Roses Kebab Land Express (Take Out) — Restaurant in Richmond Hill

I happened to be in Richmond Hill the other day to pick something up and was told I would have to wait for around an hour. So in the mean-time I decided to get some lunch. I'm not from Richmond Hill but I do love Persian food. I went to Roses Kebab Land at 9218 Yonge st originally but when I walked in the girl had told us that they are a banquet hall and not a restaurant, she then told us to go to 9108 Yonge st where they have their take out location. So off I went to the take out location. We pull up behind the building to a parking lot, looks very sketchy and dirty and a huge trash bin right beside this 3-4 car parking lot. I walk to the front of the building (weird that they don't have a rear entrance considering the parking lot is in the back). Anyways when we are looking at the menu the lady behind the counter seemed ok to me but my brother said she whispered something under her breath because we were taking a few minutes to look at the menu. Anyways menu is pretty expensive. I think we spent almost $70 for 2 people. Kind of expensive for take out food. Whatever..I was still in the mood for Persian food. I'm doing a low-carb diet so I said can I replace the rice for salad. The lady then said no, salad is extra. Ok...fine. Anyways we wait for the chef to prepare the meat fresh in front of us on the grille and get our food and leave. We drive down the street to a nicer location to eat, just so we don't have a view of the dumpster. The chicken and beef tasted amazing, as well as the bbq tomato. The chef did a wonderful job preparing these. The salad I received seemed like it had been sitting in the fridge for a little bit - the purple cabbage had stained all the other vegetables and some of the lettuce was a little brown. Price - expensive for take out customer service - ok, not the greatest food taste - meat that was prepared fresh was good, my brother said the rice with safron was very good too. salad was 3/5 Try it, but there is definitely better Persian...

I am surprised with all the great reviews on here. I went here to try it out and was sorely disappointed.

Food: had vaziri and barg. The vaziri - koobideh was tasteless. The chicken was bland as well. Some pieces slightly undercooked. The Barg - very tasty. They had some pickles (mixed veggies) on the side. Tasty! Tomatoes burnt - could not eat either! They have 2 small BBQ peppers on the plate... These are extremely spicy. Though I love spicy food, could not eat this at all. Why was this even on there? Doesn't make sense.

Portion: though at first it seems like large portion, you notice that you are running out of rice quickly because it is not deep. The vaziri meat was good portion. The Barg, even though it looks big, you can notice that it is very very thin sliced and becomes narrow at the ends. Weight wise, I doubt it is a full barg portion . But it was tasty.

Presentation: the takeout was presented well. Except for them leaning the dish to put it into the bag (which mixed everything up) it looked awesome. Another thing, the plastic dish had annoying slits in the bottom where alot of the rice would get stuck and you can't get it out.

Price: the price is almost the price of a sit-down restaurant. $20 for Barg and $17 for vaziri. The price is NOT justified in their food quality or quantity. Also, they do NOT include salad or pop!!! Every other place has atleast one of those included. They do not offer tahdig either.

Service: Very slow. From when I placed my order, took 27 minutes to get my food. This was not even during busy time. They had perhaps 8 other orders while I was waiting there. They just work every slow.

To summarize: bland food, very expensive, and...

Placed an order for takeout and went to pick it up. They had asked me to come in 30 minutes and I arrived about 35 minutes after placing the order. They hadn’t even started making my one Koobideh combo. I paid for my order and realized they charged me $55 for one combo which is priced under $20. The girl was arguing with me about the cost and I asked for a refund on the balance. It took her over 20 minutes to do the refund and she gave me $15 back in loonies. I asked why she wouldn’t just refund my credit card but no response.

When my order was ready the gentleman making it literally threw rice into the container and placed the kebobs. In the past, I always get a slice of lemon and some cabbage. I did ask for no onion and tomato. I had to ask for cabbage and they threw in a tiny portion. The food was nice and hot but very very bland. The rice did not taste as fresh as it usually is and definitely wasn’t the same quality as we used to get. I’m pretty sure they used basmati before and this time some regular long grain which wasn’t great. The kebobs had absolutely no flavour and same with the cabbage. This place used to be great and I ordered from them many times with no quality complaints at all. The quality was absolutely terrible this time. Not an ounce of flavour in the meat so it made it difficult to eat. I’m just glad that this time my order was just one combo because we usually get a much bigger order. Will have to hunt for a...