Makkah Restaurant — Restaurant in Montreal

The owner Abdullah Shah and his son are very hostile and disrespectful people. I don’t recommend anyone to go to this restaurant. Their attitude and behavior is a disgrace to South Asian culture and cuisine. I used to visit this restaurant very often before and the previous owner was better.

You cannot find a single clean chair in the restaurant as everyone of them is stained and dirty. You have to find and pick the least greasy and stained chair.

I decided to dine in and ordered plain rice and Chapli kabab which to my disbelief was 25$ - very expensive for the Jean talon area and for the quantity of food given. I recieved Raita which was full of onions even though I had mentioned ‘no onions’ when ordering. I asked them if they could give plain Raita or something else. Abdullah offered mayonnaise or ketchup. Who offers mayonnaise and ketchup with kebab and rice ?!? At least just plain Raita or even Yoghurt could have worked.

During the time of payment, I brought these problems to his attention. He started yelling and saying I am asking for way too much and he has never seen a customer like me in fifteen years. He was glaring at me like he wants to physically fight. He further went on to say that I am cheap and want free goodies to take home for my children !?

So after spending around 25$ - for myself only - instead of ordering the take out special for 10$, I am being called cheap !?!

His son came into the picture after this to know what happened and said that he can offer me yogurt now, after I have paid. A few minutes later, he said they don’t have yogurt. ..Is this a joke ? His lies just kept spilling everywhere. His father and him were abusing disrespectfully loudly behind the counter as though they couldn’t be heard outside.

Best Part of the story: they still asked me to tip them while paying !

AVOID AVOID AVOID. You are better off visiting any other restaurant in the Jean Talon area than...

Mix feelings with my time at this restaurant

The restaurant is in a nice and cozy district. It has small tables and chairs to accommodate guests. Certainly not a place you would wanna visit if you want quite and privacy.

The staff was nice enough to accommodate my request of reorganizing some of the tables and chairs to get us settled. A suggestion for the owner that place replace your silverware or your plates because neither of them match one another and hence they always fall, make noise and slip off one another. While we were there, there were almost 5-6 instances where in the customers either dropped their silverware or the servers did.

The food quality is decent and when i say decent its ok to have a meal there but the portion sizes don't do justice, we had ordered the combo 4 and its difficult to comprehend if its combo 4 for 4 people or for 4 different curry types. We had to send a search and rescue party to look for the paneer in Spinach paneer, and even though we had ordered chicken tikka masala, it was more or less looking and tasting like a butter chicken revamped curry.

They only serve 2 naans with a combo 4 if its a combo for 4 people then its kinda ridiculous. When we had ordered the food, it was suppose to come with Biryani rice but it never did and we had to remind and request them to serve us the missing rice and by that time we had almost finished our meal.

When we had requested the server to pack our leftovers in small containers, his re-suggestion was "Shall i pack them all in one box" like seriously........

So all in all, even though the quality of curry and rice and naan was good and their mango lassi is a good mango lassi, it would take some convincing from within me to go back. Montreal does have good food joints when it comes to Indo-Pak-Bangla cuisines but some restaurants just dont care when it comes to delivery...

I walked to the restaurant after a project meeting at a nearby location. The reviews were favorable and I was starving. I read some mention of lamb biryani and wanted to check it out but to my disappointment, the menu had no mention of it. There was only chicken biryani. There were other dishes with lamb but none in rice so I ordered a plate of poulet biryani. The taste was decent with a mild aroma and just the right flavoring to the rice. I am from Hyderabad in India and my preferred flavor is biryani is quite different. We eat everything soaked in hot spices. The one I had here is a very different take and one of the mildest ever. It definitely didn't taste indian or pakistani. Afghani maybe? I'm not sure. I wrapped up my dinner with some masala chai. It was good too.

The place is right by the main road and difficult to miss. Theres a small flight of stairs though so not easily accessible for the wheelchair bound. Maybe they have an elevator. I didn't see one.

The service was okay and the server super polite but he kept disappearing into the back often and the conversations from the kitchen could do with a little discretion 😋.

Also, I saw a local elderly couple slowly settling down to order only to be disappointed to hear there is no alcohol served here. A sign at the entrance...