Darna (What a Disaster)

Unfortunately I don’t have anything positive to say about Darna. I took a bit of a risk and chose it for my birthday dinner with my closest girlfriends last Thursday. I wanted to have unique yet affordable cuisine and picked Darna based on some recommendations from Chowhound. Everyone seemed to love it on Citysearch and Menupages as well. Darna serves Morrocan-French food and seemed to have a very lively, fun scene based on the web site.

The restaurant was very small and the decor was drab. Our table of eleven was one of few (maybe the only?) occupied tables in the restaurant on a Thursday night at 8PM. Despite this fact, the service was horrible as well. Soon after sitting down and ordering some sangria, a friend of mine spilled her glass and the waiters stood around baffled before coming to help us. We had to ask them to come over with napkins. Shouldn’t this have been obvious? From there everything was downhill. The food came in a timely manner but we had to ask for everything i.e. more water, side plates for sharing appetizers, cutlery etc. If it was a crowded restaurant I would have understood but the waiters were literally standing around doing nothing until we flailed our arms to get their attention.

We drank our sangria which was pretty disgusting. It isn’t easy to make perfect sangria but it is difficult to make disgusting sangria. Somehow Darna’s version tasted bitter and watery. We ordered some appetizers to share: hummus with avocado, brie tiede with fried grapes, goat cheese tart and grilled calamari. The appetizers were actually quite delicious and I thought things were looking up.

Things took a wrong turn again at our entrees which were either overcooked or bland all around the table. I had a Cornish hen tagine which had no flavor, accompanied by a sauce which was equally tasteless. Some friends ordered lamb burgers and brochettes which were overcooked and needed seasoning. The meal was rounded out by a rousing tune of “Happy Birthday Dear Stranger”- the icing on the cake. This is the first completely bad review I have ever written as I usually try to be optimistic. Unfortunately there was no silver lining at Darna except that I was with some of my favorite people in the world who did a great job of cheering me up. I do NOT recommend Darna. If you are one of the folks who went and loved it please tell me… what am I missing?

Darna: 633 2nd Ave
Cuisine: Morrocan-French
Food: Poor
Service: Poor
Value: Good
You Gonna Finish That? Not even worth a doggy bag

Azza

Azza is a brand spanking new Moroccan mecca in the space of private club/failure, Fizz. Walking into Azza is like being transported to some kind of decadent and ornate palace in a distant land. The jeweled chandeliers, persian rugs, billowy curtains and chairs as large as throwns signal that you’re not in midtown anymore.

Azza offers a cocktail menu which was creative enough to make this wino put aside the cork for an evening. Some of the more appealing examples were the 3 wishes: a concoction of fig vodka, pomegranate liquor and prosecco or a martini infused with pomegranate and strawberry puree. The waiter was friendly enough and took our orders in a timely manner. Service was smooth overall.

We ordered hummus and pita for the table followed by spinach and goat cheese cigars. The hummus and pita was very fresh though we all agreed the hummus could have used more garlic and preferably would have been thinned by more olive oil. The cigars were sublime: crispy phyllo dough filled with the creamy goat cheese, spinach and a hint of saltiness. For entrees I had a delicious lamb tagine with prunes- tagine is a thick Morroccan stew which comes in a clay pot. A couple of my friends ordered duck breast and others had sea bass with mussels. Overall, a very well executed meal from start to finish. We checked out the club downstairs but something about the 40 year old men beckoning us to their table made us leave after a limited number of drinks. Stick with the restaurant and you will be very pleased :)

Azza: 137 E 55th Street
Cuisine: Moroccan, French, Mediterranean
Food: Very Good
Service: Good
Average App/Entree Price: $8/$29
Value: Good
You Gonna Finish That? Every last bite.