Ishq | Pure Vegetarian | Toronto — Restaurant in Toronto

Visited Ishq for lunch on a Sunday. The restaurant was completely full despite the large number of seats. Luckily, we found one high table and sat there. Ambience was okay.

Quickly, we decided our dishes from the menu and first ordered Delhiwali Paneer Tikka and Masala Dosa.

We requested to serve Delhiwali Paneer Tikka before the Masala Dosa being an appetizer. The server Niharika served us Masala Dosa first which shouldn’t have been the case. The Masala Dosa came with four chutneys - Coconut, Tomato, Ginger Garlic and not sure about the 4th one. I haven’t seen four chutneys being served with dosa anywhere else I have tried South Indian food. The chutneys were okay. The Dosa crepe and the potato filling tasted good but the dosa wasn’t crisp as it should have been. The Sambar wasn’t piping hot either.

Next was the Delhiwali Paneer Tikka which had an ordinary presentation. The Paneer was hard unlike being very soft which is an essential aspect of this popular appetizer. The paneer marination was raw as if the paneer was roasted in high flame. The mustard oil used in the marination was over powering the paneer which was bit of a disappointment. One of the pieces of green pepper was fully burnt. The Delhiwali Paneer Tikka was below average in terms of taste.

The second set of items in our order were the South Indian Thali and Chai Thali. Although the South Indian Thali had a variety of items, it was just average. It came with three types of rice - Biryani, Plain boiled rice and Peanut rice. The rasam was just water mixed with some powder and tasted horrible. The biryani was just a mix of vegetable masala with rice and so was just okay and not authentic at all. The only curry that stood out in the South Indian Thali was the Pumpkin and Lentil curry that tasted good. The yogurt which should have been an actual “Raita” was just plain without any salt or pepper and therefore wasn’t appealing in the Thali. The Poori and Vada were soft but just okay. The Jalebi which was the dessert in the Thali was flat instead of the regular shape. It was soggy and tasted like bad oil that was being reused in the kitchen.

Lastly, the Chai Thali looked nice for a change. The tea wasn’t great. It wasn’t piping hot and had more milk in it. The maggi was good but the best item in the Thali was the Vada Pao which tasted pretty good. The bread pakora, veg pakora and sweet buns were just ordinary and not up to the standard.

The collection of bollywood songs being played were quite old and didn’t add to the liveliness of the environment.

In addition, we also found that the men and women washrooms located downstairs were not very clean. The restaurant should consider this seriously as well.

None of the servers checked if we needed anything. However, they were nice and well behaved especially Naman who had some great customer service skills.

Overall, our experience was well below expectations and not worth the hype as all the dishes we tried were kind of...

We went there today for lunch, we work at the building right across the road.

Our experience began when we had to wait about 5 minutes to be seated. Nobody seemed to notice that we were waiting, there was no sign, saying if we should seat ourselves or wait to be seated. This is a rather industrial area, so I’m sure they know most of their customers are on their lunch breaks.

After we were seated, we waited quite a while for someone to approach the table, when she did, I let her know that I could not have dairy or gluten (Generally very easy at any Indian restaurant). She immediately left to ask somebody else what I could eat (even though I was planning to just ask about one specific item), who came back about 10 minutes later, I also told him I could not have dairy or gluten, it took him about 10 minutes to come back and tell me what I could eat (Again before I could tell him that there was one specific item I wanted to ask about, he had disappeared). Generally a restaurant, that advertises vegetarian, has some better knowledge about ingredients. Furthermore, when they came back, they told me I could eat the dosas, but did not identify anything else on the menu until I specifically asked. I regretted even asking instead of just ordering something that I hoped would be safe!

Due to the delay, it took almost 20 minutes for us to order. We then waited an additional 45 minutes for our food. I’m not sure what the holdup was because people around us were getting their meals, but we were not. Twice we were told that our food was ready and about to be brought to the table, and it did not happen until about 20 minutes after the first time we got this message.

Two of us were served before the other two, we started sharing our food, because we were all so hungry and needed to get back to work. They did bring us an order of Samosas to apologize for our food, taking so long, which was appreciated (Although I could not partake, because they have gluten, I was told they were good)

I will say the food was excellent. I had Dal and my friends had vegetable or mushroom curry, and we all felt the food was very well-made and delicious. The atmosphere was lovely.

At the end of the meal, when it came time to pay, there was no option to add a tip to the reader. We asked the waitress about it and she said we could give her cash and the system did not include tips. (which we were later told by management was incorrect, but by then we were very late getting back to the office, and did not have time to reverse and redo the payment)

I am very happy to have a vegetarian restaurant so close to my office, but I hope they can sort out their service issues. I definitely recommend trying it for the excellent food, just make sure you have a...

The taste of the food was great but had the worst service I have ever experienced at this establishment. When we walked in it wasn’t that busy waitress offers us a table I asked for a different one she seemed annoyed that she had to clear of one of the tables for us but she promptly cleaned it and we were seated within 5 mins . We had ordered dahi batata puri , the South Indian thali a mango lassi and the 5ft dosa which I have seen all over social media and the reason we decided to come to this restaurant. After 20-30 mins we received our mango lassi . We can see everyone else getting their food and we were still waiting for our appetizer and dosa . After about 45 mins of waiting I go to ask the waitress where the rest of our food was and she showed me she was just starting to make our appetizer and she told me it would be another 5 mins for the dosa I went back to my seat to wait. After waiting another 5 mins I go back to the waitress and ask how much longer for my dosa . She said they forgot to put in the ticket for the dosa and another waitress interjected to say they need the pan free to make the dosa and it will be 5 more mins . I told her if the dosa was going to take so long that ok if advance notice was given but if a customer doesn’t know how long it should take then that’s unacceptable especially since we have been waiting almost and hour for it. I told them to cancel the appetizer since I could see she still wasn’t finished making it . You would think at the time they would decide to do something to make things right but they didn’t . Finally after more than an hour wait we got our dosa but after all this inconvenience we weren’t as excited to eat it as we were went we came to the restaurant. Very disappointed. Also I would like to note that after majority of the tables were gone they didn’t do anything to clean up and get ready for the next customers I saw about 10 tables left dirty. That’s not the ambiance you want to set. I’m the picture attached you can see 4 dirty tables . The food was good but they need to have some major improvements on service . This was a Thursday can’t imagine how they will deal with a...