La Luna Downtown — Restaurant in Hamilton

La Luna you Lebanese unicorn you. You were there for me when for days all I had eaten was meats, cheese, carbs, alcohol. Cleansing, burning like the cold light of day upon my diet.

They built their mini empire from this corner store and this place was a jamming after boxing day. I wanted something filling, refreshing, healthy-ish, delicious all at the same time. I was craving garlic sauce and hummus, fresh pita breads and flame grilled meats.

My friends recommended Middle Eastern, but when I looked at the menu it was decidedly Lebanese and I was in, my favorite of the middle eastern cuisines. We are seated and immediately want one of everything. Baba ghanouge for the table, fried spicy potato, falafel to share, all the sauces we could handle. Kids went with pizza’s and garlic dipping sauce while the adults chose shish tawook sandwich, Fattoush, kafta sandwich, shwarma sandwich and the lemon chicken plate. It was way too much food. We ended up taking about ¼ of it to go (which was perfect for a late night snack, also seeing as the La Luna Express isn’t open as late as we’d like down on Centennial. Shish tawook was juicy, well seasoned, perfect char and mix of greens, pita, sauce (we sort of went with mixes of tahina and garlic sauce on each, for balance. Fattoush was huge, filling, refreshing, kafta had nice squish, if that makes sense, like a good meatball it’s not too hard. Lemon chicken plate had nice zest. I’ll be honest, you wrap anything on their menu in pita, throw some tahini and garlic sauce on it with some lettuce and tomato and it would probably be good.

Service was a little lacking on waters and refills, the orders came out quickly and the prices were reasonable. I left here feeling way better, no bloat, no heaviness, just what I needed after days of heavy foods. Décor is pretty basic, half diner, half café. Their dishes travel well to go, so feel free to...

Incredibly delicious food, served up in generous portions. I was visiting in the Hamilton area and found the food so tasty, that I ate here three times in a week; twice for lunch, once for dinner. First visit: lunch: had the vegetarian dish/platter of hummos, eggplant, falafel, fried cauliflower, grilled tomatoes, and mushrooms, served with your choice of soup or any of the salads on the menu and dinner plate sized fresh pitas. I had the Greek salad, which was excellent and, again, a generous portion. This meal could easily have been shared with two people, especially for lunch. My lunch mate took half of her meal home and I took my left over hummos (at least a half a cup) and pita for an afternoon snack later. Second visit: dinner with a group of six: I started with lentil soup, then had the spicy lemon shrimp with pilaf style rice and served with pita bread. We shared the salads that came as starters; all were delicious: Greek, Fatoush, and Tabouli. Third visit: spicy lemon shrimp, but substituted hummos for the rice. Again, generous portion with at least two dozen shrimp. Nothing chintzy about this place. The service could be a little more attentive, especially for the second dinner, which was at around 3:30 p.m. and, as is often the case when a restaurant is almost empty, was not hurried by any means. I had told the waitress I was in a hurry, but that didn't seem to help. Had to track her down to make my order and then my bill never came, so I went to the counter to pay. The service was better during the busy lunch and dinner hour visits. Still the food is so worth it, that I would go here anytime I'm back in the area and would recommend...

Genuinely disappointing and upsetting hospitality experience. Food wasn’t terrible but overall on the lower end of middle eastern cuisine that I have had. Service was really bad. Barely got checked on, had to constantly waive down and get the attention of a server to get things like water refills and plates taken off for space.

Icing on the cake was that the server told me having a small taste of the baclava was free before getting me the bill. Normally I wouldn’t have minded leaving a small tip even with the poor service, but because of my financial spot, I decided it wasn’t worth it just for the sake of it. When the server noticed this, he came back just to charge me 1.50 for the one bite of baclava he told me was free. I have worked as a server in some of the busiest restaurants in the country and this was by far one of the pettiest and disrespectful moves a server has made. Tips are not mandatory and the entitled behaviour on top of weak service I saw today, turned a customer who possibly might’ve come back for the food, into someone who will actively tell others to spend your money and...