Food by Fanta — Restaurant in City of Langley

FOOD REVIEW Went here with my partner and a friend as a walk-in earlier this evening and we ordered some drinks, appies and an entree.

My drink (the Barbie martini) was pretty fun--brightly pink with lots of fruity and floral flavours. It was fun, and I thought the pricing was fair ($15).

The appetizer we shared was Chor Muang Flower dumplings. As a person of Asian descent, I was excited to try these as they were beautifully presented as we saw them come out of the kitchen, but I was a little disappointed with how doughy they were. I understand that you'd probably use a bit more wrapper to form the petals but it felt like it was a bit too much dough wrapper. I almost feel that these dumplings could benefit from a dipping sauce, but I may be basing my expectations on Chinese dumplings which typically have a vinegar-based sauce to cut through the oil, or having a soy-based dipping sauce for Japanese gyoza. Perhaps it's just me but I also felt that the flavouring used for the three types of dumplings felt too similar to each other, as they tasted the same.

The sablefish risotto was not too bad. The sear on the fish was pretty nicely done and it wasn't overcooked--tenderly juicy on the inside. The risotto itself was okay--made with portabello mushrooms and Swiss but it did have a green sauce as a garnish which had a bit of sweetness to it. I'm unsure what was in the sauce but I almost feel like you didn't need it, or as much of it to carry the already well-balanced flavours from the sablefish, mushrooms, cheese, and the lemon garnish. I think if I had to recommend an action for this dish, I'd cut back on whatever sweet green sauce used on this dish.

CLEANLINESS AND AMBIENCE The washroom was very clean, which to me is a sign that the kitchen itself is very strict with their cleaning. The dining room was very cute with their furniture, lighting, and accent pieces.

SERVICE Service was a bit slow, but to be fair, there was a large party at the front of the restaurant and what sounded like another large party towards the back of the restaurant. Drinks came out slow and we did make the request for appies to come out first, but all of our food (appetizers and entrees) came out at the same time. There was no check up during the meal to ask how things were. My partner flagged a server to send his order back and requested a different dish (which was prepared promptly, though myself and our friend finished our meals by then) but I was a little surprised that there was no offer to comp at least one of his two drinks. Again, I'm pretty sure that this was in no fault of the server assigned to our section on what seemed to be an already busy night, but it felt like below-average service.

OTHER NOTES Gauging from the overall menu offerings, I'm going to assume this is predominantly a modern Thai fusion restaurant (e.g. Massaman curry, the pandan and coconut holiday cocktail on special as other items I saw on the menu). I like the concept of a Thai fusion restaurant as I feel that we lack this cuisine in the Lower Mainland, but I think it might benefit from leaning harder on to the Thai flavours, like fish sauce, tamarind paste, cilantro and more. It's also entirely possible that I chose the least fusion-y dish on the menu, but I would be interested in stronger Thai flavours.

Overall, the ambience and price point of the dishes seem to suggest this could be an upscale restaurant for a special occasion or a fancy date, but the execution and experience itself don't reflect that of a fine dining...

Summary: Food focused on presentation and appearance but lacking in flavour or substance. Very bland and expensive. You are better off spending your hard earned money elsewhere.

Came in at dinner time and ordered the following.

Items Ordered -Sangria Flight -Flower Dumplings -Midnight Burger -Sablefish Risotto

Review: Food focused on presentation and not much flavour! But hey, at least it looks pretty for photos for social media if you’re into that.

We started off with the sangria flight. Colourfully presented. It came with 3 different flavours of sangria. They were decently flavoured.

The popular flower dumplings were ordered and they lacked flavour. They were very doughy and the fillings were so bland. The coconut milk drizzled on top of these dumplings contributed to an overall odd flavour, reminiscent of chewing doughy paste with a hint of strange sweetness. These are popular based on their appearances only, as there is no flavour whatsoever.

Sablefish Risotto was next. The sablefish is known to be quite mild in flavour and soft textured which is understandable. However the sablefish risotto here is quite flavourless and super bland! It ended up feeling like mushy rice with flaky fishy bits! The most flavourful part of the risotto was the slightly burnt kale that garnished the top of it.

The midnight burger was one of our mains. It tasted pretty typical of a burger. It came with yam fries and taro fries. The taro fries, although unique, were very bland and had such thick cuts that they were very dry and unpleasant to chew cause they were also lacking in flavour. The burger itself was average and probably the most flavourful dish we had although we found the bun to be quite dry.

Service: Service was decent and friendly. However we booked reservations and arrived on time, however our table was not ready and we were left waiting at the door for 10 minutes.

Atmosphere: Restaurant was nicely decorated with all the plants. The chairs, tables and lighting does indeed enhance the environment, but this is where it ends as food is the main draw.

Overall: If you’re into showing off things on Instagram this is a good place for it.. But if you’re looking for flavour this place does...

Had reservations for Sunday afternoon, we showed up and it was very busy. Our reservation was a little delayed but our group was super understanding. However when we were sat at our table, we were completely forgotten about for about 30 mins. No menus, no server. We had to pull up the menus on our phone. Finally a server came by to pour us water and thanked us for our understanding - we didn't know what we were "understanding" because nothing was communicated to us. We were sat down at 1:36 and did not order until after 2 pm. We were frustrated as tables that were sat after us had already been given their drinks. We ordered our food and drinks at the same time and still had nothing come out for at least 25 minutes.... again we were thanked for our patience and understanding while again nothing was communicated to us. At this point we told our server we were just going to leave without food and drinks but he assured us it would be out in a couple minutes and that we would recieve a discount. A couple minutes later we had our food and half of our table had drinks. 2 of us girls were still waiting for our Sangria flights which we were told would be out right away. Still another 15 minutes went by, no drinks. By this time our food was done and we just wanted to leave. When our flights finally came out we asked for the bill so we could leave and again we were thanked for our patience and understanding. Our bills were distributed with 10% discount, I'm sorry but that was a complete joke. Here is $15 off a $150 bill for waiting almost 1.5 hours for a drink? Because we didn't tip we were asked what could have been done better next time, well first of all not being ignored would be #1. We were sat down and then completely forgotten about. Because of this experience will absolutely not be back. Instagrammable drinks do NOT make up for terrible service and being made to feel unwelcome. Also have to point out that we were a group of 4 girls where half of us were servers at one point and know for a fact that this should have not happened, busy or not. It's not hard to check in with a table and...