lamb – Michael Eats

Tasty Shawarma at Shelby’s

Published on January 6, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1289 Marlborough Court, Oakville
Website: https://www.shelbys.ca/

I could have sworn I had already written about Shelby’s for this blog, but when I went to look for the post, I couldn’t find it. It turns out I actually blogged about Tahini’s, not Shelby’s.

In my defense, the two chains are quite similar: both are chains with a similar name and logo, and both serve a similar menu of saj-wrapped shawarma topped with a pomegranate-infused sauce.

Also: both are surprisingly tasty. Shelby’s, despite being a chain with a couple dozen locations, probably outclasses a decent amount of the independent shawarma joints in the GTA.

I ordered the Shelby’s Wrap: “freshly baked saj bread stuffed with lettuce mix, fries, pickles, turnips, tomatoes, sumac onions, tahini, hummus, and regular or spicy garlic.” I got it with beef and lamb shawarma, spicy garlic, and skipped the onions.

It’s a great wrap, with the slightly chewy and nicely toasted saj wrap being a nice vehicle for the generous amount of tasty meat and veggies/sauces. It’s mildly spicy, zippy and garlicky (my wrap didn’t say it came with pomegranate molasses, but I’m pretty sure I tasted its slightly tart flavour, which worked well), and the shawarma is tender, with a decent amount of crispy bits. I didn’t get much lamb flavour, but the whole thing was tasty enough that this didn’t really matter.

Quick Bites: Louf, Luca Pizza, Sidra BBQ & Grill

Published on December 28, 2025December 28, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Hummus bil lahma from Louf

Louf is a Palestinian restaurant near Casa Loma (it’s probably the closest I’ve been to Casa Loma since I was a kid). I went at brunch and tried a few things, though the only dish that really jumped out at me was the hummus bil lahma (“chickpeas, tahina, lemon, ghee, beef, spices, pine nuts”). It’s a solid bowl of hummus, with a satisfyingly zippy, cumin-tinged flavour. And the braised beef on top is perfectly tender. It’s a great combo.

Cheese pizza from Luca Pizza

Luca Pizza frequently comes up in discussions of the best pizza in Mississauga, and I guess I kind of get it. The place opened in 1975, and it looks like not much has changed in there in the intervening decades; it’s definitely got a bunch of old-school charm. And the pizza kind of reminds me of what a place like Pizza Pizza would be serving, if Pizza Pizza weren’t terrible. It’s cheap, cheesy, and filling. I also liked that the crust had a nice exterior crispiness. But I have to imagine that the people calling this the best pizza in the city are coming with a big dose of nostalgia — without that, it’s hard to fully overlook the canned-tasting sauce or the bland crust (it’s the kind of crust that makes you realize why dipping sauce with pizza became a thing). Still, while I’m not going to rush back, it was pretty satisfying for what it was.

Lamb shawarma wrap from Sidra BBQ & Grill

Mostly, I wanted to try Sidra — a shawarma joint in Oakville — thanks to the presence of lamb among their shawarma selections. My understanding is that lamb shawarma is actually quite common in the Middle East, but it’s weirdly rare in the GTA (and if you do find it, it’ll likely be mixed with beef). Sadly, I don’t think the lamb shawarma here was cooked on a vertical spit, which does kind of defeat the point (there were zero crispy bits), and the seasoning was probably a bit too aggressively applied. Still, it was a bunch of tasty, relatively tender lamb in a wrap, so yeah, I enjoyed it. Probably not worth going out of your way for, but if you’re in Oakville already, sure, why not?

Tasty Kuwaiti Food at Walima

Published on August 4, 2025August 4, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1185 Dundas Street East, Mississauga
Website: https://www.instagram.com/walimarestaurants/

I’ll sometimes browse Google Maps when I’m looking for new restaurants to check out; generally speaking, the ratings tend to hover between 4 and 4.5 out of 5. Walima, on the other hand, is sitting at a cool 4.7 with over 1800 reviews as I write this. I’m assuming the restaurant has encouraged their customers to submit 5-star reviews, but still, I felt like I had to check the place out.

They serve Kuwaiti cuisine, and the majority of the menu consists of lamb, fish, or chicken served on rice. I went with the maqlooba, which comes with your choice of lamb or chicken (I went with lamb). It seems a bit pricey at 27 bucks — until you realize that this is a shareable platter rather than a dish for one (it can easily feed two or three).

Yeah, okay — I get the rating. It’s a tasty dish. It’s maybe a bit on the oily side (I think the rice is cooked with the fatty lamb, and it’s absolutely suffused with grease), but it tastes quite good, and the pieces of lamb are melt-in-your-mouth tender.

The dish also features fried onions and creamy chunks of eggplant, which both complement the lamb quite well. It comes with a couple of hot sauces on the side — a red chili oil, and a green chili sauce. They both do a nice job of kicking up the rice and meat.

There’s also a little bowl of tomato soup on the side. I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be eaten separately or with the rice; I ate it with the rice, and I’m still not sure if that was the intended way to eat this, but it was tasty regardless.

Tasty Soup at Tang Home Style Lamb and Beef

Published on May 12, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3380 Midland Avenue, Scarborough
Website: None

Tang Home Style Lamb and Beef is a great under-the-radar Chinese restaurant; they’ve got a whole bunch of tasty looking noodle dishes on the menu (not to mention a lamb bun that it seemed like most of the other tables were ordering — I’ll have to come back to try that one), but their specialty is paomo, a delicious lamb soup.

They serve a regular version and a spicy version; I went with the spicy version.

The thing that makes this dish stand out are the chopped-up pieces of flatbread interspersed throughout. They’re kinda like very thick, chopped up noodles; they have a great amount of chewiness to them (they’re not soggy or mushy at all) and bring the soup a ton of personality.

The bowl is also crammed with a generous amount of sizable pieces of tender lamb. It’s a hearty soup, that’s for sure.

As for the broth, it’s mildly spicy and has a very zesty, slightly sweet flavour. I liked it on its own, but it really comes alive once you add some of the smoky chili oil that’s on the table.

Unique Chinese Food at Tangritah Kabab House

Published on December 17, 2023December 17, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 900 Rathburn Road West, Mississauga
Website: None

One of the things I like about living in Toronto is that not only is pretty much every country’s cuisine available to try (which I explore in another blog, 196 Plates — I think it might be about time to bring that one back), you can actually get so much more specific than that.

This place — which specializes in Uyghur cuisine — is a great example of this. “Chinese food” tends to be put under one enormous umbrella, but China is a huge country, and its food is wildly different from region to region.

I tried a few things here, and it was all extremely delicious. First up: a dish the menu only refers to as “fried meat.” I think it was beef, though it might have been lamb (if it was, it didn’t have much of a lamby flavour). Either way, it was super tasty, with a bunch of tender meat, nicely cooked onions, and a very cumin-tinged flavour that was extremely addictive.

Next up was the Tangritah Special Langmen, which is an Uyghur dish in which hand-pulled noodles are topped with stir-fried veggies and meat. The flavour here was a bit less distinctive than the fried meat, but the noodles had a really satisfying chewiness, and the veggies and meat were perfectly cooked (again, I’m not sure what the meat was, but I’m gonna say beef).

Finally, I tried the samsa, a bun filled with a mix of lamb and onions. This looks like it might have initially been crispy on its exterior, which would have been nice, but it was either steamed or microwaved to reheat and was soft throughout. Regardless, it was quite tasty.