Farhat Restaurant - Shawarma

I had a craving for shawarma so I visited one of the more popular shawarma restaurants in Scarborough this afternoon. Farhat Restaurant (2020 Lawrence Ave E) gets a lot of praise for their shawarmas, and usually has a large lineup. In the past it's looked a little run down, but it looks like it's recently had a renovation and looks a lot nicer inside.

I ordered a beef and a chicken shawarma ($7.90 after taxes). I ordered my shawarmas with the works which was lettuce, onion, tabbouleh, pickled turnip, toum, and tahini.

I'll start with the beef. It was tasteless and dry, I mean dry to the point where the fibres of the meat begain to look like frayed cotton (see pic below). The vegetables were fresh and flavourful and were the only saving grace for this sandwich. The toum is excellent and rivals that of Shawarma Palace. The pickled turnip was very nice as well. The meat itself tasted like beef, no spicing whatsoever, this may be to some people's taste, not mine.






The chicken was more of the same, it wasn't as dry as the beef, but really lacked any spicing. It tasted like roast chicken. The vegetables and sauces brought the meat to life, they shouldn't have to.






In my opinion, shawarma meat needs to be juicy and have bold flavours such as cinnamon, cloves, coriander, and black pepper. Sadly, Farhat disappointed in this regard.