Bavaria Restaurant — Restaurant in Abbotsford

So, so disappointed. I've lived in Abbotsford for almost three years and have driven by Bavaria numerous times. Finally, I decided to surprise my boyfriend by taking him there for his birthday dinner. I made the reservation on Thursday, February 6, for 7pm by calling and leaving a message around 2:30pm. Someone called me at 4:40pm and I asked if I could change the reservation to 7:30pm. The hostess said no problem. I mentioned it was a surprise birthday dinner for my boyfriend, and she seemed to hesitate? I don't know why but I paid no mind to this at the time. We get there at 7:25pm and we are seated immediately in a booth. No one asked us what brought us in or if it was our first time visiting. The restaurant is quite dark, so reading the menu was a challenge. We were greeted by our waitress about 10 minutes later, and we placed an order for our drinks. I won't lie, that caesar was so good! And my boyfriend loved the wine! Great start. We ordered the Mushroom Caps, an appetizer, to start. Huge mistake - it's literally mushrooms with cheese on top.. that's it.. for $16. The appetizer took around 10-15 minutes to come out. I don't know what I was expecting, to be honest, as there was no description of what the appy was going to be, but I did not expect that. Anyways, we waited... and waited... and our waitress finally comes back to us. Now, if the restaurant was super busy, I would expect to be waiting a good 15-20 minutes before our waitress makes her rounds over to us... but it was not busy at all! When she finally gets to us, we place an order for the lobster tail dinner and lamb rack. She takes our order and leaves. We were chatting, and I wanted to add on the side order of Tiger Prawns, but our waitress was nowhere to be found. She never checked in on us or anything. If she happened to walk by, we would be expected to get her attention. However, there was this lovely young lady who walked by and we asked if she could please add it on for us- not sure how the waitress seemed to be in earshot but she rushed over to us and said she would add it. I don't know. The whole ordeal felt off. So, we waited and waited for our food. Before our food came, we received some soup and garlic bread, which was also fantastic! When our food finally arrived, it was delicious! It was very good! Once we were done eating... we waited... and waited... and waited for our waitress... who never came back. I don't know what her deal was. She seemed standoffish for no reason. But she never did come back. Someone else did. And they just asked if we wanted the bill. Was I expecting a complimentary dessert? No, but I was expecting to be asked if we wanted more drinks/dessert. I was expecting someone to make small conversation about whether we've been to the restaurant or not before. I was expecting the service to be as high as the prices. My bill came out to $175, and I deeply regret the 15% tip. The tip should have gone to the young ladies who seemed to be working harder than the waitress, the ones who brought us our food. The service wasn't worth more than $5 with how the waitress treated us. So, do I recommend Bavaria? No, I don't for the service, but if you can get over that and don't mind paying a lot of money for delicious food- then it's for you. It's just not for me. I expected some sort of warmth from our waitress. I wanted my boyfriends experience to be positive, but it was a bummer. Maybe the waitress needs a crash course on basic customer service? I don't know. I do feel that because I mentioned it was his birthday over the phone, the tone was set there. I don't know why... if I hadn't mentioned it, maybe the service would have been better. So, don't mention special moments to them? I don't know. My...

My girlfriend and I decided to give this place a try based on the reviews online and she had been there once a few years back. We just wanted to share a few appys and were not going to order an entree during this visit. It took almost 20 minutes to get our drinks and we actually had to ask one of the other girls to flag down our waitress. So far, not so good. We ordered 4 appys to share. Mussels, lobster bake, Lamb popsicles (came with 2) with seared scallop (came with 2) and bacon wrapped filet mignon bites.

The mussels arrived first. They were very poor quality as most of them didn't even have any actual mussels in them, just something that looked like sinew and tendons. I wish I had taken a photo. The waitress took them back to get another order done for us. The 2nd order came out exactly the same which makes me question the quality control after something has already been sent back once. I opened 3 of them with the waitress there to witness. Removed from the bill.

The lamb popsicles and scallops were edible, but they were nothing to write home about.

We enjoyed the lobster bake. Again, nothing spectacular.

The bacon wrapped filet mignon arrived and we each popped one in our mouth and it wasn't beef. We received bacon wrapped scallops instead. Oops. Obviously we were ordering seafood so neither one of us have allergies, but just think about how that careless mistake could have an effect on someone who did have a seafood allergy. That wouldn't be good. A replacement order arrived and it they were mostly charred and 1 was missing bacon all together. They tasted like they were drowning in no name bbq sauce, which begs the question as to whether they were actually filet and not a few pieces of sirloin disguised as filet? We had those removed from the bill as well. Photo attached.

So after about an hour and a half, we received a bill of $46 and had one lamb popsicle, 1 scallop, 3 pieces of lobster bake, 1 bacon wrapped scallop (by mistake) and a half of a bacon wrapped filet mignon bite each.

The waitress was borderline rude throughout the entire process. Her solution was to present us with a $20 gift certificate. We were certainly not interested in returning to this restaurant so we left the $20 gift certificate behind because I would not even give it away to anyone I didn't like.

So after $46 and slow rude service, we left hungry and went to a drive through. Maybe we hit a bad night but when 6 items come to the table and 4 are returned, that must have been a REALLY bad night. I don't recommend...

It may look like your average neighborhood eatery, but Bavaria German Restaurant is anything but that!!

We heard through the grapevine, that this was a place not to be missed, so we all made it point to come and check it out. As advised by our friends, we set a dinner reservation (strongly recommended) and wandered in on a Friday night, and we were immediately greeted by the friendly owner and her staff and oh, the incredible aroma of scratch-made Bavarian cooking!

The restaurant was filling up quickly (it was almost 6:00 pm) but we didn’t need to worry about snagging a table – the reservations came in hand for this. Note, we love to dine later in the evening, but this place is sooooooooo hard to get reservations, we agreed to check this time out.

We ordered the kartoffel kas and two orders of weisswurst - heaven!

Then it was on to the main event, two schnitzel wiener - if you please! We went this way simple to satisfy the longing for REAL schnitzel... the menu has a great balance of traditional and specials. Side note: trust me when I say, we go here often enough now that the off the menu option are presented... yummmmmm - yes, please!

All of this food is over the top AMAZING. It’s as if, someone Oma is in the back cooking away... but only better! Honestly, if you miss or ever held a wish to go to Bavaria to enjoy their cuisine, this is your first stop!!

Okay, now it’s time for dessert (nachspeise) Apfelstrudel (homemade) and the pfannkuchen are both PERFECTLY executed!! The crust was crisp, flavorful, and a complete delight to round out this dinner.

Andy had the pfannkuchen and I had the apfelstrudel - truth be told, the servings were a bit too generous, but this is the Bavarian way... leave them full AND satisfied. By the end of the meal - we were planning our next visit.

Don’t let appearances fool you—the decor may be humble, and the location is definitely out of the way, but the food and staff are fantastic, and it all comes together to make you forget you drove allllll the way to find them.

When you leave, you’ll be happy to know this hidden gem is for those in the “know”. Finally, the Bavaria German Restaurant is perfect for small groups or a casual date night. Go....