Ghazale Restaurant

This is my favourite late night snack place, hands-​down.
The staff is SOOOO nice, the options are endless, the food is SO good. The price is right. They get it to you quickly. The juice bar next door is pretty good, too.

Fantastic food ! Plates are huge and you can choose from any combination of them. They have a large selection of vegetarian dishes, and many meats also. They have unusual options such as lentils with rice and couscous. The only downside I see is that it is only take-​out. When the weather is good you can use some patio tables and chairs on the outside. Very reasonable prices.

I always leave a happy girl when I get the falafel wrap here. The messiness of this meal is well worth it. They also have a great selection of middle eastern salads if you prefer a meat and salad platter. When I’m in the mood for a chicken shawarma I’ll be coming here.

I’m basing this review on the food and the outstanding customer service. I ordered catering for a class of 20 students. At the beginning, I was a bit confused when I called and a Rogers technician picked up. He passed the phone to one of the workers there and she directed me to the owner. I then called the owner and she was super-​sweet with making suggestions. For just a few dollars more than what we usually order I ended up ordering one of their packages plus a few more items and the students could not be happier! We had beef and chicken shawarma, two different kinds of rice, taboule, cabbage salad, pita, hummus, and sauce.
The students have already asked when I’ll be ordering from Ghazale for lunch again. Great service, great food, and great value!

This is a great take-​out place and, occasionally, one can dine in, too, using their neighboring juice store. I love their chicken liver in a pita with a lentil soup. Their warm lima bean salad is protein heaven. You will be pleased with the amount of chicken and veggies stuffed into a typical shawarma. The world would be a better place if «Ghazale hu akbar» was shouted instead.

Best veggie wrap I’ve ever had (the one with cauliflower and eggplant). Literally, the best cauliflower preparation I have ever tasted.
It takes true skill to make veggies this savory and the servers were incredibly friendly. Go to this place for cheap dinner on the go!

I’ve come here for a number of years and it has never disappointed me. I remember a while back, the chicken tasted dry. Now, the chicken is moist. I suggest trying out the chicken shawarma — filling and cheap kinda. I personally find their platters are quite small and expensive though. Nice place for a quick snack if you’re strolling along Bloor street.

I’ve been frequenting the Ghazale on College for roughly 2 years and i’ve felt they’ve let their standards drop and prices rise. So when I was biking on bloor one day I decided to try out this Ghazale. Best idea i’ve had in awhile.
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The Positive: The atmosphere is nice right away. There is energy between all the coworkers that translates to friendly greetings and warm service for the customers. The place is small, but clean. There is a good range of food and while i’m not sure, I suspect the location on college gets all their food from the ladies working here, because the food tastes significantly more fresh and you actually see people standing in the kitchen. While i’m not a vegetarian, I am often in the mood of a vegetable heavy meal at a low price and their combo plate hits that craving out of the park. There is nothing I wouldn’t recommend, save for maybe their bland store bought pita bread. The ability to mix and match food items ensures it never gets boring going back. One of my favourite aspects is the amount of food you get for the price. A standard combo plate will cost around $ 10, but it’s easily 2 meals for the average person (if you can stop yourself from eating the delicious food.)
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The Negative: The space is very small and there is really no comfortable way to sit there and eat. The best way to experience Ghazale is to get your food and find somewhere else to sit.
There is also a young employee, who is perhaps a trainee, but both times i’ve had him help me he was a total mess. He clumsily loaded my combo plate, he added ¹⁄₃ less than the other employees which left me feeling cheated. He asked me if I wanted tahini and then promptly put a TON of hot sauce on (which I did NOT want). He put my pita and on the press to warm it up but ended up tearing it to pieces when it got stuck on the top of the press. All the while he was bumping into others and knocking things over. He never smiled, he felt out of place and just sours the atmosphere. We all have to start somewhere, but this kid needs way more supervision before being let loose on the customers.
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The Conclusion: Ghazale is a great restaurant for quick, cheap, delicious food. Go and try it!

*Review based solely on the shwarma*
good lawd, where do I even start…
My love of shwarma all started here, two years ago after a friend of mine would walk me to Bathurst, and more than half the time, insist on stopping in for a shwarma like a fiend with a secret addiction. He’d get all excited in a semi-​bashful way similar to a teenaged boy going out for his first (legal) drink and not wanting to seem over-​eager/​excited. I didn’t quite understand his hype… until one night I had one myself.
Pros:
–veggies –always crisp and perfect, never stale; all my faves there so no complaints on my end
–Chicken– at the end of the night they scoop it out of a metal tray vs. off the spit a standard shwarma comes off of, but its still delicious. And if they take it directly off the spit, it’s extra juicy delicious
–The garlic sauce is, is uh…*mouth waters* Delicious, to say the least
–Then it’s toasted to deliciousness squared after they stick it in the sandwich press
–Portion sizes are more than good, and they don’t cheap you out on the chicken, either (which I find lots of places do)
–Cheap, filling, fulfilling, and open late (like past 3am kinda late)
Cons:
–I don’t own the place (but this might be a good thing)
Anyhow, don’t judge the appearance of this small place, wonderful wonderful things are waiting to be had! And y’know, you should have seen the annoyance on the face of the last person I was trying to drag here to achieve my shwarma fix…

Great value and taste for the money! They’re open late and I often eat here when I’m downtown usually at the Bloor or College location. The food is quite hot and fresh. Love their vine leaves, kebab and tabbouleh salad but it’s all good. Eggplant is another favourite. There’s limited seating but usually there’s seating available as most get take-​out. So many good choices to and mostly healthy vegetarian options.

Wow! For the price this place is outstanding. I’ve been coming here since I first moved to Toronto looking for any excuse to drop in when I’m within a 5 km radius. I fell in love with their stuffed grape leaves, tabouli and pretty much any of their bean salads. It’s better for takeout as seating is quite limited but if you can grab a seat it’s neat to eat and watch the interesting and diverse customer pool that drop in.

The rice here is amazing. I ordered a meal plate with the yellow rice and chicken with tahini and garlic sauce. both sauces were good. I had to order more rice-​a regular serving for $ 3.99 plus tax. Also, I didn’t feel sick or gassy afterwards like some places around the same price. Very satisfied.

After walking back and forth past this place for eight years and never going in, I decided to give it a try yesterday. I’m very glad that I did! First and foremost, you are going to get great value here. We got 2 veggie plates ($ 7 each) and 1 meat plate ($ 8). You get to choose 4 items (meat plate includes one meat) from a wide variety of fresh and flavourful options, and the portions and generous. Our favorites were the lima beans, mosaga, beet salad, tabouli, and the beef kebabs. I’m glad to have finally ventured into this place and am looking forward to trying their juice place next door.

I was really disappointed by that place. The shawarma (both chicken and beef) was pre-​cut and they heated in the microwave! I ordered a chicken shawarm and it was so dry and didn’t taste like much… most probably the worst shawarma I had. ever!
One more thing that really got me uncomfortable is the weird smell in there, maybe because it’s a small place, not sure… but definitely not the kind of smell you want at a restaurant.

If I could give this place zero stars I would.
The food is bland but deserves 1 star for having some decent vegetarian options. They lose that star by blatantly loathing their customers. I have never been treated so badly in my life. Twice I have visited and twice I have been abused or yelled at. I have never been so disgusted in a business and will never come back.

Yeah, indeed this place is nothing special. Tiny room with three seats. We just got hungry while it started to rain and always wanted to go there, so dropped in for a veggie platter. Two veggies, one salad, one rice what we got on our nearly $ 8 dollar plate, not much to share between two people aside from the other places we have visited and got full. Didn’t happen in Ghazale, so small portions.
Food was good, tasty, but not mind-​blowing. Was warmed not very warm in microwave. Lentil rice and mixed battered veggies taste the best. I think we just need to give another chance to the place in some other location.

Been going to this place for a while now and it’s usually really good, always fresh, fast, and consistent. But I went here last night at 130 and to my surprise the chicken for chicken shawarma was precut!
Not sure why they would do that, instead sataying it to make it hot, juicy, and yummy, they just put it the pita and used a grill press. The pita was nice and toasty but the chicken was still room temperature warm and dry, very dry. I would conclude that they do this only because they are lazy. I mean it gets pretty busy around 1 am and you won’t have time to cut fresh meat each time and make the food good.
As for the ambiance, the place is very functional, no frills, you would go here only for fast convenient good food.
If you are hungry at night try to pass on this option but if you are in the area during the day, it’s pretty fresh, good, and fast.

This is my partner’s favourite fast food joint — which makes sense as they serve lots of different veggie dishes and they are open late. She jokingly says she steered me towards find a temporary apartment in the Annex just so she can eat here.
Overall, the veggie dishes they serve are delicious and cheap. Seriously — $ 3 for a big cup of tasty root veggies is damn satisfying.
The shawarma on the other hand? Meh. It kinda sucks to be honest. Which might explain the low ratings.
So in short — if you are into veggie dishes, this is pretty damned good joint for cheap. You can find better shawarma elsewhere. As an omnivore? I give it 3-​stars.

Wow, I’m surprised by all the negative ratings. I love it here!
Where else can you spend $ 5 and select from a whole whack of veggie offerings. They have about 10 different dishes to choose from and they are all great. Tabouli, cabbage salad, bulgar with toasted almonds, grilled eggplant, roast potatoes, spicy lima beans, roasted beets, etc. The list goes on. Each dish is very well made with great seasoning and careful cooking. None of the dishes are «fillers» like the plain rice that most take out places use. Service is fast and friendly.
Many other reviewers have complained about the shwarmas. I have been avoiding shwarmas for years because they always look like mystery meats. Looking at the other dishes, it was clear to me that this is a place that puts a lot of care in their cooking. So, I felt okay about having a shwarma here. Ghazale’s chicken shwamra looks and tastes like chicken! Mine didn’t come straight off the spit, but I didn’t find it dry at all. More importantly, I didn’t find it greasy or made from mystery meats.
I’m guessing that the negative reviews are mostly from people that see a shwarma and have some expectations about getting a fix of guilty pleasure that Ghazale’s doesn’t satisfy. Instead the food here is healthful, lovingly made and a great deal. I plan to eat here whenever I’m in the Annex and looking for a quick bite.

So about a decade ago, I was hanging out with an artist (read: broke) friend of mine and I had just treated him to a few pints at the Green Room with some cash from my pocket. But by the end of the night, it was late and we were starving.
So we headed to the Pizza Pizza on 1 Albany Ave. –which incidentally is now a Star Bucks, to get two pepperoni slices. My friend, broke as always looked at me and looked at him ‘…Fine,’ I said. So I reach into my pocket and lo and behold, I had forgotten my wallet, no cards with me either, all I had was about $ 25 and most of that had gone into the beers at the Green Room.
Yay!
So we start searching in our bags and pockets for loose change and by the end we managed to scrape about $ 2.35 between the two of us. So I told the Pizza Pizza guy if we could have a Pepperoni slice for our change. He did not looked very receptive at our request. I remember, he was an older, mature and moustached gentlemen. He looked at our situation, our puppy-​eyed, starving faces and gently reassured us, «Get out of here.»
So we left.
We walked west towards Bathurst and when we saw Ghazale we decided to give it a try, so in we go with our $ 2.35 and made our plead.
Now, I do not know if anyone remembers, back in the day one, one of the men who worked there, was a bald gentleman, black hair on the sides, a beard and what I thought to be a lazy eye. For real!
He crazy man look always bothered me a bit (at first) but anyway, it was him who talked to us and said:
‘Sure, I’ll give you two falafel sandwiches but you have to promise me, when you are in the neighbourhood you always have to come here.‘
We were starving, so we agreed. He took our money and gave us two falafel sandwishes! One each! Score!
Now, I do not know if my friend kept his promise… But I did.
For 7 years.
Every time while in the hood, I always got a chicken Shawarmas and they were delicious. They use to add tons of tasty humus and tahina, Tsatsiki, maybe some baba ghanoush and I always asked to add a touch of hot sauce, oh, I loved them. Including the sauce that dripped at the bottom of the wrapper, yes, I did that. I am sure some of you did it too!
But over time, I stopped seeing the one eyed man anymore and all of the sudden I began to only see women working there. Which lead me to believe that maybe management had changed.
Back then a Chicken shawarma was really filling and was about $ 3.20. Today, the sandwiches are smaller, with less chicken but cost $ 5.00+tax! Heck, at one point they charged you extra for a touch of Baba ghanoush, or tahina which I thought was a cheap move on their part taking into consideration how many they sold. No Tsatsiki any more either and if you ask for it, they give you a weird look. Give me a break! (Although in fairness it sometimes depends who is behind the counter)
After the renovations a few years ago, the place turned more into a fast food, order, pick up and leave joint. As before you could hang out with some of the people who worked there and socialize with patrons as they had a few chairs for people to sit inside and outside. Now it is all, «order the food, thank you, good bye.» The women are not very friendly or chatty except for maybe the one who is taking your cash.
Sure, the place has always had a pretty low-​rent vibe but with the reno a few years back the place still looks low-​rent but now, it is flashy low-​rent! Come on, you are not fooling anyone.
In the end, I gave the place plenty of business over the years as I brought many friends here and would like to think that I did fulfill my side of the bargain I made so many years ago. However, if you are going for fast food, at $ 5.00+tax for a shrinking (and at times dry) chicken sandwich it is simply not worth it anymore when you can go across street to one of the many Sushi or Korean places, get a place to sit, and more of a selection for $ 7.00.
Too bad Ghazele