Babylon Cafe

hands down the BEST shawarmas in Vancouver. I have tried them all. Babylon cafe is the real deal: authentic middle eastern taste meats, fresh veggies. We always stop on our way back from day trips . Love the food and the guys who attend are funny and friendly:)

MMmmm.....SHAWARMA!. I ordered a Chicken Shawarma plate from Babylon Cafe recently, and will most definitely be coming back for more!!!

The service there is near non-existent, as the guy's working can hardly speak English, and aren't very receptive to ANY questions,

The food is plentiful and well worth the $8,00.

A "plate" comes with Shawarma, rice pilaf, salad, and pita.
The Shawarma is extremely flavourful, and is the best I've had in Canada. It is shaved into small chucks and shavings, usually with a mix between crispy and succulent, juicy morsels of chicken.
The rice pilaf was a nice surprise too. With a good kick of cumin and other middle-eastern spices, I could have ate nothing but! Now I want the recipe!
Unfortunately, the rest of the plate was far from spectacular. The salad was nothing more than a terrible house salad, void of dressing, and mostly whitish iceburg lettuce. The pita was okay, but where's the hummus??? What kind of middle eastern restaurant gives you pita with no hummus? Although a bit confused, I thought I'd be happy I asked for a dollup of garlic sauce, which would be a good pita dip, but "boy was I wrong"! The garlic sauce contained maybe 1% garlic at the most, and I'm not sure how they accomplished to make mayo more flavourless than it usually is, but they managed to make it taste like watered down oil......It was quite gross, so I left the dollup in the corner of my takeout tray to be tossed.

All in all, I'd rate this place a 3.5 out of 5.0.

My suggestions for the restaurant:

1) Make better salads....maybe a tabouli, fattouche or red cabbage slaw
2) Make a better garlic sauce.....the best is simply olive oil, garlic and lemon juice
3) Learn English and how to smile.

I'll be back, but only for the chicken shawarma and rice!

Great shawarma. The chicken shawerma and the chicken plate are fantastic here. I am so surprised that the rating is not better for this place. There is always a lineup out the door for a reason.