Restaurant Boustan — Restaurant in Montreal

Worst experience here last night. Had ordered two saj beef wraps with beef and “fries” inside and I had mentioned that I like mine spicy. While making the wraps, they didn’t ask us at all what we wanted inside or even give us the option to choose any of the toppings. No acknowledgement of our existence was made while they were preparing the wraps, so we didn’t even know they were making ours — and then all of a sudden it’s ready in a takeout bag (even though we said wanted to dine in). Not a huge deal, but then we opened our wraps and there were no markings indicating either were different, but my friend’s was soaked in hot sauce and when I opened mine, it was dry as hell. No sauce whatsoever. Dry chicken — I didn’t even order chicken. And quite literally the worst shawarma I ever had. I went to the counter and asked for hot sauce because mine didn’t come with it, and the man behind the counter immediately started yelling at me and getting verbally aggressive saying he can’t do it, he won’t, and I need to pay an additional $2.50 for hot sauce … which I would have had to dip the shawarma in. Then I checked the receipt and it said “hot sauce on the side; $0” so I brought the receipt up to show him that I was supposed to get hot sauce and he continued yelling that he wouldn’t give me hot sauce and I had to pay and he didn’t care that I didn’t have hot sauce. Very odd reaction and customer service experience to be yelled at for asking for something you had ordered and was already on the receipt. To be honest I LOVE boustan most of the time — I’ve never had a bad experience — but this one really caught me off guard. I’ll never go to this location again because of how rude the staff was and how awful the food was. If you’re going to boustan, go to the one on Crescent where the staff are literal ANGELS. Avoid the Sainte-Catherine location...

The place is nice, situated on the most vibrant street in Montreal. The crew lacks the proper training and learn how to make the oriental sandwiches correctly. Mainly for cost-effectiveness and increased profits, they fill the Sandwiches with crazy amounts of lettuce instead of the main ingredients, whether it’s beef or chicken. The prices are ridiculously high for such oriental menus.

Note: replying to the owner comment ”attached above”. Boustan is a Lebanese Resturant “shawarma and Falafel, hummos, Harrisa” are absolutely oriental food.

My review is my personal opinion. You can not push someone to change his opinion providing a misleading information that you are writing on your reply.

Instead do you best and learn to do the work better! Best of luck

As of November 13, 2023, I attempted another visit two days ago, hoping my previous feedback would lead to changes in the preparation of their oriental sandwiches. Unfortunately, it appears they continue to use the same approach, excessively filling the sandwiches with lattice to obscure the essential main ingredients, be it shawarma or falafel.

Despite confirming an order for a fully dressed sandwich with pickles, the focus seems to be disproportionately on lettuce.

When I questioned short man who was preparing the sandwiches about the contents, he assured me of my requested ingredients, but upon inspection, only excessive lettuce was found.

It's perplexing why their emphasis remains on inflating the sandwiches with lettuce rather than the requested or necessary ingredients.

However, the place and the tables is extreme dirty. Recommended only...

Newest edit: I came back recently (one or two years later?) for the shiitake faux shawarma wrap. It was hot, full of ingredients and the right amount of sauce. I still don’t think they have water in cups but I didn’t bother to ask. I’m bringing my rating back to 5 for the food. Didn’t take a picture, sorry

So I would have given 5 stars because the first 2 times I had the vegan pita it was incredible but this time it was just bland and the next morning I had food poisoning even though I ate the food right away. I can’t say for sure if it’s from this because there’s a lot of things it could have been but I’m suspicious now after reading other reviews about their food safety. The vegan meat was cold and resulted in the wrap tasting unexciting. they also didn’t have cups for a glass of water which makes me wonder, what’s their tap water quality like if they don’t want to serve it and how does the resto function without clean tap water ? But back to the main issue: why is it such an issue for a fast food place to get paper cups especially when charging so much for food? Even subway has them. I had to eat food while thirsty . The soup was good but generic . For $18 it didn’t feel worth it this time especially because I took it to go so I ate on a bench lol . But on the bright side they have wooden spoons and bagasse and paper packaging for the most part so it’s pretty eco friendly as a to go snack. If they had heated the vegan meat more I probably would have given 5 stars despite the water issue .. too bad but I have to be honest. The portion of vegan meat also seemed a bit...