Mogouyan Hand Pulled Noodle (Pacific Place Mall) 磨沟沿老字号兰州牛肉面 — Restaurant in Calgary

Pretty horrible customer service.

We saw one of our noodle got delivered to another table, the server knew that it was not for the table, those people also said they did not ordered it. Yet, the server gave our the noodle as freebie. We waited another 5 min hoping it was not ours but our noodle did not come. So I asked another server lady to check because we think our noodle was delivered to another table. She disagreed to what I said because they have table numbers associated with the order sheet so orders cannot be delivered to different table and we just need to wait more. She did not even go check until I asked her again.

Then she came back with the order in her machine saying it was delivered. Obviously, we did not receive it so they checked further and finally admitted the order was delivered to wrong table. We waited another 10 min to receive our noodle. Mistake happens but the worst thing was they all ignored what we said and told us to wait more after we already waited 30 min from ordering. And I’m 100% certain that we would not have received our noodle if I did not ask multiple times. They said sorry when they finally brought out our noodle but other than that, no follow up at all. And quite frankly, it was a bit frustrating that we needed to watch the table eat our noodle saying yay freebie, while we were ignored and told to be wait. Not great experience.

We waited 45min to be seated, took me 20min to get my noodle. Our the other noodle came much later due to the problem above. Side dishes came pretty quick which was good. Roughly, they can host 60+ customers there but there was only 1 person making the hand pulled noodle. Which was the reason why their operation was slow.

Side dishes were all great, my recommendation was lamb skewers, they were really flavorful and tender. Squid skewers were also good, I enjoyed it a lot.

Noodle was good, soup was ok in my opinion. I prefer other hand pulled noodle place in Calgary as theirs tastes more naturally flavored, but that is my personal preference. The meat inside of noodle bowls were nice and tender. One thing was there was not much meat to begin with but we ordered regular and large size each but both bowls had almost same amount of noodle and meat. $3 for extra soup.

Overall food was okay but we had bad experience. Side dishes were good, therefore 2 stars but otherwise 0 star experience, I would...

I visited during the grand opening on Sunday so I was expecting the food and service will need some ironing out. My expectations are aligned as I review this restaurant.

Ambience:

Nice and comfy decor with hang out vibes. Modern design with an open layout and kitchen of the chefs pulling noodles. Ladies restroom is super tiny from what my wife told me.

Service:

Promptly sat us down at our table right at opening. Was pretty quick in taking our orders. No check-ups after bringing your food to table, which is pretty standard in Chinese restaurants. Had to waive down a waiter for additional requests, again pretty standard for a Chinese restaurant.

Food:

Lots of variety with noodle soups, stir fries, appetizers and skewers, and alcoholic/non-alcoholic drink options. You can choose the type of noodles you want and adjust the spiciness.

The following are the 2 dishes I ordered and my review of them.

I ordered the Beef Brisket classic noodle soup bowl with medium spiciness. The beef tasted decent with a heavy Chinese five spice and star anise flavour and aroma. The broth tasted pretty mild and did not have any heat despite asking for medium spice. The hand pulled noodles tasted fresh but was very bland. A well incorporated noodle soup bowl should have the noodles take on the flavour of the broth and meat but the noodles was just "meh" and tasted bland.

Score: 2/5 - Try it for the hand-pulled noodle novelty but a Vietnamese Bo Kho (beef stew) with egg noodles tastes much better.

Second dish I ordered was a Tomato stir fried noodles with shrimp as my protein option. This dish, like all the other dishes at Mogouyan, uses fresh hand-pulled noodles and I chose the classic. The flavour in this dish was much tastier and better incorporated with its rich tomato sauce, veggies and shrimp. I think Mogouyan's strong suit is more towards the stir fries. My critique is the dish was oddly just lukewarm as I expected a freshly prepared stir fried dish to be hot, as in temperature hot.

Score: 4/5 - Worth a try and I believe stir fried dishes are a safer bet. I docked a point for the lukewarm temperature.

Summary:

The novelty of hand-pulled noodles, drink varieties, and chill ambience is worth trying. However, aside from that, I found the taste of the food just average considering there are many tasty Chinese...

Our name and number were taken down and we were told it would be a 20-25 min wait. It took us over an hour to be seated. I don't have any issues with long wait times, considering how busy it looked, however I rather have an overestimation on the wait time then to be told it would be under a half hour wait then be waiting for nearly 1.5 hours.

Food wise - it's nothing special, prices are high for the portions you receive. The large size just looks like a bigger bowl with more soup, the amount of noodles and toppings looked the same as a regular we had ordered. You had to fish around for pieces of meat with how big the bowl was and amount of soup that was put in there.

Skewers were fine, flavourful and slightly too salty, but not worth your money with what you receive.

I had ordered the mango green tea after seeing it hyped up by food reviewers on Instagram. It was one of the blandest drinks I've ever had. Essentially just iced water with remnants of tea and mango flavour, if you can even call it that. I didn't even have a chance to ask if this was how it was meant to taste as servers were near impossible to flag down, but don't bother wasting $7.

Service needs vast improvements. Our server was pleasant enough to interact with, but it's difficult to flag someone down. A lot of busybodies rushing around, but not a whole lot seemed to been done. Many servers were seen pacing back and forth, yet there were a bunch of empty tables that either needed to be cleaned or someone could've been seated. We observed this even from outside - lots of empty tables, yet groups and groups of diners were waiting in the near vicinity to be seated.

Overall, I suggest you only give it a try if you have $20 to waste and 2 hours of your time to spare waiting...