Ray's Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Guelph

I've only sat in and eaten twice but both times I did I enjoyed it (got General Tao's Chicken both times with rice), but mostly have this place's take-out. I've been using this restaurant for 7 years now. They have a Super Deal Dinner for 4 meal (found under their 'Family Meals' on their menu website, which comes with chicken chow mein, beef with steamed vegetables (we substitute chicken for the beef), chicken fried rice, chicken balls (I believe 10-11 of them?), 4 egg rolls, a bowl of sweet/sour sauce for the chicken balls, a separate small bag for crunchy chow mein noodles, a serving of honey won tons, and another small bag for packets of 4 fortune cookies and plum+soy sauce. The kicker? ALL OF THIS IS FOR $21.95+tax! This can feed 4 generously plus have more leftovers for later.

The last time I had this (today as of this edit), the steamed vegetables were freshly cooked (all of the food was actually) and included green peppers, celery, onions, carrots, baby corn, broccoli, chicken, and mushrooms. Their chicken chow mein was actually the dish lacking a lot of vegetables (this restaurant tends to add veggies to their dishes seasonally, I notice a lack of corn especially when ordering in the Winter), and no water chestnuts, but this is forgivable. Chicken fried rice was good as always, and their chicken balls were hot and crispy until I doused them with their sweet and sour sauce, thus rendering them soggy but that's on me.

The only thing I don't like ever from this place are their egg rolls. Even though they were hot and clearly made fresh the filling in them, I don't know what it is but it seems really gristle-y to me even though I eat it. I don't know what they put in but I've never liked them, but don't let that turn you off from their Chinese food goodness. Good prices, generous portions, really don't understand what's with the negative reviews to this place. Standard Chinese food that's close to where I live, what's...

Really good food. Horrible online ordering and delivery experience. What I want is not too much to ask and I am not alone: Take my order, process my payment and the tip, drop the food on my porch and leave. No cash, no conversation, no contact. Two times ordered online from their site (hosted by Beyond Menu) and paid with credit card only to find out that had to pay at the door because "payment did not go through"!!!! In Covid times that is unacceptable - restaurants know this. So today they took it to a new level and the online order apparently did not go through (although I got a receipt and will have to check my credit card statement), they called to say they would send the credit card machine with the driver... driver is not Beyond Menu, has Skip the Dishes bags but says he is some other delivery company and I will have to pay $3 charge to pay with credit card. Really? I said take food back - he says he would have to pay for that so I go inside to find cash and now I am not socially distancing because the driver is in my face and we are exchanging cash which I have not done in 2 months. Beyond Menu no more, Ray's Chinese never again. For God's sake think of the customer for once. So much for a relaxing Friday dinner. Next Friday I will make burgers instead of supporting a local...

Made an order at 11 this morning for pickup this evening. Staff could not provide an estimated time for our order even though we booked at least 6 hrs in advance. Called to follow up after we waited 2 hrs after our initial timeframe and they did not seem to know anything about our order even though we received a call confirming our information. We then had to call back several times after being hung up on to try to confirm whether they had our order or not. Told to call back in 20 minutes, then was unable to get a hold of them at all for over 40. Finally called and got an answer and cancelled our order which they probably had no information on to begin with. Not sure what system is in place to take order queues, but if you cannot meet the demand of orders than be honest. We waited over 4 hrs to receive any update on whether our order was ever going to be ready (and only received an update because we called multiple times...)

All for understanding the demand and wait times, but not having any update after over 2 hrs of waiting past our expected completion time is really just not acceptable. When we finally cancelled, clearly no progress had been made in making our order as they were more than happy to lose our business tonight.

Hope that others were able to...