Foodie North — Restaurant in Mississauga

Absolutely one of the worst dining experiences I've ever had. My family and I went to Foodie North to celebrate the Lunar New Year. The restaurant was pretty full, but not as bad as I would have thought. That said, the take-out was slammed.

We had a reservation and were seated 15 minutes late. Not a problem. Once seated, we basically did not exist and were invisible to all the staff. No one came by. We were on our own.

The QR code ordering system was not working, so we could not order on our phones. We finally had to walk the restaurant to find someone to physically take our order, but she simply handed us an iPad to order from, which was all in Chinese. Since none of us can read Chinese, we had to painstakingly go through and order by comparison from the menu on our phone.

Once the order was in, it took a while. Understandable given the night we were there. Our first dish came, and as the waiter was putting the food on our table, we asked if we could have some water for the table (both people on either side of the waiter made the request right into his ear). He completely ignored us and pretended not to hear. As he straightened up and started to turn and walk away, we yelled "EXCUSE ME ...", he ignored us and walked away. Then 3 other dishes came and same thing, dropped the food on the table and walked away. It was then we noticed that we did not have any serving spoons for any of the food. Good luck in trying to flag someone down, so I got up, walked to the centre of the restaurant to the bussing station to get them myself. There was a girl there refilling the silverware. I asked if we could have some serving spoons. She asked why, and I told her that we did not have any. She asked which table, I pointed, and then she followed me. She looked at the food on the table and said that "there should be spoons with the food". Ummmm ... duh ... yes, I know. She asked how many, I said we ordered 12 items, so 8 spoons. Just then another dish was dropped on our table, and she told the waiter that there should be spoons with the dishes as they come out. She came back with spoons, 4 of them.

They kept on dropping off food but not a single empty platter was taken away, so we basically built a leaning tower of China in the middle of the lazy Susan. Still, no one took the dishes.

We also ordered a bottle of wine at the beginning of the evening. We had to ask FOUR times for the wine, and three times for water. The brought a bottle of tap water (which was fine) halfway through the meal, but with no glasses. The wine finally came three quarter way through the evening (no exaggeration). Did I mention that we had to get up and walk around the restaurant and ask four different people for our wine?

The food was average. Not great, not horrible. Meh. But the service was the absolute worst I have ever experienced. I gave them a break because the kitchen was busy, but the dining room was like any other busy night. The wait staff should all be fired.

I do NOT RECOMMEND going to Foodie North, unless you want a side of frustration with your food...

Used to frequent this place but it's gone downhill since. Mediocre food, expensive prices, horrible service and a scam. Normally I do not accuse businesses of shady practices outright, but this time I felt the need to do so as this kind of business practice is absolutely unacceptable.

The food was not great at all. As a person who frequents various Chinese restaurants in the GTA, Foodie North was one of the worst Chinese places to eat at. Don't let the Chinese-style renovations fool you into believing this is an authentic Chinese restaurant serving authentic Chinese food.

Compared to other Chinese restaurants I've visited, this one was the most expensive and their portions were definitely not worth the price. For example, their signature "authentic peking duck" which goes for $42 for a "non-vip member" (I'll get to that later) and $38 for a "VIP member" is not worth the price for the amount of food you get. You do not get to see the waiter/waitress slicing the duck slices off of a whole duck and you only get a complimentary "peking duck soup" compared to other restaurants where you get to take home the rest of the duck. Furthermore, the amount of duck you actually get is significantly less than the other restaurants in the area. Pick up a peking duck at any other Chinese place and compare it to the one here and you will see the difference in portions. Therefore this leads me to believe that I'm not getting the entire duck that I've paid for, thus making it not worth the price.

The staff here are completely unresponsive and try to avoid conversation when interacting with you. We had a waitress come and clean our table when we weren't even finished eating. Did not ask us beforehand and there were still food on the plate. Quite rude staff but expected for a restaurant like this.

I first ate here in early January and was persuaded into purchasing their $300 "VIP Membership Card". They claimed that this card will give you discounts (as mentioned before) which it works as advertised, but they deduct some amount from your card every time you use it. They give you no indication of the balance on your card: no remaining balance on the receipt at all. I've ate here around 3 times and the 4th and last time I've been here I thought I still had some balance left on my card but when it was time to pay the bill, the staff claimed there was $0 on the card thus I was unable to get the VIP price. 3 TIMES and the $300 balance from my card was gone. This was in a span of 6 months. Unbelievable. That was the last straw for me, never coming back to this place again.

Not to mention their "free peking duck" coupon for every purchase of a peking duck is a complete moneygrab. Can only use it Monday through Thursday with order of $60+. Definitely not worth it, shady tactic to get you to spend more at an already overpriced restaurant.

Nevertheless, this place will never see my...

January 22: Gave this restaurant a second chance, same thing happened except the service is even worse than my first experience. All the food came out, except the rice. After waiting 10 minutes I ordered again from a different server. 5 minutes later still nothing, I asked another gentleman for rice. 5 minutes after that, nothing came. I asked someone else again. And finally the rice came. But by that time our food was cold. This restaurant has the worst service. I am reducing my rating of the restaurant from 2 stars to 1. Very disappointed. I had to order rice 4 times. Service is extremely scarce, once you've finished ordering it is impossible to get any servers attention, nor do they even check up on you. I've reviewed and have eaten at many restaurants, but this restaurant has the WORST SERVICE by far.

Note : VEGETARIANS BEWARE. Menu item descriptions are extremely deceptive. It may not list that there is meat in the dish but there are. Two dishes we ordered did not specify that it contained meat but they did.

INITIAL REVIEW : The food here was very good but the experience was horrible. We walked in and stood at the host table waiting to be helped. The host ignored us, he didn't even look at us, he didn't even say hello or ask how many people were in our party. He just stood there looking down at his paper, preparing menus, calling out other parties to be seating and we just stood there in front of his face looking stupid. He kept walking away to seat other guests and coming back to the table and still he would not look at us or say hello. About 15 minutes of being ignored I had to say "HELLO TWO PEOPLE" he looked down at his stand, gave me a number and walked away without saying a single word. When our number was called, it was by a different staff member. The food is northern Chinese cuisine, they have a membership program where members get cheaper prices for menu items. The pricing was a bit high but not outrageous like the service. When everything came I was missing a steamed rice to eat with main dish. I waited and waited and still nothing. I notified the server and she said she would check. She never got back to me. I waited another 10 minutes and nothing. The server finally realized how upset I look and went to go grab me a bowl of rice. By the time it had arrived my food was already cold. The only hot item was the bowl of steamed rice I waited 15 minutes for. The food here was actually quite good, comparable to Northern Chinese restaurants in the Markham area however the service was so terrible I would never return nor would I recommend this...