Papyrus — Restaurant in Toronto

I went there for their Winterlicious menu. We ordered the following dishes: (appetizers) bissara, dokka; (main) koshari, hawawshi (we ordered both the beef and chicken/goat cheese); (desserts) bird nest konafa, konafa Canadiana. We also ordered their two available ice-teas (saffron and hisbiscus)

First, the place is quite small. It has only about 8-9 tables. There is only one person in the front room serving everyone so the service can be a bit slow. It is not a problem if you don't need anything, but if you ask for anything extra, like more spicy sauce, it will take a while to arrive.

Second, the food is quite good, but nothing special. It's not a place I would go out of my way to come back to. For the appetizers, one was a hummus-like dip with 2 small pieces of pitas bread. The other was dry dip with 2 small pieces of pita bread. I felt that they were really stingy with the pita bread. The hawawshi is described as a burger but it isn't really, it's more like a calzone. The koshari tastes similar to a pasta/rice/chickpea salad. The konafas were ok. I think the bird nest one tasted better than the Canadiana. In sum, the food was enjoyable but not memorable. If I could give a rating of between 3.5-4 I think that's more accurate for me.

As for the ice-teas, I wouldn't order them again and I do not recommend them. They tasted like low quality powdered drinks of some sort. The saffron one had a weird taste, and not sure how I could describe it. My dinner mate said maybe plasticky. the hisbiscus one didn't have much flavour. I saw them take the drinks pre-made from the fridge. I doubt they made the drinks themselves.

Also, they handed us the receipt before we even finished our meal, which I thought was a bit odd. We had late dinner so it wasn't like there was a lineup of people looking...

I have often passed by Papyrus and made a note to try it. The idea of Egyptian food on the Danforth was so intriguing I didn't know what to expect. With a mostly vegan and vegetarian menu I had to really coax my partner to give it a go. Of course we had to order the two meat dishes on the menu, namely the beef hawawshi and the chicken hawawshi. Both were very good and nicely spiced. Wanting to try more we alo ordered the full and tameya platter that came with lentil hummus and salads baladi and bread. The Tameya were so good we ended up ordering a side dish of 3 more. And the owner who helped to serve us and who was so kind and took time to explain everything and reccomend what order to try things etc. Also brought us a small bowl of Koshari to try (Egypt's National dish). Wow what amazing flavour! The layers of rice, lentils, pasta, tomato sauce with chickpeas and caramelized onions spiced to perfection made this a stand out dish for certain. We already agreed at the outset to try dessert so we needed to pace ourselves and brought some of the hawawshi home. So we split a Bird Nest Konafa and it was simply remarkable! Light vermicelli pastry filled with pistachios ( and exceptionally good quality ones at that) with a hint of coconut! We had to admit next time we are each getting our own! It was that good. Not too sweet just ever so flavorful. Like everything we had the textures and layers of flavour made this a truly wonderful meal experience. And my carnivore companion had to admit how much he loved the vegan and vegetarian cuisine. We also had 3 glasses of wine. There is no doubt at all that we will be back. And if you are vegan or vegetarian this is a must try restaurant in Toronto for you. Be warned however that it is small seats about 20 or so. So make a...

Food was mediocre and honestly a bit pricey considering almost everything is vegetarian/vegan. But I’m not here to complain about the food. While some other reviewers mentioned that they appreciated the server (I’m assuming he is the owner) explaining how to eat every single dish, I personally found this overbearing and excessive. Setting this aside, my complaint is that this man had the audacity to lecture us regarding our tip after we paid (10%, which is the minimum next to no tip at all), which has never happened to me in any restaurant I’ve been to in my entire life. What this man needs to understand is that the tip is based on the service, and the service at this restaurant was barely there. Yes, he mentioned that he was short staffed at the beginning of the meal. But that is not the guest’s problem. If you are unable to provide the level of service that you would expect a 15-18% tip for, then you cannot expect your guests to tip you as such. Our water glasses were not refilled even once, which is the bare minimum in service. His behaviour was completely unprofessional and left us feeling very uncomfortable after we had paid. I want to stress that we did tip, even though tipping is optional and we did it out of plain courtesy to this man who cannot take an ounce of criticism in any way, shape, or form. He tried to say that restaurants don’t make any money apart from the tip, which is completely untrue. It’s especially untrue in cases like this restaurant, where the food is already overpriced. I also noticed that other bad reviews have either been deleted or have received a snarky response from the owner. I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes down this...