Phoenix Restaurant — Restaurant in Markham

Absolutely terrible experience from this restaurant.

Went in with a group of friends, there's a promotion going on for buy one and the other 50% off, great value for the food and nice promotion.

While we were having lunch, one of us decided to get a milk tea + Coffee, we called the waitress over and placed the order. The drink never arrived. When we asked about it, in which she replies" You guys never ordered anything”, we had to ask for another waitress to order it again.

After we finished dining, the bill came for $51.23+ HST, one of us don't have cash so we decided that the rest of us can just pay her and she can pay using her debt card. But the waitress told us we have to pay cash in order to qualify for the promotion. So okay not a problem, we told the server that the friend without the cash can pay using her card while the rest of us can pay cash, because the dish she order from was from their all day breakfast menu which didn't qualify for the promotion anyway, while the rest of us order from the regular lunch menu. At this point, the waitress was getting very impatient, and raised her voice and told us that we can't qualify for the promotion if we split the bills, we checked the poster this was not mentioned on the promotion poster and frankly shouldn't be a problem considering our circumstances. So, to solve this problem, one of our friend had a little bit more cash on him and he paid $65 in total, the waitress didn't say anything takes the money and nothing came back, we waited a little while for the changes to come back but it never did, finally one of us had to walk to the counter with the bill and asked for the change. Can this get any worst you said? You bet.

After this whole fiasco, we left "appropriate" amount of tips and walked out of the restaurant, then the waitress rushed out of the door and proceed to a shouting match with one of our friend about how we didn't leave enough tips. Honesty, if the service was good, we’d be happy to tip more, but the waitress has the audacity to just take the whole bill without asking, and didn’t even bother to return our change, missed our order and proceeded to deny the fact we even ordered anything in the first place, made up some rules on the spot regarding to how we can't split the bill for the promotion. For a restaurant, good service is just as important as the food, our expectation was not high, but the service we got was just absolutely terrible, I am disgusted with their service, never...

Food is good value when it is buy one get one 50% off. However, I experienced a ridiculous unpleasant service from a waitress - When ordering food, I talked to her in English, but she kept responding in Cantonese - I ordered in English because I don't speak and understand Cantonese, so what was I supposed to answer after you threw some questions in Cantonese to me? Even if I did understand Cantonese, wouldn't it be a good manner to reply in the same language that your object was speaking (and in this case, it is one of the official languages in this country)? This is not even a standard for being a good waitress. This is a standard for being a polite person. Thanks to God two of my friends there can speak Cantonese so that we could communicate.

Since I was not satisfied with the service, I decided to pay $25 on a $23.15 bill, which was already more than the amount I was willing to tip . She gave back the change, said "$25 is not enough", and asked for more tips...

......................???

Seriously you ask for more tips???????

I would already be shocked and uncomfortable even if I got a very good service and ended up getting asked to give more tips. As a customer, I believe I have the right to decide how much tip I would like to give, based on how well the customer service is. I am somehow quite amazed that she offered such a terrible service, yet she still had the courage to ask for more tips.

The restaurant should fire this waitress. She is definitely not qualified for working in the customer...

Decided to be a little adventurous, chain type restaurants tend to be a hit or a miss. Nicely decorated casual modern cha chaan teng place.

Normal cha chang teng menu but they also had a special 2 for dinner menu at a great inflation busting price with plenty of dish choices to pick from and a free drink is included

Went with the Fish fillet with pickled mustard cabbage in fish broth & yunan vermicelli. Yeah, the dish name is long but it exactly described the dish. Surprisely the fish chunks were very large and paired well with the crunchy preserved vegs/broth. Soup had a slight mild mala spice flavor causing a slight tingly numbness in my mouth full of soup noodles..

2nd dish was the Steak with onion paste in rice bowl, steak was braised and tender with a mild onion flavor on a bed of white rice in a bowl.

Staff very friendly and efficient.

Very happy with their 2 for dinner special, good value for your money, however, I noticed many diners ordering the regular entrees which looks large and delicious.

This restaurant is a good representation and carries on the reputation of Chinese restaurants, their prices are reasonable, large food portions leads to getting a doggie bag so leftovers can be stretched to another meal, don't expect large tips and staff are friendly.

Although majority of staff and customers speak Chinese, don't let that intimidate you, menus most of the time are in English with photos and there's usual a few staff that can speak...