Bab El hara — Restaurant in Ottawa

It was my very first time on Saturday: menus were covered in layers of previous food/grease, and the vibes I was getting were off - usually I abide by the vibes, gut feeling (foreshadowing), warnings I get, but a friend had insisted she'd enjoyed it there her previous time.

When our food arrived, way too long after ordered, our waiter had his thumb in one of the plates' garlic sauce - too polite to say anything, my friend ate around it. After our food was dropped off, he never came back to pick up our plates, let alone to find out if we were enjoying our meal.

3 out of 4 of us had food poisoning. The food poisoning I suffered was so severe I was bed ridden for two days, and had to go to a clinic to have my breast checked out - the lymph nodes in my breast had swollen due to the staph bacteria found in the food poisoning, causing my breast to be so swollen it was hot, heavy, and unbearable to the touch.

I'm feeling much better now, as this happened on Saturday night, but I have to take the antibiotic Keflex every 6hrs for 7 days to reduce the swelling+bruising and have my lymph nodes functioning normally again.

I don't wish this upon my worst enemy. I often forget how delicate the human body is, and vomiting bile repeatedly while crying and clutching my breast definitely reminded me how lucky I am to be in good health.

I hope this post sheds some light on public hygiene, and that no more contaminated food will be served at Bab El Hara.

This is my first time leaving a review online, had it not been for the 3 cases of food poisoning (and who knows how many more), I'd have simply deemed this place not my cup of tea and never returned.

Being in the service industry, I find I am much more accommodating and understanding - as people who worked in service commonly are. I want to stress that lack of hygiene in a restaurant is directly correlated with the restaurant itself, and poor knowledge of hygiene and improper practices.

It's 2016, foodborne illnesses are avoidable... Especially when they can be life-threatening.

I gave Bab El Hara 1 star, but truly my rating is worth much less.

Thank you...

This place is home I enjoy my days and nights I can come whenever I want and I’m always welcome, everyone is very respectful and now they have Tuesdays night where it feels like a Friday or Saturday it’s crazy.The staffs are kind and funny if your having a bad day they will cheer you up for sure! The shisha’s are amazing and the patio is on another level by extending it allowing more people to enjoy their evening in a beautiful weather! Music is always amazing! I highly recommend this place because you have verity things smoke and drink or come watch sports games wether it’s playoffs or finals or school work ext…. You can always enjoy your time! one of the employee named DJ is amazing this guy knows how take a business under his hand when it’s busy hard worker! Love the place you will always see me...

Really bad place. I've been a loyal customer for months now even though they take hours litterally hours to even get us water and the owner has no idea how to run a business, accused me and my friends of not paying the last time and we had to pull out our bank statement just to prove we actually did infront of everyone. And even then they said some nasty things about us in Arabic thinking we didn't understand. The DISRESPECT IS real if your not Arab and even then their staff are thought to only get orders from Arab customers which is ridiculous . I've decided not to ever go back and only thing I pray for Is that no one else has to ever experience that kind of humiliation they put us through just because we were black and not Arab! ...