Babylon Restaurant

Babylon is a occasional stop for a shisha and a quick bite, I have always enjoyed the service and the shisha is good, and the falafel is great, the portion and very tasty, overall great place to hang out, Arabic music playing, people playing cards, a nice hangout. And it’s one of calgarys only shisha bar that is licensed.

Awesome food and atmosphere. True to arab nargile/​shesha places found in the middle east.

Babylon is a delicious Mediterranean restaurant that happens to also be a hookah bar.
Generally it seems that people go into hookah bars and decide that because it’s a hookah bar it doesn’t serve anything else. If you come into Babylon with that opinion, you’ll unfortunately miss out on their delicious food. Their wraps are delicious and they are served with generous portions of salty fries. The staff takes good care of their customers and ensures you aren’t lacking on anything. Due to the nature of their food and business, the service speed is slower than at other restaurants so don’t go there if you’re in a hurry.
Good food + drinks + service + shisha = Babylon

I’ve wanted to try this place out for a while, but have been hesitant because of its location: A block away from The Sad Place Formerly Known As Back Alley.
On a Friday night, it was relatively quiet, save for some Mediterranean music playing in the background. The space is clean and the décor is pretty and minimal. We were quickly greeted by a friendly waitress and told we could sit anywhere we liked. This is immediately an upgrade from places such as La Brava, where you can only sit somewhere comfortable if you are with a large crowd or arrive before 6 pm.
I ordered a plate of dolmehs (brined grape vine leaves stuffed with rice), because I had just eaten a basket of fries earlier in the evening, and wanted something light and citrusy tasting to balance out the grease-​a-​thon. Along with that, we got tea and Beirut Breeze flavored shisha. Both the waitress and a manager recommended Gum Mint, which is their most popular, but after hearing it was a combo of peppermint and spearmint, I decided to continue looking. All I could think was, «ugh, that’s going to taste like Newport cigarettes.»
The dolmehs came out before the shisha. I took a bite out of one and immediately regretted it. It tasted old and stale, and when my friend tried one, he remarked that rice tasted like it hadn’t been rinsed and was still full of grit and sediment. Kind of a bummer, especially when everything else was pretty decent. The Beirut Breeze flavor was delicious, with hints of clove and cinnamon; almost Christmassy.
Service was friendly and quick, and the music was kept at conversation level. The bathroom was clean, too. I try to make a note of that wherever I go, because you know what they say: clean bathroom, clean kitchen.
I’d like to come back and give them another try. Next time, I’ll avoid the dolmehs.

That one star is for the good sauce that came with my order of a Chicken Shawarma platter. Well, that’s about the only thing good about this place.
It was late afternoon when we first went to this place and no one greeted us at the door. We sat at one of the tables but no one came to offer us menus. We stayed for a few minutes and watched a group of guys enjoy their sheesha and still no one. We decided to leave.
The second time we went there was around lunch time. We sat and finally someone talked to us and gave us a menu. We kept asking if we can order just the wrap and not the shawarma platter with fries and our server would say yes but at the end of his sentence he’d always say it comes with fries. We got so confused and frustrated that we just ordered the whole platter. When our order’s ready they didn’t bring it to our table. Instead, they waved for us to go to the counter and pick it up.
The chicken shawarma was good but I don’t think it’s good enough to compensate for the really poor service.

I believe this location is under new ownership (or at least new management). Some of the old features still exist (great place to watch UFC, awesome food, and amongst the least expensive places for Sheesha in Calgary). It looks like they’ve taken previous customer comments serious regarding the lack of décor as they’ve definitely upgraded in this area. If you’re looking for a little different experience I would definitely recommend Babylon.
¹⁷⁄₃₀

You know Babylon, I’m just not sure about you. Let’s start with the lovely.
Your delightfully awkward but polite server reminded me of the movie Run, Lola Run for some reason. I don’t think she knew this. She was very willing to share her favourite kinds of shisha and took great pride in the cooking of your chef, even hovering over our table at one point to tell us not only is your chef an excellent cook, but he takes great pride in his presentation, «presentation is everything.» The presentaton of my tabouli salad upon a sheet of iceberg lettuce was not that impressive, but I thought it was very endearing that she thought so highly of it.
The food is pretty okay I guess. The tabouli ruled. The stuffed grape vines were messy and left a little to be desired, but I am pretty reasonable about my stuffed grape vines.
The rose shisha was very pretty.
However, the place had zero atmosphere. Zero. It felt half like an awkward truckstop, half like a bar where everyone comes to watch UFC, and kind of like you were trying to pull of something real sleek. My friend and I noticed that in the washrooms, instead of tiling the walls you made a tacky pattern out of the tiles. I suggest removing them or finishing your tiling job. Ha.
Also, I think it is a little bit weird to charge $ 20 to put red bull in the base of someone’s Hookah. That’s real weird. It was also super dead and we felt slightly awkward.
I am going to give you a three star rating because I won’t be back, but I do want to commend you on the friendliness of your friendly server who does not deserve three stars.

This food here was surprisingly good! I ordered the classic donair. It wasn’t greasy at all yet moist. It was very flavorful, filling and familiar! The ceasar salad that came with it was AMAZING. I’ve never had such a tasty ceasar salad. I almost wish that I had just ordered a large ceasar salad because of how good it was. I went with my parents who ordered two other dishes. My father had some lamb kabobs which looked absolutely fantastic. My mother ordered something called the chef’s special which was spiced beef over rice. I tried her dish and almost wished I had ordered that instead even though the donair was really good.

I purchased a Group On deal for Babylon and thought that I would give this Hookah bar a chance as I had passed it so many times.
Wasn’t really impressed at all. The décor is awful, there is no atmosphere to the place, service was very poor given that there was only 8 people in the whole place.
Food was okay, but nothing special. The kitchen is incredibly clean, you can see into when you head to the bathrooms. Shisha was good, but no special blends or anything out of the ordinary to set them apart.
A DJ started up around 9 pm and was much too loud, it was like you were at the club, plus he wasn’t that good either.
For what it is worth, if you are in the mood for some shisha, travel the extra 15 minutes to get to Narah in Marda Loop.