Taste   

Style  

Vibes 

Price 

Parking (valet available)

Staff  

Moose: It is amazing how screwed up the taste buds of Amman’s high-society are. It seems the more you are willing to pay, the more you are willing to compromise for below-average food. The excellent atmosphere, the friendly staff, the perfect date setting and the live-music could probably make up for the fact that the 2-minute fettuccini we cooked the other day with canned mushrooms tasted seven times better than the one we got at this overrated joint. Take your date for a round a drinks there and then convince her that it would be much more romantic and more hip to walk down the street to al-Kalha or, if you are willing to go all out, Burger King.

Roba: In a business that is undergoing constant change, La Maison Verte has survived over the decades, unlike the other restaurants that started out around its time such as New York, New York, Alfredo, and La Terrace, which have all turned to C-Class nightclubs. 

So naturally, over the years, I have heard a lot about La Maison Verte; I have heard that the food is finger-licking delicious, that the place is gorgeous, that it is the most expensive restaurant in Amman, and that there is a dress code, among many other things. The dress code and the alleged priciness though have never made it appealing enough to try, until last night that is, when I found that we were both already dressed up as we had a rather formal event at 7:00 and that we actually had reservations at La Maison Verte as a surprise from Moose.

As we walked in, the outdoors part of the restaurant looked nice, and I couldn’t help but think of how much I dislike winter. Inside, we were greeted by a butler and a view of their main sitting area, which looks like your average fancy-shmancy restaurant. The butler asked us if we want to be seated in the main restaurant or in the lounge, called Le Bar. Looking around, we chose the lounge, which has small couches, dim lighting, and a life-size Santa sitting on a bar stool.

Understand, the lounge is gorgeous. Perhaps because I was expecting an overdone fancy-shmancy style, I was pleasantly surprised by how brilliantly cozy it is. The red moquette, the dark brown wood interior, the warmth, the dim lights and the live singer with her deep voice and jazz-like tunes all add up to give you one heck of an atmosphere. I completely lost track of time and place, and just happily chit-chatted for a couple of hours about the most random things.

But the atmosphere is really the only positive La Maison Verte seems to have. We take a seat in the corner of the lounge and the rather lost waiter gets us the most horribly designed menus I have seen in ages. There are a hundred million pages of drinks, and only a few of food- the choices we are presented with are for the most part, steak and pasta. I wasn’t in the mood for neither steak nor pasta.

We ended up ordering fried calamari, fettuccine with mushroom, and sliced steak fondue, and discovered that the problem with the food at this Grumpy Gourmet award-winning eatery is not only the lack of options, but also the way below-average taste of food. The calamari was horrible, both too oily and too spicey. The fettucinni pasta was way too thick and the sauce was way too thin and flavorless. The steak fondue tasted better than the appetizers but consisted of literally 5 tiny strips of beef with a very tiny serving of sauce that burnt off as soon as they put it on the fondue. The fries that came with the fondue were also exceptionally oily, and the French bread that was served was dry and flavorless. It beats me how one of the restaurants with the best reputation in Amman can have such horrible food, especially when the average appetizer costs around 9 JDs and when the average entree costs around 17 JDs.

For half the price, you can have a much better food experience at Milano, and for a little less, you can have the most excellent food experience in town at Bistro One (I can’t believe we still didn’t review that one!)

Would I recommend this place? Well, if you want to take someone special for drinks and dessert perhaps (we didn’t try their dessert), then I would, because the ambiance is brilliant for a date. In fact, I think it is the most date-perfect place in town. But if you’re looking to satisfy your culinary senses, I would say, forget it. Tche Tche makes better pasta.

Moose: مش الحق عليكي، الحق علي باخدك على هيك أماكن! As I said, La Maison Verte would be a great idea if you want to spend half a month’s salary and then listen to her complain all the way back home.

Location: Shmesani, across from C-Town, back entrance
Reservations: yes
Phone: (06) 568-5746

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