Diplomat Restaurant — Restaurant in Fredericton

My partner and I were visiting Freddy for a day. We were quite excited to check this place-out for supper. We were an hour early for buffet so we decided to wait with a drink. The hostess sat-us down and took our drink order. A few minutes later, our waitress came-by with 2 glasses of water and immediatly grabs the vaccum cleaner that was -somehow- left right by our table and starts vaccuming beneath my feet... Hum... I was thinking; Am I bothering you there? I can leave if am in your way....

We got our glasses of ice water and one of them had a big piece of food floating in it (No idea how it got missed; it was quite a big chunk). So asked to get it changed.

In the meanwhile our cocktail arrived. My cocktail was probably made with juice that had been sitting in a back of the fridge for months, one sip sent my heartburns for a spin and it was so sour; I couldn't look at it without my eyes watering... My partner had a strawberry Daikiri; it tasted like someone dropped the whole sirop bottle right in the glass, too sweet/sour to drink. Then the replacement glass of water comes-out, lipstick and dry-residue were smeared all over the rim... The waitress told me it's because they use hard water, that's why it looks like the glass is dirty.... But I could clearly see lip-prints and some residue of what ever all around... (Also, bartender don't wipe the glasswear down before serving drinks? Wouldn't dryed-out hard water mess-up the taste and mix of the drink?!)

I started putting things in perspective: -They don't mind asking client to move their feet to vaccum underneath; -They don't mind that they are blowing vaccum dust all over the dinning area while clients are eating... -They clearly have bartenders and/or waiting staff that do not care about doing their drinks right and no cleanliness standard for glasswear...

In my head I was thinking, if there is no quality control on the cleanliness and mixology of drinks, no training for simple things like not vaccuming under the clients feet when they are eating,... We just didn't want to wait and see what kind of surprises we'd get with the food... We walked to the door told the hostess we wanted to pay and leave; she said she can't take a payment so she sent us back to our table to wait for our waitress to come back, (which took forever...) In the end the waitress appologized and did not make us pay, so the 2 stars are for her getting us our drinks for free (we didn't drink them, but still, some place would make you pay for them).

We walked-out of there after 45min still hungry, still thirsty and with a bad taste in our mouth.

As they say, there is only on chance at a good first impression and this was not it for them, I don't think we'll ever try that place again.

We ended-up waiting the 2 hours drive to go back to Moncton and go to a similar...

Chinese food options in Fredericton practically nonexistent now.

We are a family of five with three teens and we decided to try the Dip for its Chinese food. Hadn’t been there for years but our preferred restaurant closed during the pandemic so trying to find another option.

To begin, their prices are out of sight with main dishes routinely over $30 so given it was our first time we decided to go with combo platters for three of us and a dinner for two for the others which cost $140 and we picked it up. Let’s just say we were very disappointed. This is not Chinese food, it’s Canadian Chinese food and a bad example at that. The owners aren’t even trying.

A summary: too much food in the platters which encourages overeating, but there’s no value if the food is terrible. Chicken fried rice - rice is either an instant variety or woefully over cooked. Basically white rice with a few chunks of grey white chicken thrown in (think boiled chicken). No other ingredients or seasoning. Garlic ribs - these were tasty but mostly bone, not much meat. Chicken guy ding/chop suey - almost no chicken whatsoever. Vegetables seemed ok but flavour was lacking. Chicken balls - too many, too large with a very thick, doughy batter that was not good and more grey chicken inside. Egg rolls - they claim they are homemade but frankly, nothing special. Wonton soup - this was the most disgusting example of this traditional staple we’ve ever had. Soup is a dark brown, almost black, heavy on soy sauce, and the wontons are nothing but frozen meatballs (and not a good version at that) with a wonton wrapper around them. Just awful.

All in all we felt ripped off. It confounds me how the people of Fredericton consistently give good ratings to these restaurants like the Dip, East Side Mario’s, Boston Pizza, etc., given the horrible food they provide along with egregious prices. Seems Frederictonians just don’t know food.

You’ve been warned! Look...

We didn't remember our waitresses name but she was lovely. Really too bad because she deserves a shout out. Gave us recommendations, was honest about portion sizes as we didn't want too much food.

My partner had the seafood chowder as opposed to lobster chowder as recommended and was not disappointed and still large chunks of lobster. Came with a roll and crackers. She got the small and portion was still quite large. She also got a side ceasar salad, again cannot imagine how big large would be and it came woth two pieces of garlic toast. All were great.

I had the sweet and sour chicken, small order, fried rice and a veggie spring roll. The chicken balls are huge but done well and not doughy batter. There were decent sized pieces of breast meat chicken in them that were clearly not processed meat. The sauce on them is thicker than I am used to, but was good. The rice was rice, but good. The spring roll had flavourful vegetables on it including mushrooms, which im not used to, but were tasty.

This is not a trendy down town restaurant. I'm almost 50 and went as a child with my grandparents. It is however clean, comfortable and consistent.

The menu is large. There are many Canadian and Asian dishes so plenty to choose from.

My one draw back, and I'll be honest I dont know how they address it, is mgmt of the buffet they have. Everything I wanted was on buffet, which would have actually been around same price and I may have tried other things, but random children were running around it and touching the food. I gave their parents the side eye, it did not seem to affect them. Perhaps a strongly enforced no children at the buffet rule alone rule? I frankly cannot fathom allowing that behavior of my own child, but everyone is different so perhaps a rule can be made?

I still hands down enjoyed my meal as did my partner. And again our server...