I stopped into Raouche Cafe tonight for a quick bite, but ended up getting it carryout due to time constraints.
My young dining companion and I both got the Raouché Combo ($15.95, and yes, it has an <<accent aigu>> over the second “e,” and I still don’t know the pronunciation of this restaurant). Me, with shish tawouk, kafta, and beef; he, with shish tawouk, kafta, and lamb – both of us splitting the third meat. The platters came with brownish, heavily gingered rice with the occasional pistachio thrown in, grilled onion, and tomato, a tiny tub of thick, white garlic paste, crummy, purchased naan, a little side salad in a vinaigrette, and nothing else to lend moisture to a dish screaming out for it. Both platters were dry to the point of being unpleasant.
The highlights of both platters were the shish tawouk (grilled marinated chicken cubes), followed by the kafta, and then the lamb, which was better than the dried-out beef.Â
We both agreed that this was, as a whole, a pleasant dinner for two hungry men, but nothing we would ever return for absent reliable information that something happened to increase the quality of the cafe. The employees were all pleasant, and it appeared like Raouche Cafe was doing as much carryout as they were dine-in.
 I wish I had something else earth-shattering to write about our meal, but sometimes, “ordinary” is about as much as you can say about a restaurant, and please bear in mind that ordinary does not mean “bad.” Raouche Cafe was okay, and nothing more than that – fair value for the money.