Spirit Bistro 豐味 — Restaurant in Central Core

Wow-every once in a while you have one of those win-win days. I was perusing Facebook marketplace and saw a local Asian Chinese restaurant promoting a discount for all Frontline workers during this Covid pandemic, I was impressed and left a comment, to this, One of the owners responded and we got to chatting back-and-forth…

I love good Chinese food and I’m always seeking out really great places so I decided why not give this a go. I ordered several dishes using ‘Uber Eats’, so it would be delivered to my door. First off, I was completely taken back by the sheer quantity of the dishes, they were very generous. Second, I was amazed at all the fresh colourful vegetables, how often have you seen A Chinese dish which is full of bright green broccoli, plenty of fresh & crisp but tender orange peppers ( definitely a first for me... orange peppers!! and absent of the soggy brownish broccoli, way too much onion and way too much soggy green pepper...seriously) This was certainly a feast for my eyes, And prior to digging in I actually sent a note on messenger to my new friend, from this restaurant, and asked if he padded my dishes with loads of fresh vegetables ( after all we had had such a good dialogue) he wrote back LOL, stating that “ no he had not, that is how our dishes come.”

I ordered the black pepper beef-which was excellent, spiced perfectly and so tasty. I also ordered the Fujian fried rice, which is a real treat, something I had never tried and I highly recommend it, to try and describe it so as to give it its true credit, it is just too difficult and I think I would fall short, but I will say it was fresh and so so tasty. I also ordered the Ma Po Tofu-, which is my absolute favourite Chinese dish and generally it comes with pork, but on this menu you can choose which proteins you prefer. I chose the traditional and it was exceptional, loaded with fresh soft tofu, and tender meat. I also ordered the hot and sour soup, which unfortunately my son ate before I could try it, that he ate it all indicates to me, that it was likely, also exceptional.

The prices are very reasonable, especially given the portion sizes. ( IMO, 4-6 ppl could easily enjoy one of these dishes) It is very evident that this locally owned, family run restaurant cares about more than just the bottom $ line. In my opinion they care about presentation, about fresh & quality ingredients- they obviously know the value in satisfied customers. This is absolutely my ‘Go- To’ restaurant for Asian Chinese Fusion foo. LOVED IT!...

So where to start with this restaurant. If they got your order right it seems like there’s no issues. But if they get your order wrong, they are not wrong - YOURE wrong. Feel free to review all my photos so you can kind of get the gist of everything. I actually ordered off an app called Fantuan delivery. I’m the person to try new things. I normally order off Uber eats or skip but I wanted to support other apps and restaurants during this pandemic. If you go to my photos one of those dishes are supposed to be chicken,Szechuan chicken to be exact. What they gave me was ginger beef. Or so I thought it was beef Because of the consistency and the taste. I ended up finding out that it was their chicken! But there ginger chicken. I have a screenshot to show a photo from their menu of what ginger chicken looks like since I had a good argument with them in regards to getting the wrong item. I wouldn’t suggest using this app either although the delivery person had nothing to do with it and they were on time and fast. This app doesn’t have customer service nor does this restaurant. For a $50 bill you would think that they would listen to my complaint but they couldn’t care less. Someone please tell me that I’m not crazy because they clearly think I am since it was their so-called popcorn chicken. They kept telling me that my photo wasn’t clear and did not justify any type of compensation. In regards to the actual food even with the wrong item, it was really mediocre. I wouldn’t consider this a discounted place because the price I paid, and what I got wasn’t satisfying. I should’ve stuck with all happy restaurant LOL. Their food actually reminds me of West Edmonton Mall‘s Food court food. Even then I would think that the sweet-and-sour pork is actually better from the food court. I will mention that spring rolls Are good. Their beef and broccoli is nothing special. You may not believe this but my review on their food is wholeheartedly true and not just because I’m cheesed they treated me so poorly. On that note if you’re thinking about using the app fantuan or Ordering from here, just know you’re taking a huge risk. No customer service whatsoever, and no Ownership if they mess up. Please shoot me a comment if you really think they are right and that was chicken LOL I’d like to know other people’s feedback to be honest. Btw, there was my partner, my friend and myself to witness all of this. They couldn’t believe the...

Disappointing. Heard good things about this place and wanted to try it out. Ordered 3 dishes: big rice noodles with beef, chicken chow mein and buddha’s delight off fantuan because their online ordering system wasn’t taking orders.

The “chow mein” , looked more like over cooked noodles that were had been boiled, and were super soggy because of that. The chow in chow mein means stir fried, not boiled. Photo below in my own container.

Vegetables in the Buddha’s delight seemed like a mix of just whatever left over vegetables they had , with a random combination of a couple pieces of broccoli, tofu, white mushroom, shiitake mushroom, celery (shouldn’t be in a Chinese dish at all) , black fungus, cabbage, bean sprouts, mini corn, yellow pepper and carrots. I threw away more than half the dish because it was also super soggy and unappetizing.

Sogginess of the dishes were not related to them being ordered on a third party app as the order arrived in about 10 minutes after leaving the restaurant and...