DAR Maghreb Restaurant, Los Angeles

Very nice Ambience - though there's almost no light. A bit too dark for my taste as I want to also see the food. Also let me say that the decor is North African and not as other reviewers wrote 'middle east'......? The place falls - I might say - unfortunately under the moniker of 'show restaurant' and with that I don't mean the belly dancer(s) that show up every now and then but how the waiter serves you, like an actor repeating the exact same lines to everybody, which is a bit boring and not very personal. How's the food? Food is OK and partially very good like the Lentil soup or b'stilla. The lamb though needs a bit more attention by the kitchen and the Couscous is boring. The sweets that are served with sugared mint tea are disappointing and uninteresting. Something that really irked me though is this: while at the beginning of the meal warm water is poured over a bowl so everybody can wash their hands this happens only once at the beginning. Once gets a towel as a napkin and during the courses uses this towel to try to clean one's hands. That's totally unacceptable. In addition there are no plates of any kind of vessels served where one could put the bones when eating chicken - so the bones go either back into the plate (how's that? definitely not Moroccan style!) or they end up mounting on the table. Now your waiters don't care how your table looks and when suddenly while you're definitely not ready with your chicken course the Couscous gets dropped onto the table you're sitting in front of a dirty mess. Something, besides the nice features this place has, I don't want to experience again. As a side note: supposedly the decor and wardrobe of the waiters are (maybe) from the 15th century the music that is accompanying the belly dancer is decidedly 21st century with cheesy synths and drum machines. Oh goodness. My resume: too much Disneyland for me though there are some good parts.