New Timmins restaurant offers authentic Lebanese cuisine
Two members of the Muslim community in Timmins have opened an authentic Lebanese restaurant.
Both told CTV News they wanted the city to have traditional Middle Eastern food as a way to bring communities together.
Fawaz Alahmed said grew up around shawarma, like anyone in the Middle East.
Even after his family arrived in Lebanon from Syria because of civil war in 2011, Alahmed said the food was a constant.
“Every, like, 50, 100, 200 metres, you will find, like, a store, shawarma restaurant,” he said.
It’s something Alahmed said he missed when moving to Timmins in 2018 to start a new life.
His business partner, Vakkas Momaya, said he took a liking to the food when moving from India to Toronto in 2013, but found northern Ontario was lacking in authentic food.
Dreaming of opening his own restaurant, Momaya wanted to make sure the food was made just like it would be in the Middle East.
He then met a newly arrived Alahmed at the local Islamic Association.
“It took us long to get to know each other because of the language barrier and stuff,” said Momaya.
“And then, slowly, slowly, we started talking to each other a few years ago and then we planned all this.”
The two bought a shuttered eatery and got to work to make food to traditional standards, with daylong, freshly-marinated meat seasoned with 15 spices and roasted on spits -- and served with imported traditional bread.
Alahmed even convinced a traditional chef from Montreal to relocate to northern Ontario.
“This is the real shawarma,” he said.
Momaya said it was natural to partner with someone who not only grew up with this food but also shares his religion, his values, his struggle in moving to a new country -- and who has become a good friend.
“Our mentality, our behaviour, our way of thinking, it’s pretty much the same and that’s how we get along so well,” he said.
Just celebrating the restaurant’s soft opening, Alahmed said having flavours from his home country here can help others from the Middle East feel more at home, as well.
“They say, like, we need this food here, we miss this food,” he said.
Alahmed wants to welcome the community that supported his family to enjoy some authentic Lebanese food.
The restaurant is called The Fusion Grill, meaning the plan is to also incorporate some Indian cuisine to honour Momaya’s culture.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'I just can't believe that it took so long': Body found in wreckage 3 months after deadly fire
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
No proof man lied to brother about number of kittens born in litter, B.C. tribunal rules
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Quebec police hand out hundreds of tickets to Hells Angels and other bikers before 'first run' meeting
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
Feds hope to table foreign interference legislation next week: LeBlanc
Democratic Institutions Minister Dominic LeBlanc says he plans to table legislation this week to help the federal government address foreign interference, but he wouldn't say whether the proposal will include a foreign agent registry.
Auston Matthews skates ahead of Game 7, status unclear with season on the line
Centre Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs hasn't been ruled out of tonight's Game 7 against the Boston Bruins.
Snakes almost on a plane: U.S. TSA discovers a bag with small snakes in passenger's pants
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Russia puts Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on its wanted list
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
Grandparents killed in wrong-way crash on Hwy. 401 identified
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.