Reem Star Shawarma offers Middle Eastern food on Broadway

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Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today the StarPhoenix talks to Mohamad Dahan, who opened Reem Star Shawarma on Broadway Avenue in August with his brother-in-law Hassan Hamodah and their cousin Mohammad Rateb Hammoudah.

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Reem Star combines the taste of Syria with some more traditional Canadian items, made by Syrian cousins who have known each other all their lives. All three moved to Saskatoon within the past eight years, and they say they have wanted to open their own restaurant here for a long time.

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Once they tackled learning English and adjusting to the Canadian winters, they found what they saw as a perfect location on Broadway Avenue and their dream of presenting Syrian food and culture to Saskatoon has been realized.

Q: Why did you open Reem Star Shawarma?

A: We love to introduce our culture and country of Syria and our food to people who don’t know it, and to offer it to those who do. We all like to work with food. When we are at our own homes, we like to cook. We have had a lot of experience for a long time working in restaurants, so it made sense to start a restaurant here.

We all came here and learned English. We weren’t speaking English at all before. That was a real challenge for us and we had to get used to living in Canada with the snow and cold and everything. It took some time for us to get the citizenship, but we all are citizens now. Opening a new business in a new culture is kind of a challenge, but we are up to it.

Q: What kind of experience in restaurants do you have?

A: We have owned restaurants in Syria. Hassan has been working cooking Shawarma for almost 20 years now. Mohammad has been working 10 years or so. I worked in restaurants as well, but they have more experience than me. We all know the food and all have experience cooking the food.

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Q: What stands out on your menu?

A: Our most popular item is a traditional wrap called the Alshami Wrap from Syria. It comes with saj and pita bread, garlic, pickles, pomegranate sauce and we toast it to make it extra crispy. We put the pita bread inside and the saj bread on top. This gives it a unique and special extra crispy taste.

We have a family platter that we do with a traditional shawarma wrap cut into multiple pieces in the Arabic style. It comes with French fries, garlic sauce and vegetables on the side. We can make that family platter for anywhere from one to 100 people.

We also have a Reem style special. It’s bread sliced with chicken inside. We mix it with cheese, mushroom, and olives and we toast it and cut it into 10 pieces just like a pizza. Shish Tawook is a barbecued chicken breast that we can make as a wrap or we can make it with rice. And we have a beef and lamb kabab on skewers mixed with our spices.

Q: You offer some Canadian food as well?

A: We have French fries and poutine. We don’t have poutine traditionally in Syria, but we added that here because it’s a popular item in Canada. We tried the chicken on the poutine and people like it, so we added some other flavours as well. We have chicken poutine and beef Donair poutine, as well as lamb and a regular poutine. We always have to put our touch to our flavours.

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Q: How do you prepare your food?

A: These are Reem Star family recipes that no one else knows, with multiple spices. That’s what gives it a special taste. Many people come here and say that we have a taste like Iran. We make the meat and start cooking two nights before and then we put it on large shawarma skewers and then start adding spice. Everything is handmade.

When we cook the shawarma, we keep the juices inside so it doesn’t dry out. Our shawarma rotisserie cooks it fast without making it dry. We dip it in the oil and we toast it. We burn it and we toast it on the grill. That gives it a special taste because we burn it on the grill. We don’t add any oil to our shawarma. That gives it a natural taste.

On the weekend we have to make two large skewers of shawarma, that are about 40 to 50 kg each, because we get crazy busy. It’s best if you eat it right away because it is amazing when it is fresh. That’s how we eat it back home.

Q: What do you have for vegetarians?

A: We have falafal bread and platters which contain chickpeas, onions, fresh garlic and spice. We have the futush salad with vine leaves, and hummus. Some people also like to just have a salad wrap with lettuce, pickles and cheese and sauces. We also have Greek and tabbouleh salads.

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Q: Do you serve drinks and desserts?

A: We have water and all kinds of pops. We have a Syrian style 7-Up and we have ayran, which is a yogurt drink mixed with salt and water that comes in mint and regular flavours. This is a very popular drink in our culture. For desserts, we serve baklava with pistachio nuts because they have a great flavour. The baklava is crispy and crunchy in an ajemi bread.

Q: Why did you call your restaurant Reem Star Shawarma?

A: Reem is a popular name in Syria that means baby deer and stands for beauty. Star, we named after the stars in the sky. So we took something from the earth (reem) and something from the sky (star), and we put them together. So we have two beautiful things and they give you this name, Reem Star. It’s easy to say it. We didn’t want to make a name that is complicated for people. And Shawarma is our most popular food.

Q: What makes Reem Star stand out?

A: I would say all the restaurants here are good, but the way we make our food is special. Our bread is special. No one in Saskatoon serves this saj flat bread like we do. Before we opened our business I tried a lot of Saskatoon restaurants; none of them has this. People like it like crazy in here.

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In our culture, you have to get full before I get full. This is our way. If you walk in here, you get a lot of food. When I see people eat, I feel happy. We also have the lowest prices in Saskatoon compared to other places with wraps.

When the customer comes and pays money for our food, we want them to leave full. I don’t want to just get their money and let him walk still feeling hungry. Part of our business is to make people feel full without charging them a lot of money.

Q: What do you love most about owning Reem Star Shawarma?

A: To see people come to me and tell me that we’re doing the best food in Saskatoon, this makes me proud of myself. We’re doing something for Canada and for our culture, for Syria. We help people to know about Syria and the kind of food that Syria has. I love to hear people say ‘These guys have the best Syrian food in Saskatchewan.’ This makes me happy with myself and proud of my team.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Reem Star Shawarma

Owners: Mohamad Dahan, Hassan Hamodah and Mohammad Rateb Hammoudah
Address: 1005 Broadway Avenue
Hours: Daily, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Phone: 306-952-1680
Email: mohamaddahan01@gmail.com
Website: Coming Soon
Check: Instagram, Skip the Dishes, TikTok, Uber Eats

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