Aviv Immigrant Kitchen — Restaurant in Toronto

We really wanted to love this place for Winterlicious, but was surprised how mediocre it was. The horror show happened after we left . I should've listened to my wife when she got her lamb meat balls and saw the middle was pink and mushy. She ate a small portion and didn't want the rest. The rest of our evening was ruined because immediately after she was violently ill. She did mention this to the owner when we left but, who knows what's said. I see someone else here had severely undercooked or overlooked food.

Let's preface by saying the service was attentive and warm, but the food left a lot to be desired. The appetizer Lamb meat balls were served to us cold! Came out barely lukewarm and my wife's was undercooked, in fact, pretty sure they were previously frozen because hers was pink and mushy - not how a lamb meat ball should be done. The mains weren't better, Persian chicken on a skewer over cooked, dry and no flavour! All these are middle eastern dishes but managed to have little to no spices and flavour. We dumped salt on everything. The jerk pork main dish was pink in a lot of spots and - reoccurring theme - little to no flavour. There's a simple rub on it but not jerk flavour. The mash on the side was ok, the salads with the chicken was a garden salad and very bland. Desserts came and they were actually hotter than our raw lamb meat balls! Go figure, dessert was the warmest dish. In all, wouldn't go back here. I see there's a lot of good reviews, maybe we came on an off night!? We really were excited for this place. At the end of the night my wife got very sick!!! Pretty sure it was the mushy, pink, under cooked lamb meat balls. We'd never...

Made a reservation for 5:00pm on Mother's Day Sunday. Arrived 10 minutes early and were seated immediately. Started by ordering the baba ganoush, honey-glazed carrots, and truffle fries as appetizers, and then ordered our mains at the same time (Beef brisket, vegetable tagine, sea bass, burger, and chicken fingers/fries). The appetizers came after about 10 minutes. The baba ganoush and carrots were perfect! Unfortunately, our main never arrived. Our server was polite and constantly assured us that our dishes were going to arrive at any time. We started noticing that things were awry when families that were seated well after us had already received their food. After an hour of waiting, we asked our server and she said that she was going to check again. One of the managers then came out and said that they were just plating our food. 20 more minutes went by and after noticing other tables that arrived after us were receiving their food, we decided to leave. I really wanted to give Aviv a chance, but this was Mother's day. I specifically researched and reviewed this restaurant prior to booking and really wanted to make this a nice evening for my wife and my mother. Unfortunately, we had to settle for pizza and ice cream (ice cream from Pink across the street was really good!). I don't know if the order never got put into the system, or if our order got lost, but we sat at that table for a good hour and a half having gone through appetizers and having water refilled several times. Aviv really should have handled Mother's day service with a...

I really wanted to like this restaurant. Maybe going in, my expectations were too high. I went for Winterlicious, so maybe it was an off night? Ordered the lamb meatballs as an appetizer - came out cold and one meatball was raw inside - also no flavour. No seasoning ie. salt or spices. I should have sent it back, but honestly, the reason that I didn't is because the seating was so awkward. The reservation was for 5:15pm on a Saturday and the restaurant had only seated one other table. But they sat us right beside that table! The third party who came in was seated right on our other side! So I already felt uncomfortable with the seating arrangement and just let the cold undercooked meatballs go. Main - ordered jerk pork tenderloin with mash and swiss chard. The best part was the mash or really the only part I thought was decent. Tenderloin was a little pink for my taste, especially after the raw meatball. Also flavourless; definitely didn't taste like jerk and again, no seasoning. And dessert - surprisingly enough, came out warm. "Nutrella" (as per the menu - was this intentional?) banana bread pudding. It was ok, didn't taste much Nutella or banana; nothing to rave about. After the rest of the meal, I just wanted to leave. Because I was feeling sick, nauseated. No wonder - I started throwing up about an hour or so later and continued for the rest of the night. I will never go back and do not recommend this...