Maipai — Restaurant in Hamilton

FOOD: The pizza is most definitely not Detroit style, id say its Detroit deep dish inspired, nonetheless it was absolutely delicious, so where the pickle fries and the house salad we ordered. The food and drink quality and price alone is the only reason id come back here.

SERVICE: The service here was absolutely atrocious, Our hostess was very kind they brought us to our table but for some reason put our BIRTHDAY reservation on a table with a perfectly good unreserved booth right by. Though my partner said she liked the table so i let it go as to not cause commotion or stress for their team.

Now comes the start of our bad experience... It took our server a lot longer than expected to greet us even with the fact she was walking by often, when introducing herself she gave no name, was brief and even seemed annoyed to have us, she was not sociable and made every interaction feel kind awkward (visited tables sat after us first btw)... When ordering drinks we weren't even ID'ed surprisingly this was a bit off to me as I'm 19 and my partner is 20 and we both have baby faces to the point that this was a first. For our drinks i ordered a cider and my partner got a "suffering bastard" from point of ordering our drinks we weren't asked if we where ready for food as she high tailed it out of there at light speed and her coworker delivered our drinks, funny guy, liked him... the next time we saw our server was at least 15 or more minutes later as our food order wasn't in until 5:10 and we arrived at 4:30, 40 minutes to get drinks and ORDER food is absurd and when ordering apps we asked for a house salad and waffle fries, our server asked if we'd instead like "pickle seasoning" like it wasn't an upgrade, we are suckers for pickles, no warning of the extra charge though, sketch... we then ordered a Nashville x Detroit 4 slice, our server again upcharges by asking if we wanted sauce, WITHOUT SAYING PRICE OR MENTIONING THIS PIZZA CAME DRENCHED IN SAUCE she literally let us order a pizza already sauced with more sauce for the sake of a higher tab a warning that the pizza was already covered in white sauce would be nice. I understand we could have read the menu better but even in restaurants I've worked its mandatory to warn about any up sale or charge and anything possibly conflicting, like i don't know, ordering garlic sauce for a pizza drenched in ranch. where I work its a fileable offence if it happens too much as it causes bad experience with customers. The service was so terrible, she would barley speak to us, i didn't even get to mention or ask about anything birthday related as she was avoidant of anything more than hello... so i have no clue if they even had a mini cake i could order, shouldn't have been an issue that i didn't get to mention it since I PUT IT IN THE RESSERVATION, hosts please do your job (no clue if birthdays even get a mini desert for a charge or free).

Even writing this has me upset thinking about it, This place is lucky my partner enjoyed herself as making sure she had fun on her big night was my only real concern.

ATMOSHERE: Pretty alright, i liked the tiki jungle vibes, music was nice but WAY TOO LOUD could barley hear my partner beside her at our table, she got a comfy chair thank god but the one i got hurt my back (mismatched chairs with inconsistent quality being my main complaint ), bathrooms where nice, some of the graffiti was cool, i love art but id recommend removing more vulgar things.

IF i ever come back this review is subject to change, but that's not likely, they lost a lot of business as i was gonna give out gift certificates until i experienced it myself. I've never had to struggle to remain professional writing a review but here we are...

If the food wasn't good this would be a 1 star, I've had better service at a Denny's for god sake.

If you want to come here id recommend the rainforest cafe since they're the Denny's of tiki bars and might actually serve you well :)

P.S: felt bad not tipping so i gave 15%, should have given 0% for the face she made...

I went today with two friends and had a great time overall, if you are in the mood for this type of pizza and delicious comfort food I highly reccomend! However, the service was less than desired, first off booking a reservation online was glitchy and confusing. Both my friend and I separately tried to book a table for our group, it glitched out for her on her phone so she gave up. I used my laptop and was able to make a reso for 3, then when I recieved the email confirmation it said I had reserved for 2 people. I was certain I had selected 3. I called them ahead of time to let them know and hopefully make a modification to the reservation, and they said they would put us on the waitlist to add an extra person...mind you we were a party of 3. So I found that a bit odd but figured it's a small space. When we did show up they were able to accommodate us which was great, but hopefully they can improve their booking system to avoid confusion.

Secondly, they mentioned several times that we had the table for 90 minutes...like as we were sitting down, and when our server came over to take our order. We understood this, and ordered quickly however 50 minutes into our time there, our server reminded us we had 10 minutes left on our reservation... it was awkward because I had to correct her of the time we had sat down at the table? I guess she went away to check the reso, and came back to apologize...but honestly it was really awkward and overall left a bad impression. We had ordered a round of pricey drinks, many food items...and it felt like we were an unwanted guest. It was disappointing. We were also celebrating a friend's birthday, and had we not had a time limit on our stay would have definitely ordered more.

I get that ultimately it is a business, but honestly it just felt like a hustle. Before my time there this evening I was planning to take my husband there and 2 other friends out for another birthday later in December, I don't think the food is worth being treated this way.

UPDATE: they didn't actually cancel the reservation for me, and it's stated on their website that for resos of 2 ppl they still have 90 mins...they were hustling us out at 60mins. Acknowledgement was all I wanted and I would have come back no problem. Classy...

“Glorified Gourmet Pizza Hut”

The second you open the door from Barton and walk in it’s like walking through a portal to anywhere but Hamilton. Absolutely nailed the tiki vibrations, I seldom drink but absolutely got the energy in there to just drink cocktails vacation style.Very unique setup and decor, it really makes for a perfect pizza outing, it makes it feel like a festive meal/ celebration with pizza; hats off to that!

The dough : the pizza was 1 1/4” thick, plenty of dough to play with. Beautifully crispy along the edges and very buttery soft. Having said that, the dough and crust is just about identical to Pizza Hut, if I were to put money on it I’d say the ingredients/ recipe for both is the same. The grease/ oil was distinct and I recognized the smell/ taste immediately. However this was pizza huts older brother pizza mansion.

The toppings: I got the basic pepperoni and the secret pickle pizzas. The pepperoni one was good, no skimping on the peps and were mildly crisp, they were about 3/4” diameter and con-caved in a slight pool shape. The sauce was just fine, if you like tasting the tomato in the sauce this was very organic to that. It did however remind me of canned tomato paste, very unadulterated tomato flavour.

The pickle Pizza was SUPERIOR by far. This was a first time taste of a pizza like this and I applauded it after my first bite. So just picture how I explained the dough earlier and then add a perfectly melted but still tough to pull apart cheese, pickles, perfect little red bacon pieces and then the garlic mayo… this was the thing driving the car. The consistency of the Mayo had a very high viscosity and almost cheese like absolutely wonderful feel. Was extremely impressed with this one.

Drinks: I never like judging a pizza place based on their drinks because well…. It’s a pizza place. However, my wife had the dark and stormy and it was top notch, classic dark and stormy taste with a Perfect hint of lime to give it that tropic feel. Seeing other people cocktails as well I’d say their drink game is on the ball.

All in all, will be back to try more pies because it seems they’ve really crafted some unique flavours into...