Shishalicious (one of three locations of this small chain) is located at 5130 Dixie Road in Mississauga, the municipality bordering Toronto's west end. We went for weekend brunch. It's only for a two hour window starting at noon, so reservations are recommended... the reason why should become clear! Pop is canned, not AYCD and $3.99, and surprisingly I’m not going to gripe about this, which should also be a clue. Shishalicious has lovely Middle Eastern decor with wall carving patterns and seats which look like Persian carpets. Brunch started about ten minutes late and there is a lineup for the buffet. Mishy got in it early, but I foolishly opted for "ladies first" and so ended up right at the end of the line...
Unfortunately nothing there was label was labelled, and it was difficult to get names from the overworked staff, so I must improvise as best as I can. The potato dish was lovely and had an interesting flavour we both like although couldn't identify, they were light coloured roast potatoes with something resembling bacon in there, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that. One of these was probably batata harra. The red potato dish resembling home fries had a wonderful ketchup flavour and we both loved that too. The deep fried dish that resembled a donut, sort of like the Indian hava was delicious. Hummus was quite tasty, went very well with a pita and I also put in some pickled turnips... like a make-your-own falafel. Pickled some sort of vegetable that was round and squishy and looked a bit like an oyster was good but I don't know what it was.
Beware as there is a liver dish; thankfully it is at the end, and is an odd grey meat-coloured thing, so it is avoidable if desired. I accidentally ate some, and didn't like it at all, but of course that's a personal preference as I just don’t like liver. Lasagna-like tomato dish was excellent and made up for it, a good palate cleanser. Chickpea salad was excellent, although I don't think it's called that (balela?) but it had a wonderful flavour. There's also another chickpea dish at the end near the liver dish and it was also excellent. Moutabal one of the few I could identify... with eggplant, tahini and lemon and possibly sour cream) was very good. There was another tomato dish that was completely red and not lasagna-like and it was also very good with a rich tomato flavour. Tabbouleh which was also one of the few things that I recognized was pretty good although somewhat vinegary. Red peppers muhmara I know was in there but I can’t recall how it was!
The dessert seems to be halva, a sweet brick of nuttiness mixed in with the rest of the offerings... it was delicious. There are also strawberries in syrup which were fantastic and another fruit and syrup beside it which could be orange or tangerine. One other thing to watch out for is that after only an hour, some of the trays are not replaced when they run out, so get in early and get what you can. Lunch was $9.99, which is why I am not complaining about the $4 cans of pop. No, that is not a typo... fully one-third the cost of some places, to the point where I’m wondering why it’s so inexpensive. Perhaps given the clientele, hours and Halal nature of the offerings it’s a Zakat thing of giving back to the community. Factoring in value, Shishalicious would end up with roughly a 12/10 if it wasn’t capped.
Rating: 10 / 10
