Baa Desi Dine — Restaurant in Ottawa

A Great Lunch at a Pakistani Restaurant Parking: Small lot, but Walmart complex is directly across the street ample with parking, and one can use the traffic light to recross Baseline.

Interior: Very pleasant. Seats 34 diners, but has a banquet room for large parties. Bathrooms are downstairs.

Best to reserve on the weekends.

Today my wife and went for lunch. We were warmly greeted by one of the owners Ali, who with his wife do the daily cooking, helped by two aides. Allowed to go to seats of preference. Ali appeared 5 minutes later with a large pitcher of water. We knew what we wanted so took our order.

Note: All of their family recipes are made fresh, and from scratch so it will take approximately 25-35 minutes for your orders to start arriving, then the rest arrive in good time. All sauces used are individually tailored to particular dishes, unlike some restaurants of this cuisine that make one large vat of a particular sauce and use it with all dishes offered with sauce.

What We ordered: All were delicious.

Goat Karahi ($19.99) Boneless goat meat wrapped around a tomato-based curry, one of the authentic, delicious Pakistani recipes. Often found on the menus of dhabbas and restaurants all around Pakistan, served on special occasions and get-togethers, Karahi is just the epitome of good Pakistani food. This dish was spicy, tasty in a nice sauce with just the right amount of heat..

Seekh Kebab (Meat) $11.99 2 large spicy kebabs. Great taste.

Tandori Roti $2.49 Grilled, soft, good compliment to the dishes.

Dahl Baray $9.99 Dahi baray are lentil fritters soaked in yoghurt. Dahi means yoghurt, and baray means deep fried lentil fritters. The fritters are made by grinding soaked lentils into a paste. The resulting batter is then fried to make what is known as baray. These lentil fritters are soaked in hot water till soft, and then added to a yoghurt base. They are then topped with a variety of toppings. The baray / fritters are soft and fluffy, the yoghurt is light and creamy, and all those spicy condiments and chutneys add a burst of flavour that is contracted with the lightness of the yoghurt.

Arrived chilled. My wife remarked on what a pleasantly unique taste they had. I agreed.

Carrot Halwa A traditional and popular desert in Pakistan. Made from grated carrots cooked with ghee (clarified butter), milk, sugar, and a variety of aromatic spices such as cardamon, and sometimes saffron. Great taste.

We’ve decided to comeback for a breakfast. Ali recommended the Desi Paratha with Egg...

Absolutely Horrible Customer Service – Avoid This Restaurant at All Costs!

I just had the worst dining experience of my life. I found plastic in my chicken tandoori. When I called the waiter over and showed him, instead of taking the entire dish, he just picked the plastic out of the food with his bare hands. Moments later, I heard shouting coming from the kitchen.

I asked the waiter, “Are you going to do anything about this?” He responded that the manager/owner was coming. When the owner arrived, instead of addressing the issue professionally, he aggressively demanded, “What is the problem?!”—with complete disrespect and anger.

I told him, “Don’t you think finding plastic in my food is a problem?” His response? “It’s probably just a milk packet plastic that fell into the food.” As if that somehow made it acceptable! I pointed out that the plastic was on the sizzling pan and questioned the serious hygiene issue this presented. His reaction was even worse—he snapped back with pure aggression, saying, “What do you want me to do now, bow down and say sorry?”

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he stormed off, swearing in his language, and never returned. Not a single staff member checked on me afterward. When I went to pay the bill, a different waitress offered to waive the charge for the chicken tandoori. Out of sheer frustration and anger, I said I would pay for the entire meal just to be done with this horrible place.

I am absolutely disgusted by the behavior of the owner. I understand bad customer service, but this was on another level—pure arrogance, zero accountability, and absolutely no manners. A restaurant owner who treats customers like this does not deserve to be in business.

I highly recommend avoiding this place at all costs. If they have such a careless attitude toward food safety, I can’t even imagine what happens in...

Finally a delicious Indian/Pakistani restaurant in Ottawa. Gone are the days of driving to Montreal or Toronto to have fantastic food, I found a place in Ottawa where I can get my fix.

I've eaten their foods twice, once from Uber and once done in. This gives me a great comparison.

Take out I got the Nihari and veal Biryani, I'd give the Nihari a 10/10, portion was great, plenty of meat and absolutely delicious.

The veal Biryani is the best tasting one in Ottawa, the spice level is perfect, meat was tender and rice was great. My only recommendation would be to switch to long grain rice and it would be perfect.

For dine in, and excuse me because the names may be wrong, we got the lamb Biryani, beef Haleem, a dish with spinach and goat, some aloo chaat and finally the masala fries.

I'll start with the fries, masala spices just make it better and they don't use the regular Costco coated fries which is a bonus. Not necessarily a tough dish, but good addition and great side.

The Haleem was very flavourful, it was the perfect consistency and hits home. I would gives this dish a 9.2/10, I would make the portion slightly bigger. There was a lot of meat, but seems a bit small.

The lamb Biryani, extremely similar to the veal, if they use long grain it would be a perfect 10/10.

The Aloo Chat was delicious and the quantity was more than I expected. Very similar to what Arabs call Fatah, but with more spices and tastes.

Finally the spinach and goat, perfection of a dish. I have foundy favourite dish at this restaurant. I couldn't believe how delicious it was, seems very simple, spinach and goat, but somehow the chef has perfected it and it should be showcased as their go to dish.

I would definitely recommend trying this place out and dining in better than delivery, but either work for...