Sésame offers a concept unique in its kind: an out of the ordinary variety of high quality Asian dishes to enjoy in a warm atmosphere.
From the Pad Thai to the General Tao poutine, or one of the various wok sautées, you can eat your meal on site or take it to go.
Additionally, Sésame offers a wide selection of loose teas, several privately imported wines, beers on tap, a wide selection of sake, but especially, a menu of exclusive Sésame cocktails.
Sésame offers a stylish and inviting atmosphere that is widely appreciated for its Asian fusion menu, including popular dishes like the General Tao chicken and salmon poke. Many guests enjoy the warm ambiance and beautiful decor, making it a suitable destination for both business lunches and social gatherings. While service experiences can vary, many diners report receiving attentive, friendly, and professional care from the staff, often highlighting specific servers who enhance the overall meal. The restaurant is frequently praised for its fresh, flavorful food and well-crafted cocktails, providing a pleasant dining experience for those who visit.
We went there on a pretty busy evening. We ordered pad Thai, but quite frankly, this taste leaves room for improvement since I've been to a bunch of Thai restaurants, & this place does not offer the best flavor, particularly for this dish. The portion here is not as generous as other places either
Also, we find the service here is slow. Even though it is a busy night, the restaurant should have enough staff to serve all of the customers here. The atmosphere is great. Makes great photos. But if you're here for the taste & service, you might find other better spots in the city. So 3 out of 5 stars all things considered.
Went to Sesame on Saint-Jacques & left with mixed feelings. The menu had a nice variety to choose from, which I appreciated. They also gave us a good table without reservations. & to be fair, they had a lot of vegetarian dishes & a couple of dishes were genuinely good: the Pad See Ew was tasty, & the Thai chili chicken (family loved it) had great flavor. Those two we'd order again.
Everything else fell a bit flat though. We ordered the tasting platter & one of the dishes was left off. The dumplings were disappointing too, dry & chewy instead of tender.
What really brought the experience down was the service. Our servers weren't very attentive, & when we asked what they'd recommend, all we got was'it's up to you.' With that much variety on the menu, some guidance would've gone a long way.
There's clearly some good food here, but between the missing dish & the lackluster service, it wasn't a great overall experience. I might go back to take out the Pad See Ew, but I wouldn't go out of my way.
Andrea gracefully stayed past closing time so we could enjoy the 5 course 4 person menu. Nagano tonic is to die for if you like gin drinks & the music set a cool vibe. Pad Thai was delicious.
Sesame
It took a while to seat us even though the restaurant wasn't busy. The hostess & waitress were just standing far away, & there weren't many people at all.
The seating we got was not ideal, right in the middle, on chairs with no backs, directly under a bright light. The ambience would have been better if the lights were dimmer, though the décor itself was nice.
Our waitress ignored us. When one of my friends asked for cups, she brushed it off. When we asked again, she acted rude, dismissive, & made it seem like a chore to get them. We had to ask twice before they finally brought us cups.
We waited quite a while to order. By the time someone came, we already knew what we wanted, so we ordered drinks, appetizers, & mains all together. Water came in just 2 glass bottles, & they never once brought more, even though there were 6 of us.
The service overall was just not good. We felt ignored the entire time. They didn't check in once or ask how the meal was, even though there were barely any tables to serve.
Food:
General Tao rice - Solid 7.5. It had furikake on top & was good, but the chicken tasted more like sweet & sour than General Tao. The veggies were boring-lots of peppers, cabbage, onion, a couple pieces of celery, & only one piece of zucchini. I really wish it had some broccoli.
Chicken Pad Thai - 7.2. Spicy & tasty, but the heat kind of overpowered the other flavors. Not really impressive.
Shrimp Pad Thai - 8. Best flavor out of everything we tried. It was spicy in a good way, but the noodles were slimy & too short, almost like they'd been cut. Vegetables were boring here too. The shrimp, though, was good & not fishy.
Teriyaki - 5. Really disappointing. Almost flavorless, but somehow still had a weird off-taste.
Salmon poke - 6.6. Decent but average. It lacked sauce, & the edamame was a little hard. I've had way better poke bowls at Poke Station.
Fried wontons - 8. Tasty, crunchy, nice sauce. The filling tasted like Costco wontons, but still good overall.
Edamame - 9. Hard to mess up edamame, & they were salty & delicious.
Drinks:
Passion fruit mojito - 7. Good, refreshing, but didn't have enough passion fruit flavor.
Hibiscus litchi (no egg white) - 2. This was terrible. I asked for no egg whites, & they gave me egg whites anyway. The two sips I had tasted like absolutely nothing. If I had an allergy, this could've been dangerous. Just a bad drink.
Margarita appeal - 4.7. Tasted like straight alcohol, with no flavor behind it.
Negroni - 7.5. Fresh, gingery, & enjoyable.
Passionfruit Tropic - 9. Amazing, full passionfruit flavor, delicious. This is the only thing I'd truly recommend from here.
Other notes:
Appetizers came out before our drinks, which usually isn't a good sign.
I specifically said no egg whites in my drink , & they still gave me egg whites.
No one checked on us during the meal.
They refused to give us a table, claiming it was reserved for 10 people but no one ever came to it.
They didn't ask how we wanted to split the bill.
We had to ask twice just to get the bill.
Only positive: when they messed up my drink with the egg whites, the waitress offered me another drink & only charged me for the cheaper one.
All in all, very mid restaurant. I wouldn't go back. I've heard this location is average compared to others, so maybe that's the issue, but overall I was underwhelmed & disappointed.
This place has a really nice vibe inside- beautiful decor & lighting. The food was ok, we had tempura shrimp, edamame & dumplings sampler for appetizers which were all great. For mains we had general Tao chicken & the pad sew which were pretty basic & like you would get at Thai express or something. The pad sew was full of mainly bean sprouts & hardly any noodles & these mini shrimps.
I think the part that really wasn't great for us was the attitude of the hostess, server & the actual service. We were greeted & the woman at the front wasn't pleasant at all, took us to our seat dropped the menus off & just left. No smile, no hi how are you. The server came & asked what we wanted to drink, we had to call her over to order our food. We wanted more water & she said no problem & proceeded to walk back to the bar & roll cutlery. We waited 15 minutes before I just got up & asked for the bottle of water myself. Needless to say we won't be back.
This meal was incredible. The restaurant is fun & has a good ambiance inside. The service was quick! Our server Suf was incredible, she was on top of everything, very kind, & gave us great recommendations. She was a top notch server! As for the food, we were really impressed. We ate the tofu pad Thai, vegetable dumplings, & peanut sauce chicken wontons. The wontons & pad Thai were amazing! We wanted to go back the next night for dinner. Prices were also very reasonable.
We had a decent experience at this restaurant, but there were some ups & downs. When we were seated, it took over 15 minutes for us to be served water, which was a bit too long, especially since we were quite thirsty. However, once I was able to get the waitress's attention, she was very kind & polite, & from that point on, the service was good.
The cocktails were a highlight-delicious & well-made. Our entrées were also enjoyable. However, the main course was underwhelming. I ordered the Pineapple General Tao, but to my surprise, there was no actual pineapple in the dish. For an Asian fusion restaurant, I expected better execution, & honestly, I prefer the stir-fry pineapple dish from Thai Express over what I had here. It just didn't meet expectations, & I didn't feel compelled to take my leftovers home.
One thing I really appreciated was the music volume-it was lower than in many other restaurants I've been to, which made it easy to have a conversation without having to raise our voices.
Overall, I'd rate my experience a 3.5 out of 5. There were some great aspects, but there's definitely room for improvement, particularly with the speed of service at the start & the quality of the main dishes.
Randomly parked my car infront of the restaurant, saw the menu & we were sold! Had 2 pad Thai's one beef, one shrimp, kids General Tao poutine & shrimp tempura! Kids also had sesame ice cream. THEY LOVED IT! Service was fast & efficient. Ambiance was clean & very nice looking will definitely go back!
