame that it only made me feel like this after seeing the restaurant's decor, as it loses all of its charm once you sit down to eat.

I am telling you all about this because I have quite a fair bit of experience with Arabic food, and with Moroccan cuisine in particular, as my parents are from Morocco, meaning that we eat this type of food every single day. So, I have more than enough knowledge of what each dish should taste like.

I really like the chicken cous cous, the lemon chicken (again) tajine, and the Moroccan kebabs, which are also known as meat skewers.

Another typical Arabic dish is pastela, which I also really like when it is served with either chicken or fish.

But it seems that I only like these dishes when my parents make them because, after trying the food at Al Mounia, it became clear to me that not all Moroccan people can actually cook Moroccan food.

And the prices are a disappointment. Everything is ridiculously expensive! But, honestly, it is a joke. It seems like you are paying for the views and the decor than for the food itself.

I'm sorry if I am being really repetitive, but, honestly, it was just very bad.

Maybe for the people who aren't particularly used to exotic food, they will think that it is good, but for those of us who know what it should taste like, they won't be able to pull wool over our eyes just because the restaurant's walls are pretty.

Anyway, I will tell you about what we ordered.

First, we ordered a starter of little dishes of hummus, tabbouleh, zaaluk (made with aubergines), and another with scrambled eggs and a strange sauce mixed together.

The hummus was quite bad - it didn't even taste of chickpeas! More than anything, it had a really strong vinegar taste and it was incredibly thick.

They had put too much lemon in the tabbouleh and it was a little sour for my liking, so we couldn't actually finish it... and, think about it, these were just tiny portions as well.

The only good thing in this starter was the zaaluk, although it equally wasn't mouthwatering.

I cannot give you my opinion about the eggs because I don't eat them, so I obviously didn't try this dish. However, my sister and my friend said that they were relatively good and were perhaps the best thing that they ate that night (taking into account the fact that the quality of the food was well below average, mediocre to say the least).

Well, these four little dishes cost us 19€! Absolute craziness. A starter like this one cost us only 12€ at Fairuz and it was really good! Never mind the fact that the portion sizes there were also much larger...

But that was not the worst thing about Al Mounia... The worst thing came later: the meat kebabs.

They called it an 'assortment' of kebabs and we thought that there would be around 5 or 6 kebabs to eat, but no, there were only three!

One chicken kebab, one lamb and another that had spicy beef. 3 kebabs for 22€. Can you actually believe it?! Absolute craziness.

I almost said something when I saw that they had only put three kebabs on the plate. So, given that it was so expensive, we had to split these three into five equal parts to ensure that we all had some, which meant that each one of us hardly had a mouthful of each kebab...

And, on top of that, the kebabs weren't even good. The spicy beef one was inedible and we couldn't even finish them because they were just that bad.

However, I quite liked the chicken kebab, but the lamb one not so much. Although, I have to admit that I didn't like it because I don't like lamb in general, so it didn't really surprise me when I had to spit the piece that I had in my mouth out.

In short, this dish was something of nightmares.

Then, to finish, we ordered a dish that had a variety of pastillas (yes, you have read that correctly), which are made with a crêpe-like dough.

But, get this, the pastillas were tiny! If I remember correctly, I think there were four or five of them, and one of them was cut in half... What a disappointment.

All of the pastillas had a revolting taste of cinnamon, but the fillings don't actually contain any of this ingredient! At best, they sprinkle it on top of these pies to decorate them and that's it. But, in these particular ones, the cinnamon was definitely inside and it seemed like they had actually coated both the chicken and the onions in it before they were baked.

And these cost us another 21€...

Honestly, every time that I think about this restaurant, it makes me want to go back there and demand a refund...

But, anyway, I restrained myself from doing so because we were there to celebrate my father's birthday and I didn't want to cause a scene.

And another thing that I have to add is that, if you go to this restaurant, although I strongly recommend that you don't, don't order a drink and instead ask for tap water because the tea nor the cola are worth the money.

A little 200ml bottle of orange Fanta cost me almost 4€.

But, frankly speaking, I think these people are sick in the head for charging prices that are just completely blown out of proportion when the quality and quantity of the items is so low.

The good thing about this restaurant was, as I already mentioned earlier, the interior decor.

But, that was honestly it. The chairs were some of the most uncomfortable that I have ever sat on and the tables were round. You may think, "why was that a problem? " Well, we were a party of 5, so they put two of these tables together, but that meant that, as I was sat in the middle, my plates and glass were basically left in limbo.

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It's as if they wanted to get their money's worth out of what they spent decorating the restaurant more than from the food they were serving.

However, it has to be said that the service we received from the waiting staff was excellent.

Besides, there was a valet parking service, which was just next to the restaurant's entrance. The only thing that you had to do when you got out of your car was give them the keys and they would then park your vehicle for you.

As you will already know, wherever you park in the centre of Madrid, you have to pay for parking at a metre. The good thing about the valet parking service is that they park your car as close to the restaurant as possible (obviously), as well as taking care of paying at the metre for you, so when you want to leave the restaurant, you don't need to pay for it yourself.

If you want to give them a little tip, there's no problem with doing so, but, equally, if you don't want to then that's also fine. At the end of the day, this is their job, and in terms of the parking metre, the only thing you have to do is give the receipt in at the restaurant and they will give you the money back.

To summarise - I don't recommend that you go to this restaurant because you will be wasting money on mediocre food that comes in excessively small portions.