Pak Centre Halal Restaurant

I don’t know if the servers here are scared of the customers or not, but they definitely don’t make any eye contacts with you and don’t come to you unless you stand up and wave at them. I stood at the front of the main desk, hoping one of the 3 servers who are walking by me will show me to my table… but maybe I was wearing Harry’s Invisible Cloak because 3 mins went by and no one acknowledged me. I had to walk over and wave at one of them to show me a table to sit. Menu didn’t arrive at the table, my husband had to get it from the front. I had to wave at a server to come and take out order. All this time, restaurant is not busy. Food is oily but that’s just almost all brown food in GTA. Service is terrible!!! Will not come back here again. This is where Pak Centre and I part ways!

Very clean, nice friendly staff. Prices are reasonable. Good food. Very well decorated. Disliked the lassi

When we’re too tired to go to Iqbal, my family and I come to Pak Centre.
The interior is okay; at least it’s clean (which isn’t case for all restaurants sadly). Waiters are kind and the food is great (if you can’t handle spice, I recommend you buy a Mango Lassi to cool your tongue).
I only have to complain about their meat to rice ratio.

Food is great but service is too slow. Even for take out, I placed an order for take out half hour before arriving but it took them almost an hour to serve. Same when you dine in, takes forever to get the food.

This is place is very good! Friendly service. Nice restaurant setting.
Yummy food, have tried the: lamb biryani, bihari kabob (so so good), lahori daal, kabob rolls, and trifle dessert.
Decent prices, good portions.
However, they take a while to get the food to you (even when we call ahead for pick up– take out).
Bottom line: I recommend this place!

Halwa Puri review:
— 3 puris (good size)
— Halwa
— Chana (you can have it with aloo instead if you want)
— piece of mango achar
The puris and chana were fine. The halwa tasted very artificial. Paid $ 3 plus tax. (take out). I prefer quality over quantity and didn’t like the taste of the halwa. For $ 3 try it for yourself and see what you think.

After much searching for halwa puri places in GTA, I decided to give Pak Centre Halal Restaurant a try.
Their halwa puri was REALLY good although need to work on their aaloo bhujia.
Overall, I would highly recommend this place for halwa puri!

Extremely slow service, but food is quite good.
I happen to be a fan of the brain masala, which I recommend if you are trying to be more adventurous. Not bad for the mutton karahi and murgh mumtaz… however this is one of those sweeter options. Was like a mango chicken dessert… if you can understand what that even means. Try it to find out: p
Also ordered the falooda but was very disappointed with it. Just looked like milk and ice cream… not what a falooda should be.
Overall…it is on my so so list of south asian cuisine. I will give them a + for the cleanliness of the place and the nicer atmosphere in the restaurant.
Service-​step up your game!

Best chicken somosasa in whole GTA.
They are too slow on the service. Even if you order, you have to wait for 25 – 30 minutes.
But whenever I want somossa I go to this place.

Good place, decent price if you know what to order.

Terrible food. Its always a hit or miss here and usually its more of a miss than anything. We have been here several times and each time there’s a new disappointment. On one occasion, we found hair in our food and when we complained, the server didn’t offer to replace the meal or give us any concession. Definitely not Pakistani food as its a bad representation of Pakistan altogether. I live a walk away and would never return here.

Their food is OK, just the location happens to be close so we really really wanted to make it our new Indian food place. But we just can’t — they aren’t remotely worth it.
Their food quality is like Russian roulette — you have no idea if it’s gonna be good or whether you will have to get it remade. Their service used to be hideous, but depending on the guy you get maybe it won’t be so bad.
We try to avoid going here only because consistent good service and food is hard to predict. It’s too bad, because we opt for Indian take out from other places now than settle for mediocre experience in this restaurant.

Great tasty Pakistani food, very nice people. Try their Lunch Buffet.
I always have my breakfast there. Weekends cause They have Best Aalwa Puri in town,
Great service whether you dine or order takeout .
Decoration is amazing.

I have been getting food at Pak Centre for about 4 years now. Though the food is pretty good, if you want «delivery» don’t count on this place! This is my biggest problem with Pak Centre. I have tried 10+ times over the past year or so to have Pak Centre deliver to my apartment. Two of those times they actually did deliver, but the rest? «Sorry ma’am we don’t have a driver today.» When I ask about the fact that they claim to do delivery they give me some BS excuse about how they usually have a driver but today they don’t. I tell them that I’ve tried several times and that whenever I call, they don’t have a driver. All they offer me is an apology and some rambling, stuttering rendition of the «we usually have a driver but today we don’t» excuse again. Nice. The truth is that they only deliver on rare occasions. I feel really bad for the employees because I know it’s not their fault, yet they have to respond to people like me asking them why there’s never any delivery. Note to the mangagement: If you’re gonna claim to deliver then DELIVER. IF NOT, then STOP claiming to offer delivery service when you really don’t.
Now for the food, I must say that it has improved since a couple years ago. So if you haven’t tried them for awhile because of a bad experience a few years back, I encourage you to try em again because it’s a whole lot better now. I’m a big chicken biryani fan and previously found Pak Centre’s chicken biryani pretty unimpressive, mostly because the rice was really bland and flavourless. But lately, I gotta admit that it is much more flavourful than it used to be, and consistently so. One issue is that sometimes their dishes can be quite greasy, so if you have any concerns about that you might wanna try to request that they go easy on the oil.
Another downside is that the service can be really slow. I went in there one day and it was just me and a couple sitting down and eating already. So I expected them to have my food ready pretty quickly this time as compared to the usual slowness I had come to expect (and I can’t imagine they’re busy taking care of any delivery orders back there, right?! right.) but I ended up sitting there and waiting forever for a relatively small order of 2 chicken biryanis and a naan. Additionally, I have found that the servers aren’t friendly or personable at all. It’s incredibly awkward dealing with some of the employees there and is one of the main reasons why when I go there, I get take-​out even if it’s just for me. And even if I’m hungry. I’d honestly rather opt to get take-​out and carry the stuff back to my place in bags, on the bus (Since I have no car. Another reason why delivery would be nice. Buuuut Pak Centre isn’t gonna help me with THAT, now are they?!) To be fair though, I do see some improvements happening there as of late. So I’ll encourage people to give them a try.

I always order Murgh Chutney Meri and at times Mumtaz Murgh.
When you order curry, you always get a very oily curry. I ordered chicken karahi. I asked when paying how many pieces of chicken are in there, and he said just four. So I’m guessing there’s a standard amount of pieces, and unfortunately for the price of $ 8.99, I dont think that 4 little chunks of chicken is a fair trade. You can share the curry between three or four people, thats one lil piece per person. Thats not a proper meal. Not worth the money for the curry.
And when you get a big container of biryani, they give you a little container of raita for like one or two people. That container needs at least like four of those. If you want more, its 0.50 each. Thats a major rip off.
They need to be a bit more fair for what they’re giving for the price. In the future, I’ll avoid the biryani and curries. …a few things are left.

My impressions:
This place is very clean, and it is evident that the owners have invested in making it look elegantly modern. Unfortunately, I cannot say that the location itself reflects the interior look and feel of the restaurant.
Service is very polite but you definitely won’t get the warm and fuzzies. Possibly a cultural thing?
The food is delicious. We ordered chicken biryani, lamb krahi, butter naan and Bhaigan bharta. Well seasoned, and they use fresh herbs and spices. Not greasy as most of the other Pakistani restaurants we’ve tried. The menu isn’t overly arge, and items listed are described clearly and provides those who are new to Pakstani cuisine with a clear idea of what they are ordering.
You might be curious as to why I on’y ave them 3 stars, here’s why:
The servings are less than what I would expect to eat for the prices they charge. Specifically, they seemed to skimp on meat in each f the dishes we ordered. The butter chicken cost 8.99 but only had four medium sized pieces of boneless chicken thighs. I think they must have cut up a whole boneless chicken thigh into four pieces. It was swimming in a lot of tasty sauce, but I still felt gypped.
The lamb krahi had 6 small pieces of lamb, each about the size of my thumb. For 9.99, it seems expensive.
Both the butter chicken and lamb krahi don’t come with any rice, naan or salad.
The chicken biryani was delicious, and cost 6.99 per serving. Again, it was very light on the chicken and did not come with any salad.
The eggplant dish was yummy and the serving size was fair — no complaints about that.
Would I come back to Pakistan Centre? MAYBE, but only to try the brain masala.

I’ve been going to this restaurant ever since it opened.
They have always had very slow service, the wait time is anywhere from 25 – 30 minutes after you have ordered, but we attributed this to the fact that the food was being made fresh. It was in fact always hot, fresh and really well prepared.
They serve up a «salad» when you first order which is chunks of iceberg lettuce, chunks of red onion and carrot with 3 different salad dressings that I have never tried. I never eat it because it’s just a random amount of 3 veggies that don’t pair well together and so each time you get different ratios. I wish they didn’t serve this salad because it is not part of their cuisine and only makes the restaurant lose authenticity.
Moving on, we always order a combination of Butter Chicken, Chicken Biryani, Murgh Mumtaz (Chicken Breast stuffed with cream cheese and mango sauce on top), Naan, Plain Rice, Baigan ka Bharta (eggplant, tomato and onion dish).
I’ve tasted all those dishes as well as Chicken Angora, Chicken Tikka Masala, Chana Masala, Veggie Samosas, Murgh Chutney Meri and Chicken Samosas.
The butter chicken is okay, nothing too special. It’s very one dimensional, but not bad.
The chicken biryani suffers from not enough chicken and too much rice, however taste-​wise is pretty good.
The Murgh Mumtaz was superb the first few times we ever ordered it, but the last two times we went one of them would come back undercooked, still pinkish from the inside. That is because they are not all the same size and I am guessing they cook them at the same time/​temp. Both times we told them they were undercooked and both times we were treated like we didn’t know what we were talking about by the staff. Also their cream cheese stuffing is not smooth and creamy as you would expect cream cheese to be. The first time I had this dish it was great, the last time made me never want to order it again.
Naan is always delicious and fresh.
Rice, it’s a hit and miss because sometimes it’s fresh and sometimes it’s so obviously not as fresh, just heated. Most of the time it’s heated up to be served and it’s not as good.
Baigan Ka Bharta, I love this dish, it’s amazing always. It’s a consistent dish, always perfectly seasoned and fresh.
Other dishes: Angora (too spicy for me, but good flavor) Tikka Masala (good flavor, can’t complain) Chana Masala (good dish, but have had better) Murgh Chutney Meri (have had it a few times, always good, i LOVE the dipping sauce). The samosas are very average, I never ordered them again after the first time we went there.
PRICES:
They are average, not a crazy good deal but also not crazy expensive, right in the middle.
DECOR:
I love the décor, its clean and modern yet still traditional and they have private dining areas if you wanted that.
SERVICE:
Very poor, the servers are not social they just take your order and never come back to check on you after they serve your order half an hour later. Most of the time when we order extra naan in the middle of the meal we don’t get it until we’re done eating. Servers are also not nice when they make a mistake or you are unhappy with your meal, they treat you as if you are wrong.
To summarize, I would go back there only for take out that I would call and order a head of time (the waiting time after ordering is too long) and would only ever order Naan and Baigan Ka Bharta.
My review is based on more than 20 different visits through different times of the year since they have opened. My last visit was the worst (End of Dec 2012). Each time we go our bill is between $ 80-​$ 150 because we are a group of 4 – 8 at least, you would think they would respect their customers a little more.
I gave it 3 stars because it’s clean, spacious and reasonably priced. Their food has gone downhill since opening and so has their service.

Falooda!
Came here for one thing, their Falooda. Total came to about $ 4. This cool and sweet dessert is made up of Rose Syrup, Vermicelli, Basil Seeds, Jelly, Tapioca Pearls, Milk and Ice Cream (Kulfi). It pretty much has everything under the sun in it. It’s one of my favorite desserts and not a lot of restaurants prepare it. I am so glad to have stumbled upon Pak Centre.
The restaurant is incredibly clean and the décor is modern. The cashier was friendly and quick. I will have to go back to try the food.
If you are unfamiliar with this dessert and enjoy trying new things, definitely give it a whirl!

Went there for lunch with co-​workers, in all nine people.
This place is clean, however for the food, we were not impressed.
Buffet was not fresh, nihari had no taste, butter chicken was little sweet. tandori chicken and seekh kabobs ran out but were never refilled, fish karahi was missing main ingredient … Fish.
Not sure if I will go there again.

I eat anything, I eat anything that are spicy and I eat where there’s Lunch Specials.
Pak Centre Halal Restaurant has lunch Special Thali for $ 6.99. I don’t even care what in that lunch Thali. I just walked in and say lunch specials… and just sat down and waiting to be feed!
I was surprise how clean and nicely decorated Pak Centre is. My Unilocal friend was nice to me, didn’t send me to some seedy runned down places that have sticky floors…
The nice waitress warned me that the green sauce is really spicy. the next thing she saw me was I was draining my rice with that. and smiling at her.
Naan bread was freshly made. a little doughy but nice and soft…
Chicken pea, Potato and Beef all hot and tasty. I though not too crazy about the dessert that comes with it.
For $ 6.99, you can get a complete meal from Pak Centre: Carbs (naan and rice), Veggie (Salad), protein and even sugary sweets!
The waitress here was so nice, kept asking me if I want more of any of the items on my plate… gee, I can barely finish those! And I suppose to be on a diet???