Aleppo Cafe

Seriously. So fresh, great price. Tasty food, nice people. It has become my favorite place for middle eastern food. Cozy and comfort.

I was staying at the Sheraton Four Points and found this café which was a hop skip away. The food here is delicious and healthy too! It’s hard to find healthy food when you’re travelling but this place has a wide variety of home cooked, middle eastern food. It looked to be family run and they were incredibly nice. If you like middle eastern foods and needing veggies in your life (when travelling) check this place out. Ps it’s a buffet too and great value!

Located in the northern end of the brewery market just past Cheelin, Aleppo is a mid-​sized lunch joint, whose main feature is their buffet, although you can go ala carte as well.
I recently popped in for a late lunch for my first ever visit. They’re wonderfully diligent with posting their ever-​rotating buffet menu, with pictures, every day on Facebook so I knew what I was getting into. Their regular menu features a range of familiar Mediterranean dishes — falafel, kaftas, kebabs, etc. as well as a few Canadian things like burgers, fries, poutine and donairs. There’s even some random international dishes like biryani, chicken parm and the mysterious sounding «Mexican chicken». As a rule of thumb I try to avoid these sorts of random dishes that are thrown in to appease the picky eaters out there and I was here for the buffet anyway. The whole menu is very reasonably priced, even the mixed kebab plate with three skewers is only $ 16, and the buffet is only $ 10 plus tax.
After inquiring what the procedure was, I was told I could just grab a plate and have at it. Soup was offered, but I passed to save room for what was in front of me and began to load up my plate with probably the healthiest buffet food I’ve ever seen.
Their version of a fish cake is a big slab of mashed potatoes, fish and veggies that you just take a scoop of. While it misses out on the crispness of the fish cakes that we’re all used to, it had a nice, light flavour and the potatoes were good and smooth, so it was a decent dish in its own right.
The falafels were the big stand out from my meal. More like little pucks than the usual ball shape, they were incredibly airy inside with a super crunchy exterior that wasn’t overcooked at all. I eagerly came back for seconds of these.
Aleppo does their koftes in long bricks that they slice into little squares and have in the warming tray with a sauce and mixed veggies. The chicken kofte that I got had a nice flavour, but as kofte often are, it was dry and had a mushy texture. The kofte curse struck again, unfortunately.
My rice was simple, but tasty. Lightly oiled and with a subtle flavour boost from some sauteed onions and raisins, it may have just been rice, but it was still quite enjoyable.
Roasted cauliflower continued the healthy streak of this plate. With a good flavour from the roasting and some extra depth from the parsley and other veggies mixed in as well.
While not Syrian or a food that stands up to a warming tray particularly well, I got bold and tried their pierogies. While they were missing out on the browning and crisp edges that fresh off the griddle pierogies would have, the filling was nice and smooth, and super cheesy.
My bean salad consisted of both beans and chick peas, which were all perfectly cooked, not dry or grainy at all. With a sprinkling of parsley and a light dressing, it was a darn good salad.
The good old fashioned garden salad was pre-​dressed as well, which isn’t a good thing for lettuce. I tried to take portions from the top of the serving bowl but my lettuce was still soggy. I would definitely suggest just having a bowl or bottle of dressing next to the salad to do yourself.
On a second visit, I came for takeout to head back to the office with and large Styrofoam containers by the buffet make it nice and easy to do so. New items on the menu that day that I hadn’t already tried included cabbage salad, meatballs, biryani rice, curry rice and vegetable moussaka.
The cabbage salad was a winner. Crunchy and with a slightly tangy and herby dressing, it put most of the coleslaws out there to shame.
The meatballs were quite «meh». They could be any brand frozen meatballs, and likely are, judging by their texture. The tomato sauce they were in added some much needed flavour at least.
The veggie moussaka had a lot of the same veggies used in the the other vegetable dishes — roasted cauliflower, eggplant, cabbage and tomato. The layer of potatoes were nice and smooth, and a generous topping of cheddar was definitely welcome, as it would be on any food, really.
A vibrant yellow, the curry rice had a mild curry flavour and no heat, but it was quite tasty nonetheless. The biryani rice was along the same lines as well, with a good biryani flavour but absent of any heat. Both rices were perfectly cooked as well.
The take out containers can hold a lot of grub and I actively avoided going crazy and filling it to the brim as I didn’t want to demolish their margins on a very cheap meal.
Simply put, go to Aleppo, get the buffet and be happy.
**It is cash only here, but there is an ATM by the entrance.**

Fridays lunch buffet tastes as good as it looks, packed with real middle eastern flavors. I love chicken eggrolls, lovely and fresh as usually at Aleppo café on the waterfront in the brewery market shops.

Good place and good prices. This would a great spot for a healthy meal. If you are a carnivore you might not get your fill but for good variety of food and a friendly spot.

When i saw that this hidden gem had yet to be reviewed, I decided to come out of my Unilocal hiatus to be the first. Simply put, this place is amazing. Super fresh and very reasonably priced lunch and dinner options. I had the second best falafel pita of my entire life here for lunch. (#1 goes to the little place in Ljubljana that made the falafel by hand and fried them individually in front of me, just to be that guy.). The ingredients were super fresh and super flavourful. They also offer a daily lunch buffet with tons of options that looked equally as mouthwatering.