Restaurant Boustan — Restaurant in Montreal

Update: after speaking to customer service, it turns out that the restaurant had made a mistake with the saj plate; it is supposed to be two pitas cut up into small pieces, whereas I only received one. Boustan offered a small gift card as a token of apology and assured me that they would make sure the error doesn't happen again. I appreciate the customer service, for which I add a third star.

[original review] I have to say I was really disappointed last time I came here. I ordered a saj chicken plate, only to find that the "plate" means a little bit of tabouleh and hummus -- no potatoes, no rice. That's a bit rich for a $15 plate (before tax and tip), especially given that the saj by itself would have been $8.

And, no big deal, but when I asked for a glass of water, the person asked me to wait and said they would bring it to me; 5 minutes later I was still waiting, and the person was apparently busy on...

Always a great experience at Boustan — even when things aren’t perfect.

Yesterday, I visited one of my favorite spots — Boustan — and once again, the food hit the spot. I tried a new item from their menu, and everything was delicious, as always.

Near the end of my meal, I noticed that the potatoes at the bottom of the plate weren’t fully cooked. I mentioned it, and the owner himself came over with a smile, no attitude, no questions — just pure professionalism. He replaced it with a fresh, golden, perfectly crispy batch of potatoes, made with care.

And let me tell you — there was so much of it, I had to save some for the next morning. So yeah, I had Boustan for dinner and breakfast, and I’m not complaining.

Thanks again for the kindness, the great food, and the service that keeps me coming back....

BEWARE VEGETARIANS AND VEGANS. Staff here is inept – I found two errant pieces of chicken in my VEGETARIAN sandwich. Not enough to have been an order mixup but clearly evidence of sloppy food handling. Beyond my disgust as a longtime vegetarian (trust, I took apart the sandwich and dissected the two pieces of chicken to make sure they weren’t something else, but the fibrous texture of poultry isn’t even close to their mushroom-based vegan meat) there’s the basic food handling safety to worry about. This was almost certainly the result of errant meat falling into the open vegetable containers, who knows how long before my sandwich was made. The bacteria growth on meat at room temperature starts immediately and is potentially very dangerous. I threw up pretty quickly so here’s hoping I...