Nuba (Kits): Don’t Waste My Time

As I’ve mentioned on my post for Nuba Gastown, each Nuba location is run by an independent management team. That means that, while the menu may appear similar, the experience at each location will differ. For example, while the Mount Pleasant location is bright and airy and the Gastown location is dark and a bit seedy, the Kits location is actually decidedly different.

We dropped by the Kits location in early September and found that there was a marked difference in terms of food consistency when compared with their Mount Pleasant and Gastown restaurants.

Of course, the first thing that I noticed when we arrived was that, although the restaurant was relatively quiet, all of the empty tables all had reservation signs on them. At first, I thought this meant that they must have had a lot of parties that had booked up the tables. However, after being brought to a dark table in the back which also had a reservation sign on it, I quickly deduced that they were using the blanket reservation signs on tables to control where they were seating customers. That way, instead of a customer saying, “Oh, can I sit at that open table that has all the nice lighting?”, they could just say, “Sorry, that table’s reserved.” I know it sounds like a bit of a conspiracy but that’s what it looked like to me. During our visit, we saw most of these “reserved” tables go unused. And when some walk-in customers did arrive, they were ushered to similarly “reserved” tables.

While their website states that this location offers a brunch menu on the weekends between 11:30am and 3:00pm (and I’ve seen the menu online before), there was no brunch menu provided to us. Instead, we decided ordering the Lamb Kafta Plate ($15) with grilled lamb patty, hummus, salad, pickled cabbage, olives, pita and your choice of brown rice, roasted potatoes, or a mix of each.

We also ordered Najib’s Special ($10.50) crispy cauliflower tossed with lemon and sea salt. I thought the cauliflower at the Kits location wasn’t as good as the one we had the Gastown location.

We actually ordered the Eggplant Stew Plate (which should have included hummus, salad, pickled cabbage, olives, and pita but our server gave us the Eggplant Stew rice bowl ($10.50) instead. Since I had hummus already in the Lamb Kafta Plate, we didn’t make a big deal about it. I thought the eggplant was a bit meh when compared with some of the dishes that I’ve had at other Nuba locations in the past.

There was definitely a lack of consistency as the food at the Kits location seemed below par and the service was both slow and inattentive. We were quite surprised that other tables that had arrived after we were seated were served their food before us (similar dishes). It took at least 30 minutes before our food came out and the restaurant wasn’t the least bit busy. The pita bread was cardboard-hard, the cauliflower wasn’t the least bit crispy, and I doubt we’ll come back to this location.

3116 West Broadway
Vancouver, BC

www.nuba.ca