Grillades Amira Grill — Restaurant in Montreal

Alright, I rarely leave detailed reviews to restaurants. However, after my experience here, I believe I ought to bring my take about this place. Also, it's important to understand that this is from my own personal one time visit. Therefore when making your own decisions about whether you wanna visit, take into account multiple reviews. This is simply a critique about the restaurant so that not only you can understand my perspective, but also the restaurant staff and owner.

Now with the jargon out of the way...let's go.

I entered this restaurant at around 4 ish pm on Friday and found it to be quite empty, which is nice to see as we did get our food quite quickly (I'm inclined to say around 5 minutes). As for the food we ordered, me and another food critique ordered the following:

1- Assiette Amira #2 2- Bol junior au boeuf

Let's start off with exhibit A : The Assiette Amira #2...

The food, visually, is truly something that catches your attention and makes you want to indulge, which is always a plus since food is an experience of not only taste buds, but also your eyes. Let's talk about what's on this platter now, shall we?

Sides:

1- Rice was fantastic 5/5 wish I had more

2- Pita bread, also fantastic 5/5 (gimme more)

3- The sauces were divine, especially the sweet one, truly delicious.

Now the meats:

1- The souvlaki. I gotta say it was kind of mediocre not gonna lie. The chicken was beautifully tender and extremely well cooked, I'll give it that, but I'm here to taste not to have a solely sensory experience. The chicken had a ever so slight char with some seasoning that gave it a subtly spicy kick, but no redeeming flavours ( The sweet sauce was my go to, so that I could add some oomph.)

2- Kabab. Beautifully made, no complaints. Truly a highlight of the platter.

3- Merguez, it's on par with the chicken souvlaki I gotta say. It's decent, but not restaurant quality. It's really lacking in flavour, and I suggest changing the recipe.

4- The sausage. It tasted like straight pepperoni. It was way to heavy as a meat. It felt like my cholesterol was about to spike. Flavour is on the lower end of the spectrum. It's not something you enjoy, rather something you just get through.

5- The côtelette d'agneau. If you've read this far, you've probably been waiting for my take on it, Eh? So, this dish was overall good /ok. The flavour was there, and the texture was alright. However, as the main star of a platter like this, you would think that you'd get more pizzazz. So overall, not bad, but not great.

Moving on to the bowl.

I've got to say. This beef bowl really is one of the worse things I've tasted. Looking at the price and what you get you probably are thinking "what a steal". And you would be right as it was robbed of all its flavour. The potatoes, sauce and rice are good, but man...that beef on top was absolutely abhorrent. It was so incredibly dry, like I'm not even joking. It took me back to my travels in Egypt. And also, when the stars aligned and you were able to dig through the sand of meat to find a piece of tender shawarma...that's when it hits you...the realization that the lack of flavour wasn't due to the dryness, but due to the very spices themselves!!! (I've saved some pieces so that I can retaste them while writing this review). Look, I'm not kidding when I say... it tastes like the pure essence of arabian incense. It's so incredibly bitter and lacking in beef flavour. Guys, I am a professional shawarma reviewer, I've visited many countries, many restaurants, almost all the shawarma spots in montreal, and I've really gotta say that this by far is THE absolute worst shawarma I've ever had. In fact, I met up with other people later on and gave them all a piece. They all had similar reactions. It was so bad. I never thought I would ever experience bad food in a restaurant, but here I am.

So taking into account all of that. I really do discourage coming to this restaurant, unless it has specifically what you are looking for, or are in the area. I hope this review was helpful,...

Edit 3: This restaurant has exhibited deeply deceptive behavior. Below is a quick account of the facts:

I left a review in February 2024 denouncing them running a virtual restaurant, "Al Baqarah Burger", with fraudulent BOGOs on Uber Eats. They left a personal offense as a review, attempting to make fun of me and taunt me instead of clarifying they were not Al Baqarah. A year later, when I edited this review to answer them, they pretended I had the wrong restaurant by editing their response to make this review seem unreasonable. I pointed out their deceptive attempt, and they insisted they were not Al Baqarah after a year of not doing so, accusing me of not having a life. However, a quick search for Al Baqarah shows their address is 2483 Rue Centre, Montréal - the exact same as Grillades Amira (search for "Al Baqarah Burger Fantuan", you will find it easily and a screenshot is attached). The phone number associated is also the same as Grillades Amira.

Grillades Amira is Al Baqarah Burger, which took advantage of people. When I left my review last year, they had 4.6 stars on Google - now, they have 4.1 stars. This is why.

Original review:

Hungry and famished, I open Uber Eats and see "Al Baqarah Burger" (which translates to "The Cow Burger"- inventive!) is offering BOGO (buy one, get one) deals. This means you buy one of their menu items, and they give you another of the same for free.

25 CAD for a "AB Double cheese et bacon trio". TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS for one trio. You know what I think? I think the trio normally goes for 12.5 CAD, and they double the price but offer it as a BOGO. In reality, you are paying 12.5 CAD per trio, twice. Before tax.

This is a common strategy low-quality, predatory restaurants use to make a quick dollar from people who are hungry enough to disregard their own thoughts.

The address for this virtual restaurant (as evidenced by the stock photos and taken directly off Uber Eats) points to this restaurant. That's right, Grillades Amira is behind this scam. But of course they don't want people to associate this fraud and deceit with their good 4.6 stars on Google name, hence the virtual restaurant. (update: 4.1 stars now - no wonder)

Hey, owner of this place, if you're reading this- have some class. Making money by deceiving people with overpriced BOGO trios is shameful, and insulting to Middle-Eastern food.

To everyone else reading this- if this place is ready to lie to you about their deals, what else are they doing with your food? Avoid.

Edit: this restaurant has not addressed the fact they are fraudulently advertising Buy One, Get One offers, nor the fact that it is a virtual restaurant to avoid their physical location offering this promotional offer. You would be wise to take this personal attack on my critique of their business (and other dishonest ones) as further proof that it is best to avoid it.

Edit 2: the owner of this restaurant edited their response of my review. I wagered that the restaurant owners were attempting to improve their image, so I took a video of their old response on the 20th of February at 10:02 PM. Attached is an image of their old review, which says:

"Thank you for your investigation. After reviewing your Google profile I'm somewhat glad that we made it on your list of bad star review trend. BTW, how did you like your food? See you soon."

I also refreshed the page in case they accused me of editing the video. Instead of apologizing and taking accountability, they tried to make it look like I got the wrong restaurant.

If this isn't proof you should avoid this restaurant, I don't...

Let me start off by saying I was really excited when Amira opened, as I love Lebanese food. But my most recent experience with them was super disappointing. The first major problem: lack of consistency. We were a party of 6 and we ordered, among other things, 4 shawarma chicken bowls from Doordash. If you look at the picture for these bowls on Doordash, it pictures potatoes, chicken, rice, and various vegetables – red onions, pickles, turnip, etc. So we were surprised and puzzled when nearly all the bowls we received had only chicken, 2 sides, and 2 sauces. ONE person had a couple vege: one lonely turnip, a bit of pickle, and 3 slices of tomato. Granted, the descriptions of the bowls on Doordash only mention the chicken, sides, and sauces, but why show things in the picture that aren’t part of the order? And why the inconsistency across the 4 bowls, since all were the same menu item? If you order a plate from any other Lebanese restaurant in Montreal, they DO include vege, so why put yourself at a disadvantage compared to your competition? But maybe this has to do with the second major problem, IMO: disorganization. Our order from Doordash arrived with one Shawarma bowl and a side-order of potatoes missing. I called Amira immediately to report the problem, and was hung up on (I hope accidentally!) while the fellow was checking into things. I called again, and a different person answered the phone, had no idea what I was talking about, and asked me to speak to him in French. I put my friend on, as his French is better, and they proceeded to discuss the problem…mostly in English (WTF?). Amira agreed to provide the missing elements and deliver them….in 30 minutes. Given the remaining food would get cold in the meantime, we decided to go pick it up ourselves. When we got there, although the food was ready, they almost forgot to give us the extra side-order of potatoes (again!). They did give us 1 free tiramisu dessert. To me, these efforts to make up for the gaffe were not adequate. Had I been in their shoes, I would have 1) reimbursed us for the missing items, 2) brought us the missing items themselves within 15m (given it took them 10m to cook it, and I literally live 5m walk away; I ordered from Doordash in the first place so I could spend more time with my guests), and 3) inquired as to the size of the party and given us an adequate number of desserts. One tiramisu for a party of six doesn’t really amount to much of anything. One bright spot: the food we did get was excellent! In particular, the fish was very good and the roasted vege alongside were excellently cooked and plentiful. I really hope Amira fixes these problems, because as mentioned earlier I love Lebanese food and I live nearly, and so I would really like to see...