Neptune Palace Seafood Restaurant (Brentwood Mall) — Restaurant in Burnaby

It was my birthday so my friend decided to treat me out for a supposed delicious chinese restaurant meal, but this place was so disappointing that I wonder why they have stay in business as rudeness is the operating mantra.

This restaurant doesn't have a good parking set up and does not validate, but does not even explain where they are located resulting in patrons walking around the mall asking for help. Spent 20 mins doing so. When we called the lady on the phone was so rude and hung up the phone when we asked whether it was P1/P2 and she snapped "LONDON DRUGS" and then rudely hung up the phone.

When we arrived we were put in the so-called VIP area, which was a tiny room on the side, and when I asked for my friend, and where he was located no one (even though this is there job) bothered to help us. We are persons of colour and thought it may be a form of discrimination as we didnt see anyone else treated like this and it got worse.

It took 25 mins to take our order and by this time it was 230pm, which is the time for happy hour and 15% off. We ordered dim sum (crap claw fish row, pork dumpling, shrimp, steamed rice rolls, spicy noodles, beef cucumber, and durian balls) - the bill was $150. Some of the food was cold but our waitress was so rude and curt - refused to fill our hot water/ tea, we had to repeatedly ask for forks, knife, napkins, hot sauce, mustard, and this rude waitress, was shocked we asked for more mustard and hot sauce - ignoring my request for "chili oil" thinking it was beneath her to do so - expressing vocal disgust in cantonese (little did she know I know some words).

We asked if there was a birthday special and whether there was any free dessert or even a special disk and this rude waitress did not directly answer our question - making it confusing. Finally, she brought the manager, who said no, but when we asked for recommendations for signature dishes was dumfounded with silence - not sure what to say. My guests were astonished because if the manager didn't know the signature dish - who did? Weird.

The other thing, after 15 mins, no one checked in on us, asked if our food was acceptable (some of it was cold), and whether we needed tea refills. Then all of a sudden another "manager" rudely comes in and demands we order our "dessert as final call" and we will "need to leave very soon as a party is coming" ... he kept pushing us to order and when we asked which dish for a birthday (literally we would have ordered anything special) he also did not know what to suggest. Again, weird. Finally, we ordered durian balls. Immediately after, another lady come and rudely put the credit card machine done and say "pay now" - and put the machine in my friends face - without us even having the option to finish up our meal or let alone start some dishes, which by the way came cold - they didnt even bother asking about that.

My friend mentioned a few times, it seemed like us asking for water or to order was like we, the paying customer, were interrupting them and he was wondering why they were so rude. I mentioned that since we were literally the only dark skinned people in this place, and were dressed very casually, perhaps it was discrimination - I observed carefully no one else was treated like this (all other clients were asian). It bothered me, truly. My friend said he hoped noted, because this is a service business - my friend is such a good man, he sees the best in people. But for me, with a severe disability, I have seen the worst in people and felt bad that he witnesses a day in my life by disgustingly rude staff at this place.

After we paid the bill with a big tip, all of a sudden, we felt the staff sigh - almost as if we would dine and dash (steal food), strange behaviour. Should have left a zero tip. I asked the lady who took payment, if 15% lunch discount applied; she went from speaking fluent English to Chinese - not answering the question. They cheated us $20 discount. They are rude, discriminatory, dishonest. Don't bother with gross behaviour - won't...

The taste and presentation of the food here is pretty decent but price is expensive given the portions.

Service on the other hand is probably the worst thing about this location. My family opted to go for their promotion, the buy 2 set meals (starting at $188) and get the 3rd free. This means that you'd have to go there 3 separate days over the course of a month or so, at least when we found out about it.

The first time was great. Eric, our waiter, was very accommodating and there was 1 dish that we wanted to change the vegetables from beans to broccoli. This was a $3 add on, which we were happy to pay.

The second time, was not great but not terrible. Our waiter this day was an older gentleman named Ivan who was a little lackluster but no real complaints - he did his job, nothing more, nothing less. So since we liked broccoli more than beans, we asked to change it again, knowing we were charged $3 last time. For some reason within the span of a week, they raised the price to $5 to change the veggie. Fine, we can live with this.

When we went for the 3rd time, this would be the free set meal ($188 value). The service this time was an astoundingly questionable 180 degree turnaround from the decent first and second experience. We had Ivan again, and he seemed even less enthused to be there. We once again asked to change the beans to broccoli, expecting a $5 charge, which we'd be fine with. He did not say how much it would cost, just that it was fine. He came back a few minutes later and said that changing the veggie from beans to broccoli is no longer allowed, not even if we paid for it.

I don't know if this is normal, but never in my life have we been flat out refused for a request to change the type of vegetable. Okay, fine - not the end the of the world. However, afterwards when we asked a different waiter for some sweet soy sauce on the side, he said that they "don't have any sweet soy sauce to give since it's evening". Really?? I find that very peculiar but maybe just something I don't know about. We ended up just having regular soy sauce. Again, if it was only this one thing, it wouldn't have raised any flags.

Throughout the rest of the night, we only interacted with Ivan who almost entirely responded with one word answers, grunts, or didn't say anything at all. He seemed bored and un-interested.

Dessert was also bland. It was black sesame soup but so watery and bland. At least when it came to the taste of food, everything has generally always been quite good, so this was a surprising let down. I quite like black sesame soup dessert, and I've bought my fair share of ready made and instant mixes. This seemed instant to me as the black sesame wasn't ground down into a paste but looked like flakes that didn't mix with the water.

Finally, when we were paying, a mandatory 15% gratuity on the $188+tax set meal price, was included. That's fine, I understand that because this was part of the promotional free meal, they had to put that on. I would have had no problems with it, if service was like the first two times.

However, rightfully or wrongfully, this leads me to believe that because they were not making money on this meal due to the promotion, and are already getting an automatic 15% tip on the $188+tax price, they put in minimal effort when it came to service and were purposefully inflexible when it came...

I came here with my father and daughter for lunch. When we arrived It was not busy whatsoever. Maybe 3 to 5 tables were taken the rest, were all empty. They proceeded to walk us in to what I assume would’ve been a closet made into a small room with two tables one with four seats and the other table had 6 seats (I would consider it a staff room) in the very back of the restaurant. After about 15 minutes, they brought another Group into the small room and this group made reservations and got placed into this tiny room together where practically there is no space. They took our order and then an accident about five minutes later Happened where a little child got Scolded with hot tea, water that they placed on the Lazy Susan on a candle heat dish( So it’s already very unstable just sitting on top of a Lazy Susan on top of a huge dish is a pot of hot tea water), The bloodcurdling scream Was so heart wrenching. The poor parents are sitting there frantically trying to comfort their baby and that what I assume to be manager calls his boss to ask what To do. He was on the phone the whole time standing outside the Room obviously more concerned about what was gonna happen to their business and more interested in the phone then actually helping the family at all. This little girl was in shock and I asked them do you have a first aid kit? They have burn cream in first aid kit and they said no we don’t which is extremely odd considering they have a kitchen every kitchen should have a first aid kit, especially out of establishment. And as this little child is lying on the ground with Her mother comforting her. They start bringing us our food in this tiny little room, which I thought was so wrong. I couldn’t even eat my food as this family is going through such a dramatic incident. After about 30 minutes, The manager finally called security who comes up with a first aid kit and Wraps the child with the burn cream. We packed our food and left after that. I could not believe how the restaurant handled this incident for that poor family and should not even have a first aid kit in an establishment that especially has a kitchen. It’s just pure negligence. What happens if your staff cuts their finger? And who puts hot tea or water on a Lazy Susan where there’s three young children at that table. I would never ever recommend this business. It is not Michelin standards, and the fact that they put the only Caucasian people in the restaurant in what would be considered a closet Is disgusting. The food was less than okay And it was super expensive for what it is and not only did they charge us the full amount with everything that went on they charged us for our takeout containers. I would never support a business that would treat children or its customers this way. We left hungry and traumatized, and my heart still hurts for that poor child And...