T.Pot China Bistro — Restaurant in Calgary

Came back from Vancouver, my first meal in Calgary was DimSum. After picking me up from the airport, my boyfriend took me to the closest Chinese Restaurant for breakfast. The name of the restaurant called T Pot China Bistro. It located on Harvest Hills Blvd North. The restaurant itself stands alone and its anchored by T&T Supermarket and many other restaurants. It was our first time having food at this place.

We stopped by the restaurant was very early Sunday morning. It was around 9:00 am when the restaurant just opened. It was not very busy at that time which was a great sign. We got a seat pretty after and began to order our meal. After discussed with each other, my boyfriend and I decided to order:

Steamed Chicken Feet in Special Sauce Steamed Spare Rib in Black Bean Sauce steamed Shrimp Dumplings Seafood & Meat Rolls in abalone Gravy Baked BBQ Pork Pastry Deep Fried Shrimp Spring Rolls Rice Crepe Wrapped Chinese Dough with Crispy Dried Pork on Top Baked Egg Tart

All the food came out of the kitchen was not so long. All the food was very fresh and well cooked, which was great. My favorite dishes in our orders are Steamed shrimp dumplings ($6.50), steamed chicken feet in special sauce ($5.95), and Rice crepe wrapped Chinese dough with crispy fried pork on top ($6.50). Steamed shrimp dumplings, there are 5 dumplings in the dish.One baby size one and other four are regular sized dumplings. The shrimp were very fresh and tasty. The Chicken feet was cooked till so soft with very special flavors on top, which was yummy. Rice crepe wrapped Chinese dough with crispy fried pork on top was my boyfriend's most favorite dishes. They provided us three different dipping sauces for this dish, such as sweet soy sauce, hoisin, and peanut sauce. My boyfriend preferred to dip it with peanut sauce more. I love the all three sauce combine together. So tasty. That was so much food for two of us and also was a pretty nice Dim Sum meal for us. We were super full in the end and we had to take two big boxes food back to home. The prices of the food were OK. Not too expensive and not too cheap. It was based on the size of the dish. The small dishes were $4.95 each, Mediums were $5.95, Larges were $6.50, the Special sizes were $7.50. It was not bad, we spent like $50.00 for dim sum and we still had lots of leftovers. Definitely, we will come back to T- Pot China Bistro again very soon. High recommend to people...

We have been a regular to this restaurant and are used to the bad services they provided as there are limited choices of Chinese restaurant in the area, but today experience is the worst ever yet. We were waiting to be seated in the waiting area with our two little kids today for lunch, there were lot of people waiting. We were standing close to the hostess desk and the  hostess ( we were told her name is "Add" and is related to the owner in some way) keep telling us to move out of the way. There is nowhere to go as the waiting area is very small. But she keep saying "You standing here is interfering my work" We weren't blocking other people's way and is definitely not blocking the new people coming in registering for a seat, so I don't understand why she keep telling us to go away, and not in a nice way. If she doesn't like people waiting in the WAITING area because it is going to interfere her work, perhaps she need to find another job.

Finally we got our table and I asked for a high chair and a booster, so the staff moved one of our chair to the side to make space for the high chair and walked away. I noticed she wasn't going to the high chairs so I decided to go get them myself (common occurrence in this restaurant), after we got the high chair and everyone just sat down. The hostess showed up from nowhere, rudely grabbed the chair that was put on the side and yelled at us "You cannot put this chair here, it is blocking other customers way!!!" First of all, we didn't even touch that chair the whole time, your staff did. Secondly, the chair was put between two tables so it was blocking NOBODY. Thirdly, let's take a million steps back and say we did it, you don't yell at your customers like they are your children. We explained to her right away but she didn't even try to listen and just walked away staring at us. We definitely felt like she purposely come all the way over to piss us off. We are consumer and we deserve the basic respect as one!!! Yelling at your customers when they did nothing wrong with no apologies whatsoever is ridiculous and absolutely unacceptable!!!

If we didn't have two hungry children waiting to eat we would've totally just left the place. We had been to this restaurant enough to know that to expect no service whatsoever, but to purposely go out of your way to piss off your customers is a new low,...

We will never be back.

The food was alright, nothing stellar, but okay. The green beans and minced pork was the best. The pork-and-shrimp rolls had an unappetizing aroma and were not as tasty as others in the Taste of Asia family.

However, we will not be back because of the way we were ripped off.

We won a $50 gift card at a fundraiser. We went to use it tonight. We had it clearly shown on the table right from the beginning. When it came time to cash out no one had any idea how to process it.

After a couple of phone calls made by the staff, we were told the card was empty. We explained how we came to have the card and how it could not have been used anywhere else. When I paid and said I would need the phone number of an English-speaking manager, another flurry of phone calls ensued. We were asked if we could wait 15 minutes for a manager to arrive.

We waited and the manager arrived and stated that the card had no balance. We asked if it had been loaded and when or where it would have been used. He told us that they phased out these cards “7 years ago” and although they can check balances, they cannot find transaction history. Since stored-value cards cannot expire in Alberta, this strikes me as very suspect. The card we had was pristine and in its original cardboard sleeve.

The card and the sleeve were printed with “T.Pot” logos and graphics and no one tried to say they were fake — they just refused to honour them.

I had tried to call the restaurant earlier to verify, but the phone is answered by staff who do not speak English, and I do not speak Chinese, so we decided to have an adventure. We were not expecting to be defrauded.

So I hope they enjoy their $53 as they will not see any more of my money. I will also be letting the organizers of the fundraisers know and strongly recommend that they sever any ties with Taste of...