Obsideon
04-14-2009, 10:53 PM
In chinese it's "Ah Yut" Hot Pot on Granville & 41st, they have a "higher class" version Chinese restaurant across the street that charges an arm & a leg.
I normally don't write reviews unless it's a really good experience, but unfortunately this was the polar opposite of it! I dine out at least twice a week. I try to go different restaurants and I return to the good ones because I love eating all the times! (Evidence can be found at my gut area hehe) but I regretfully stepped foot into this establishment a few days ago.
Here's my lil' review:
The ONLY good thing here is that they serve unlimited Oysters (which I am obsessed with) whereas Chubby Lamb limits you to 2 per person, but that alone cannot save this atrocious restaurant.
At $18 for All-You-Can-Eat it's average around Vancouver.
First the food. I went with with a bunch of people and got to choose 3 soup flavours. We went with Satay, Spicy Hot and Century Egg + Cilantro base. The satay was disgusting and the other 2 had absolutely no flavour. They could have all been boiled water for all that mattered. I was still "ok" with that because we mix our own sauces of Soy/Peanut/Chili sauce into our own bowls for dipping to create some of the flavour but that's where I draw the line;
The portions served are NEVER accurate. We ask for 3 orders of wings and we get 4 wings. The next round we order 2 orders and get 6 wings?! What's going on! The seafood we order is always cut in half whereas the cheap stuff such as fried tofu and cabbage plates are doubled! (Don't be so obvious in trying to stuff us with crap and get us out) The fish was literally BITTER!
The server NEVER comes by to ask about anything, just plops down random plates of whatever (regardless of if we ordered it or not) and walks away, it wasn't busy at all!
We have to ask at LEAST 2 times for anything. Most things we have to ask 3 to 4 times. Simple things such as Plum Juice refill, napkins, re-filling the soup (water) takes 10 minutes to accomplish for these sorry excuse for servers. We also marked down the "special order" of adding Geoduck for $10 and it never came. We then had to flag down a server to ask if it was still on it's way, he just grunted something like "I'll check" and he never returned. I finally found the manager (if that's what she was) and asked about the same plate. She proceeds to tell me "oh we're sold out" Could she not have told us 30 minutes ago when we ordered? Are we just to assume that it's sold out because it never came? We asked for water about 6 times. That NEVER came throughout the entire meal but at that point we already gave up. We kept asking to get our soup refilled because it has evaporated beyond being able to cook anything and the food in the pot was already burnt, you could smell it. The manager finally came by again and we vented everything to her that happened to us. She apologized (half-assed) and offered to get us a new pot of "Clear Soup"
That's it!? After all the agonizing suffering we went through we were offered a fresh pot of Boiled water with cabbage?! Very unprofessional.
Now here's the icing on the cake. When I got home I had a very, very bad case of food poisoning. Cold sweats and runs free of charge!! I called my friend and she also said she couldn't even go to work the next night because of stomache-aches!
I don't understand how they can still be operating with such low standards. There are plenty of other Hot Pot places around that I thought were bad already but compared to this place it's like a Gold Mine!
Highly recommended to avoid. You have been warned!
Edit: Forgot to mention halfway through the meal they were "sold out" of Oysters as well ... but the kicker is I saw it being served to other tables. Apparently there is a limit! Ho ho ho!
I normally don't write reviews unless it's a really good experience, but unfortunately this was the polar opposite of it! I dine out at least twice a week. I try to go different restaurants and I return to the good ones because I love eating all the times! (Evidence can be found at my gut area hehe) but I regretfully stepped foot into this establishment a few days ago.
Here's my lil' review:
The ONLY good thing here is that they serve unlimited Oysters (which I am obsessed with) whereas Chubby Lamb limits you to 2 per person, but that alone cannot save this atrocious restaurant.
At $18 for All-You-Can-Eat it's average around Vancouver.
First the food. I went with with a bunch of people and got to choose 3 soup flavours. We went with Satay, Spicy Hot and Century Egg + Cilantro base. The satay was disgusting and the other 2 had absolutely no flavour. They could have all been boiled water for all that mattered. I was still "ok" with that because we mix our own sauces of Soy/Peanut/Chili sauce into our own bowls for dipping to create some of the flavour but that's where I draw the line;
The portions served are NEVER accurate. We ask for 3 orders of wings and we get 4 wings. The next round we order 2 orders and get 6 wings?! What's going on! The seafood we order is always cut in half whereas the cheap stuff such as fried tofu and cabbage plates are doubled! (Don't be so obvious in trying to stuff us with crap and get us out) The fish was literally BITTER!
The server NEVER comes by to ask about anything, just plops down random plates of whatever (regardless of if we ordered it or not) and walks away, it wasn't busy at all!
We have to ask at LEAST 2 times for anything. Most things we have to ask 3 to 4 times. Simple things such as Plum Juice refill, napkins, re-filling the soup (water) takes 10 minutes to accomplish for these sorry excuse for servers. We also marked down the "special order" of adding Geoduck for $10 and it never came. We then had to flag down a server to ask if it was still on it's way, he just grunted something like "I'll check" and he never returned. I finally found the manager (if that's what she was) and asked about the same plate. She proceeds to tell me "oh we're sold out" Could she not have told us 30 minutes ago when we ordered? Are we just to assume that it's sold out because it never came? We asked for water about 6 times. That NEVER came throughout the entire meal but at that point we already gave up. We kept asking to get our soup refilled because it has evaporated beyond being able to cook anything and the food in the pot was already burnt, you could smell it. The manager finally came by again and we vented everything to her that happened to us. She apologized (half-assed) and offered to get us a new pot of "Clear Soup"
That's it!? After all the agonizing suffering we went through we were offered a fresh pot of Boiled water with cabbage?! Very unprofessional.
Now here's the icing on the cake. When I got home I had a very, very bad case of food poisoning. Cold sweats and runs free of charge!! I called my friend and she also said she couldn't even go to work the next night because of stomache-aches!
I don't understand how they can still be operating with such low standards. There are plenty of other Hot Pot places around that I thought were bad already but compared to this place it's like a Gold Mine!
Highly recommended to avoid. You have been warned!
Edit: Forgot to mention halfway through the meal they were "sold out" of Oysters as well ... but the kicker is I saw it being served to other tables. Apparently there is a limit! Ho ho ho!