The Chick Pea — Restaurant in Calgary

I visited The Chick Pea, a Middle Eastern restaurant with a typical menu of shawarma, falafel, and donair, along with a variety of side dishes. I decided to keep it simple and ordered a basic falafel sandwich—just bread, falafel, lettuce, tomato, and tahini sauce—to focus on the falafel itself.

The sandwich looked fresh and was neatly prepared: the bread was soft, the lettuce crisp and cool, the tomato fresh, and the tahini sauce flavorful. However, the falafel itself was disappointing. While it had a nice crispy texture, it had a noticeable bitter aftertaste. I even tried a piece on its own to be sure it wasn’t the sauce, and unfortunately, the bitterness came from the falafel.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed this same bitter taste at several falafel spots in Calgary. It could be due to mass-produced falafel mixes with added baking soda or bicarbonate for extra crispiness, which can lead to bitterness when cooked.

Overall, The Chick Pea delivered on freshness and presentation, but the falafel flavor left much to be desired. It was okay,...

Since coming back from the middle east, I've had a terrible time finding a suitable shwarma in Calgary. It took years until the Chick pea opened up. I usually go for one every week. I've tried the falafel and beef, but my favourite is still the chicken shwarma with no lettuce. You'd never see lettuce included in a shwarma in Doha. Nor pickled cabbage, but for some reason, the cabbage works in the shwarma for along with the pickles. Weird huh? A colleague from Prague came to Calgary on business. Some of the Calgary staff took our colleague to Subway for lunch on Monday. Ugh. So I took him to the Chick Pea the next day. He was addicted and went for shwarma three days in a row that week. The problem is that there are no shwarma restaurants in Prague. He's going to have serious...

I have been a regular customer at this place since 2009, but I’ve finally stopped going there. I usually get variety of things there and food is good. Usually I do get chicken meat only (priced $5) and they normally ask me if I need any sauce or veggies in it. I at times get it with garlic sauce only and that’s it. Today I did the same except I got some onions upon offer, and then another worker there later taunted that “chicken meat is $5 but now it is chicken salad which is $8”. Unfortunately such am attitude is too much. If the agreed upon price before I ordered was $5 then you shouldn’t be taunting me like that. Hence after this incident I’m done with this place. Good luck for the future, you won’t get my...