Villa Madina — Restaurant in Lower Sackville

Tonight we decided to give the new Villa Madina in Lower Sackville a try. This being a new location I was excited to give it a try after looking at the pictures online because my hope was for it to be my new go-to place for Shawarma/Lebanese food.

Well, things did not turn out as I had hoped. I will say the staff was friendly and greeted us but that is about where the positives stop.

I decided on a falafel plate which I was told came with garlic potatoes but they were out of during supper hour. Instead I was offered more salad except the salad I wanted was taboulie and they were down to their last scraps of that. That being they tried scapping together enough which was not really enough for a proper plate in my opinion. I requested lentel rice which they were also almost out of but managed to scrap enough from the bottom of the trap to cover a small portion of the plate. I was given 3 pieces of falafel with Tahini sauce and a couple of pickles with a small spoon of hummus and no pita (apparently they do not give pita with their plates).

I sat down with my sparse plate of food and discovered the falafel was cold and the rice was dry and crispy. The taboulie was not finely chopped, and the pickles looked and tasted like they came out of a can. Honestly, having just gotten off work I was tired and hungry so I didn't feel like saying anything. I just will not return there is all. Overall a very disappointing experience.

PS: As I sit down the next customer behind me was given the option to wait 10 minutes for garlic potatoes. If I would of known that I would of waited for those and some fresh rice and taboulie. I shouldn't have to say this but Chicken Shawarma is always best went cut fresh off the rotisserie spit. My daughter got the shawarma and it was served out of container which explains why it was dry.

Recommendation for improvement: Never Serve old or cold food. Never serve dried out/crispy rice. This is the first Lebanese restaurant that I have eaten at that did not include pita as part of a plate. Also the organization of how food is replaced/updated in your bins needs to be looked at. You shouldn't have to scrape to try and get enough food for a plate. If you need to do that then that should be a red flag that...

This incident happened 1-2 weeks after the official opening

Everything was great until I had a shisk taouk chicken wrap.

The chicken was rotten. It was so old and dry that when I had a bite, it was so hard, the bite felt like I was crunching a hard 🍬 candy, breaking in a million pieces of glass tasting like fermented meat.

This is what happens when those big chains of restaurant are taking over. The cook is just an employee, while the business owner cares only about profits.

Well, he better leave his computer screen and get himself in the kitchen and look at what is happening there. This chicken was kept under completely unsatisfactory sanitary conditions for an extremely long time.

People, stop paying for food like that, go at the grocery store, and cook your own meals. The price of food has drastically increased, and those restaurant chains have only one focus, profit. They will buy the cheapest quality chicken and keep it for as long as it take until they sell it. The meat is probably prepared somewhere else, and it is shipped frozen to the restaurant, exactly like McDonald.

you will not fool me twice.

Edit: Just to show you how much they care, they responded on Google reviews to communicate with them on their website, I did, 2 weeks ago. No answer yet.

Edit(2): I tried it again a few months later, and the potatoes were dry and tasted weird. The hummus and garlic sauce were not made in the restaurant, come in commercial pre-packaged foods. The meat arrives at the restaurant frozen. Nothing is made in there. I ate there tonight, and my stomach hurts. The food was tasting bad and smelling weird. Those restaurants sell the lowest quality food to fool you. This is an insult to serve such disgusting food to people. DO...

Just recently opened.

I decided to go with the Chicken Shawarma plate. It took a few minutes as the potatoes were cooked while I was waiting. For the plate, you can choose from 2 styles of rice (she did also offer half and half) I went with saffron rice (there were peas and carrots in it) you also get potatoes, shawarma, hummus (which I don't eat so opted out) and salad, I choose Fattoush. They put the dressing on the side. Also you can have the turnip, pickles and peppers. I choose just the turnip and pickles.

It didn't seem to be too filled, however with the shrinking sizes from Mezza it seemed to be on par.

The potatoes were good I did dip them in the garlic sauce. I love mezza garlic sauce and only found similar sauce at Byblos, but it's been awhile even since I was there. This garlic sauce is white and fluffy, but does have the good taste like Mezza. (Some places I've been to I found it tasted off) Salad was delicious. The rice was good (I'm not a rice lover) the shawarma itself was ok. I did find it didn't seem to have as much spice to it as other places and it was a bit dry. I feel like the dryness is likely because they are still learning and I watched as one guy was showing the other as he was making the plate. Then the drive home and trying other parts of the plate first.

I will definitely go back again to give them...