Gitana Restaurant

by c v.

I came here because of the good reviews on yelp and for the view but was terribly disappointed. The food is on par with snack stands with low quality ingredients. Fries are the frozen variety, the bread for the ham/cheese panini was stale and a few days old. Falafel was a bit on the dry side and portion was about half of what you would get at any of the middle eastern restaurants on 2nd street. It seems like everyone is raving about breakfast so perhaps that is their specialty. My advice skip the lunch/sandwich entrees.

by Josette D.

I am surprised the other reviews gave this place 2 stars. If htis place was not at the Shoreline, it would've been out of business. Like others, we waited so long for our food and then, disappointingly, tasteless. The servers forgot to refill water and ice-T. I had to get up and go to the counter to pay for my bill. Eves dropping on their conversation, it seems like management do not know what is the demand and how to schedule servers. Geez.. what a mess. It was a waste of money and I tipped 1.50 for generosity. It was just bad. I will never go back to this place again.

by Staci P.

I'm giving two stars at this point not based on the food at Gitana (which I have yet to experience) but instead the experience we had while trying to have breakfast there one Monday morning.  The story goes a little something like this:My man and I were getting ready to head to San Diego for a few days and we thought we'd pop over to Gitana (very close to our home) before leaving town.  We had great experiences with the place back when it was Kabo Cafe so going there and enjoying breakfast on the water sounded like a great idea. It was later in the morning and we wanted breakfast food only so we called to ask how late breakfast was served.  The person on the phone said breakfast is served daily until 12 noon.  Woohoo!  We finished packing up the car (about 20 minutes) and drove the half mile to Shoreline Village, arriving around 11 AM.  Somehow, in that half-hour or so since we called them, the kitchen had closed and they were no longer serving food.  We mentioned to the hostess that we had just called 30 minutes prior and no one said anything about the kitchen being closed.  She just said, "I'm sorry. I can't help you."  No explanation.  Nada.  Nothing.  I understand things happen.  Equipment breaks.  Machines malfunction.  I can deal with that.  However, some type of explanation would have been nice, and maybe offering to validate our parking or something like that.  Fortunately, if you're only there for a short time (under 20 minutes, I think) parking is free so we really only lost the time, and maybe the desire to go back to Gitana!The location is nice, though, especially early in the morning when it's quiet.

by Victor M.

I ordered the beef kobab. The meat was ok, but the rice was almost raw.

by Danielle C.

2.5 StarsOur very sporty and very dutiful waitress was the best part of the meal. And really, she was probably just some college gal trying to make some extra $$, so thus begins my ho-hum experience at Gitana.I'm not sure if I regret not getting the Buffalo Chicken Salad that I originally wanted. We decided on a Babaganoush appetizer and so I ordered the Mediterranean Salad aka Greek Salad. There was waaaay too much tang going on in that babganoush. Too much lemon? Tahini? And my salad was a small plate of greens, bell peppers, tomatoes that had seen better days, green olives and sliced white onions. GREEN olives? WHITE Onions? For $9, this salad was the pits. Hey, speaking of pits, shouldn't this salad be served with Kalamata olives and red onion? Just a thought....Rice's Black and Bleu burger was all right, but he informed me the patty was pretty thin. Kieran loved his Chicken Dinosaurs. Thank goodness for the children's menu. The coffee was pretty good. Judging from my meal, I would have expected it to be a lot worse.

by Rebekah O.

We were at a convention and wanted to eat on the water. The menu looked good so we sat outside with a beautiful view of the water. I am a bit of a snob in that I need a pretty decent quality of food and this place did not hit the mark for me. I had the falafel wrap with green salad for $7.99. I finished the salad and had half the wrap. It filled my stomach but did not bring a smile.My friend had a sandwich with fries that she was unimpressed by. The server was very nice, he even moved the umbrellas around so we were out of the direct sun. Lunch took a little while but, we enjoyed sitting on the water. The best thing about Gitana is the beautiful view.

by Yvett R.

We were on vacation. We were loving walking around Long Beach. We were hungry. We thought Gitana would be a nice place to stop at. I hated my food. It was just so mediocre. Nothing had a good taste. The waitress was nice and brought out more sauce saying that sometimes the food is dry. Then she brought out more pita bread because I hadn't eaten my food. It didn't help. Then we got the bill and it cost was more than what it was worth. I left here still hungry, disappointed and having spent more than I had hoped to spend. Blerg.On the brightside . . . they validated my parking.

by Corie H.

Not sure why this place has so many 5 stars. Either everyone ordered specialty food and was amazed or this business has joined Yelp and now pays to have reviews deleted, which I believe is wrong.I waited 30 minutes for a medium-rare burger that came out well-done. It was pretty tasteless and not worth the wait. The tiniest glass of juice ever cost almost $4.  They don't serve breakfast all day either.Ehhh.

by Vikky D.

I ordered the grilled chicken panini.  Half an hour later, I was starving and grouchy only to have the waitress hand me a FRIED chicken panini.  WTF?  Here I was trying to eat HEALTHY with my order of grilled chicken with the side salad and they gave me FRIED chicken!!  The waitress was very apologetic as she explained that they had actually ran out of the grilled chicken.  Then HELLO, why not tell me right away so I could order something else?  Why wait 30 minutes? I told her I didn't want to wait and ended up gobbling up all of my panini.  The saving grace was that it was a really good fried chicken panini.  HELLO, FRIED!!  Everything FRIED is good.  Oh and she took it off our bill.  The boyfriend only had to pay for his fish and chips (also good!) and our drinks.  Yay, happy ending!

by Tony C.

Friendly service.  Ordered the Beef kabob...  chewy salty meat, dry hard raw rice you can pick up with your bare hands and throw at newly weds.  Thank goodness I had great company during this meal.