East Tea Can — Restaurant in Mississauga

I came here with a group of 12 people for an early dinner this past weekend on a Sunday evening for an early dinner around 5pm. Originally we wanted to come at 7:30pm but they told us they were closed from 7- 8:30 for Ramadan, which was understandable. After 8:30pm they only offered the buffet option which was $40/adult. Since we wanted to have a variety of dishes, we went with a 5:30pm reservation.

I really wanted to like this place, but the terrible service here really frustrated me, hence the lower review. As soon as you walk in, you see the amazing decor and atmosphere, but that all wears off immediately when you are seated and see the service here.

Our waiter came to our table, said his name was Ahmed, but you can call me "Jay" , was friendly but brushed off our repeated requests for drinks and bread. When it finally came time to take out drink orders, he reluctantly took them, but then didn't serve them until halfway through our meal, as if he forgot them. Whenever we politely asked for more of the house bread to have along with our hummus and Baba Ghanoush, he said he would bring some, but the bread never came. One of our 4 fries was cold, I asked him to bring a hot one, to replace, but it took over 20min to bring a new one. He continually forgot our orders, every time I asked for something simple like water or extra napkins, he always said "I got you", but then never came. He definitely didn't didn't "have us"

Just in terms of service with such a large group,I truly think another waiter should have been assisting him. That would've helped our experience immensely. The most frustrating part about this this terrible service experience was that the restaurant wasn't even busy. There were only about 2 other parties besides us in the entire restaurant.

We ordered: Tabuleh - so much lemon, you could hardly taste anything else

Kale Tabuleh - pretty tasty, too much lemon, but a nice twist on the original parsley based one.

Baba Ghanoush - tasty and fresh

Fattoush salad - pretty ok, nothing special though

Hummus - Good, nothing great

Falafel - Hot and crispy without being too dry on the inside, the garlic sauce accompanied with it, was rally good too! It was very flavourful without being too overpowering.

Chicken Wings - pretty tasty actually, they had a really great flavour and were very moist.

Family Mixed Grill (4 Iraqi Kabab skewers, 2 Tikka skewers and 3 Shish Tawook skewers served with grilled vegetables, pickles, Hummus, fries, rice and salad) All the meat items were delicious! It was actually a very good variety platter that a lot of us could share.

Lemon Mint Juice - quite a few of us ordered this drink, and it was absolutely lovely! It was so light and refreshing without being too sour or sweet. I would highly recommend trying it. The only drawback here was that the drinks were served well into our main meal. We were about halfway done our dinner by the time the drinks arrived which was really disappointing.

East Tea Can Signature Dried Lime - A couple of us wanted to try the tea before our meal, ( since we're Indian, and it was around 5:30pm, that is normally tea time for us) Our waiter insisted that we should have our tea after the meal to help with digestion, so in the end we listened to him and had it as a post dinner tea.

Overall, the consensus here, is that the food tasted great, but the service was sooooo poor I might refrain from coming back here again. Its disappointing because I was really excited for this place but it ended up being a...

I had arranged my birthday lunch at winston churchill location on Sunday Jan 14,2024 . The reservation for 9 people including 2 children age 10 for 2:30 pm was made online with occasion selected as “birthday” , i also called the restaurant to confirm reservation and if there are any additional charges to which i was told for 1 bill they charge 15% gratuity. i was there 10 mins before the booking time and our table wasnt ready till 2:40pm, we got the appetizer dip platter and the main course “ Family premium Grill plater” served together and we couldn’t even enjoy our appetizer as main course was served already. My friend brought me a birthday cake and asked the manager Hanna to keep it in the refrigerator where she disclosed insane thing, that for cake cutting they will charge $3 per head plus tax, my friend was very embarrassed and tried ti inquire about it and told me in person so i don’t get embarrassed in front of my guests. i was shocked to the core, as it was never told at the time of online booking, or when i called at the restaurant. What could anyone would have done in that situation???? you have your guests, food served and then you get to know that we have to pay a price for cake cutting??? seriously ridiculous.. i couldn’t decide as it was so embarrassing and awkward to move out of the place at that point of time.We have never heard of this before in canada… to put someone on the spot for their Cake, their celebrations, make your customers feel ashamed … when we already paying hefty amount for food , gratuity, tax … and you didnt even have the courage to serve or cur the cake for us or even greet a birthday wish when charging this unfair cake charge $3 / person -$27.50 plus tax… this is very selfish and mean customer service we ever had. We spoke to server, manager and a boy there, had a long discussion but they were adamant to remove tje charges of which we were unaware of till we all were present im the restaurant with food served. As a courtesy they could have waived the charges to retain their customer, but they failed to help us. instead, were not even apologetic about this, we even proposed if they have cakes that we can order and cur because it doesn’t make any sense someone’s bringing in cake and paying to cut it at their premises when you are paying for food. They suggested to cut Kanafa seriously???? who cuts kanafa on these occasions .The server. also dropped sprite can on my friends jacket and table, we were packing food and they picked up the food… i mean is this you call customer service??? We have always enjoyed the food here but the customer service has always been a question??? After this experience i wouldn’t recommend anyone to celebrate their special occasions at east tea can as they will ruin the moment and will charge you a price of your joy. I am highly disappointed in the management Md Manager Hanna who could have very nicely handled it. my cheque#58 table 24 /date Jan 14,2024 . i expect to get a...

Visited this restaurant FOR THE FIRST TIME with my family last night. They were quite helpful with changing our booking from patio to the dining room given the cold conditions. Our server was very helpful and we ended up ordering the vegetarian platter and the small mixed meats platter. Everything arrived rather quick and since we were really hungry, we dug in quick but to our surprise, we were quite surprised with the generous portions and actually ended up having to take some of the food home. After we paid for our bill, my wife realised that we had been overcharged significantly which I did not take notice to since I was quite content with my experience so far. But sadly this is where our positive experience ends. What took place after was enough to make me never want to come back here, or recommend this place to anybody ever again.

When I raised the concern with my server that we had been overcharged, she explained to us that she had brought us the medium sized meat platter instead of the small one and we had actually been charged correctly. I tried to explain to her that we did ordered the small and probably were given the medium by the staff on accident. She said she would bring our server who would be able to help us. Instead- I believe we were met by somebody who I think was the Floor Manager at the time. After explaining our situation to him, he laughed saying, “But I don’t see any food on the table.” I tried explaining to him that we never ordered the medium so the charge is unreasonable regardless- we ate what we were served and we believed we were served what we ordered. We were instead met with the manager tell us, “We served you the wrong thing, that’s our fault. But you ate it which is your(the customer’s) fault. And so, the blame is 50-50.” This is unacceptable behaviour from management blaming the customer for their mistake. As a first time comer- I had no idea what we were served or the size of portions they have, it is not reasonable to expect the customer to know they were served the wrong thing. He agreed to refund us the overcharge but was quickly against that idea when we told him we split the bill and paid via different forms of payment(card and cash). Apparently it was too much of a hassle for them, and honestly- it wasn’t even about the ‘amount being refunded to us’ in the first place. I left instantly as soon as I had speculated that it was a hassle for him to refund us.

In conclusion, despite the mostly positive experience, I do not think how we were treated here(people who are looking for a REFUND on the food THEY ATE)was fair and I personally would never come back. They have no customer satisfaction and are ready to cause a scene over a mistake they made in a busy restaurant. Thankfully, I left before they would escalate the situation much further with the...