Restaurant Basha — Restaurant in Montreal

Terrible place.

Montreal restaurant with the most health violations in the last 3 years - according to CBC.CA.

I went here on a Monday evening 7 pm in mid December. My first hint should have been that the place was completely empty. I was the only customer at this time. I ordered a Chicken Shawarma trio. The guy was mopping the floors. Later when I thought back, I didn’t see him wash his hands prior to serving me. The grill which had the shawarma meat on it was turned off. He turned it on and barely waited 15 seconds before proceeding to make my shawrma. He also did not put on gloves while making the shawarma. When the shawarma was finally ready, it was the size of my fist. Accompanied with a small serving of potatoes and a small sized drink, it came up to $11. I should have just gone to a mcdonalds and ordered fish filet. Then as I was eating my food (which was cold, as expected), he started mopping the floor around the table where I was sitting. I quickly ate my food which was far from appetizing, as I could not take the smell of dirty mop water over my meal. Later on, I started feeling queasy. I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night to start throwing up for a good half hour. The next day was spent feeling nauseous and queasy. I shouldn’t have been surprised given the 3 health violations I saw in the brief 15 minutes that I was there. My fault for not saying anything and not walking out at seeing his complete lack concern for health and hygiene.

Do your health a favour and avoid this place at all costs. You can go to any other place within a 2 min walk and find something better....

I never write negative reviews but I have to do this for the sake of the public. I went there for lunch yesterday. Unfortunately their food was not edible. I asked for hummus + garlic sauce in a shish taouk pita with chicken and beef + potatoes. When I tasted it, I was shocked to find out that the hummus was literally rancid. I love lebanese food and eat it quite often, and trust me… that did not taste like hummus. Unfortunately it was everywhere in the sandwich and potatoes, so I had to throw everything out after a couple bites. I didn’t think that a shish taouk sandwich could be so bad to the point that it is literally inedible.

Apart from that, the tomatoes were saggy and the meat was dry from being on the shelf for so long. The price was also much higher than I expected. I think I was charged extra for the two meats and the hummus and garlic sauce in the sandwich and in the fries (but I’m not 100% sure so take this comment with a grain of salt). The price certainly wasn’t communicated prior to charging. For almost 18$ I didn’t even get a drink with the meal (would’ve had to pay an extra 2$ for a drink).

The service was not great either. The person behind the counter wasn’t very communicative and when he handed over the terminal he told me that he put more meat in a way as if implying that he was expecting more tip.

To summarize : Avoid coming here. Don’t...

Update: 1 star as compared to 4 star before.

The staff are amazing to deal with but this time we had interaction with the owner and it all went down from there. 20 years of experience at this hotel went down from 5 star to 1 star. We ordered for 6 people and the restaurant was not busy and we had maybe 3 people waiting behind us. The owner was very rude and had us rushing throughout the entire order and did not ask what we wanted to add or not add in our plate and shawarma wrap. He pretty much decided what to add in shwarma wrap handed it to us. What someone is allergic or something or had strong reactions to it?

Would not visit this again after 20 years of loving it just because of the owner. I can't express how sad this makes and wishing we never got to see the owner and his disrespect to the entire family as we stood in shock.

Older review: I may be a lil biased towards this place but we always came here as family since 15 years or more and then moved to Toronto but have been visiting this place everytime...