HAKKA CHILLI — Restaurant in Mississauga

Dear Hakka enthusiasts,

I have always liked and appreciated the Hakka cuisine, the amazing flavors, the varying textures, the balance of spice, the HUGE portions.

After ordering the "chili chicken lunch combo" I can now report that this place offers limited assurance of those Hakka qualities that I have listed above.

Starting with the portion size: It was relatively small. I prefer my meals THICK and GIRTHY but this meal size looks like it was designed for a 14 year old boy. I understand the price point is competitive in around the $13 price point, Hakka is known to offer larger portion sizes and this was just disappointing. I would say that there were around 6 pieces of fried battered chicken and a standard amount of noodles. There was also too many vegetables mixed into the chicken and noodles, so I would recommend ordering less or no veg if you are given the option.

The DRY chicken option was picked as I didn't want my chicken to be drowning in gravy nor have them lower the already small chicken portion size, I feel like this was the right choice because my coworker ordered the Manchurian chicken with gravy and it looked unappealing because of all the LIQUID.

The flavor and texture profile of the dish was overall average, not disappointing but nothing extraordinary. They could definitely use more MSG and sauce to make the flavors POP though.

The overall spice level was on the spicier side. For reference, my white coworker (that cannot handle spice at all) ordered the "0/3 Chilies" option for her Manchurian chicken and could not finish it as it was two spicy for her. Her face started to run red with the Hakka heat and she only made it have way through her dish before having to throw it in the garbage (and drink about 2 liters of pop to cool down the burning). According to her, it was the chicken gravy that was the spicy component.

For myself, I am a chad so I can handle spice. I was feeling like a brave boy that day so my order was 2/3 chilies on their spiciness scale. It packed a good kick, it felt like I was getting repeatedly punched in the mouth by the chicken. I knew what I had signed up for so sucked my tears back into my eye ducts and pushed forward to complete the dish. The spiciness was by far the best (and the worst - will get to the after effects later) of the dish.

So far the only real negative I have about the place was the portion size as the flavor was adequate and the spice was good. I finished my lunch and I was relatively satisfied and satiated. A few hours later I felt that something was brewing in my stomach. It was subtle at first but gradually crept up on me as I went about my day. The brewing slowly eventually turned into pain as I was experiencing cramping of the bowels. I had just finished up a workout at the gym, and was about ten minutes away from my residence when it all hit me at once.

The Hakka came back to hit me with a vengeance and the barbarians were at the gate. It was slowly breaching the gates of my buthole as groaned in pain, running home and trying to stop the floodgates from releasing all this toxic material. Sweat was running down my forehead as my heart rate and breath rate increased. By the strength of my brute force and mental fortitude I somehow managed to clamp my butcheeks closed long and hard enough to make it to my house where I experienced the burning ring of fire for the next 45 minutes. During those 45 minutes in agony I had the time to think over my life choices to see where I had went wrong.

Overall, not a bad experience, but I probably wouldn't go...

One Star just for the call back.

We ordered food for pick up from Hakka Chilli, I was told it'll take 20 minutes for the food to be ready after being on hold for 10 minutes. Understandabl they might have been busy.

We decided to show up in 30 minutes just to make sure our food will be ready for pickup. Intead we were asked to wait another 5 minutes more. We stood outside the restaurant respecting social distancing for atleast 10 minutes more. Walked in after the server/host was done with other clients, yet again respecting Covid laws and the restaurant. To my shock see the two fingers of the host asking to wait 2 more minutes. Waited another 5 minutes.

Since my call for the order until we finally got our food it took Hakka Chilli 48 minutes to prepare the order for pickup. I do want to add this was suppose to be a 20 minutes pickup as per the initial call.

Food ordered: Veggie Hakka Noodles Veggie cauliflower manchurian Schezwan Paneer Chilli chicken (All of the dishes with gravy)

After paying $50 for the above, reaching back to our place. I took the chilli chicken and passed the vegetarian options to my "vegetarian" friend.

To our shock not only they gave another chicken dish instead of paneer/tofu, but my friend had to have chicken for the first time in his life. Just cause Hakka Chilli didn't have the basic courtesy to make sure they give us the right order after making us wait for almost 50 minutes.

I would've understood if rest of the food was fine.

Food Review: Veggie Hakka Noodles - Overaly salted

Veggie cauliflower manchurian- Cauliflower was raw and not cooked

Schezwan Paneer- Never got it in the order

Chilli chicken- Clearly another chicken dish just added to the gravy and yet no surprise, Raw.

After wasting $50 on a meal in this dreadful time of global pandemic. We called Hakka Chilli, what do we get after sharing what happened from the host.

Host: Hold on ONE Second and puts us on hold for another 6 minutes.

One second? Clearly though this displeasing journey with Hakka Chilli we realized that there is no respect for the customer. Their time is taken for granted. They are served food which is not cooked well and yet not even the right order.

After this 6 minutes of hold we were asked to bring back the food and offered an exchange of the chicken with the paneer. So my so called once pure vegetarian friend can wash down the piece of raw meat with another of Hakka Chilli dishes. We refused the offer.

Yet one star for the cook who called back for us to go through this disgraceful tale again. Offered two free dishes, we said no again.

We did offer them to bring back their food for a partial or full refund. No shock, were told to wait two days until he can talk to the owners about it.

No thank you to the Management, chief, host or anyone involved in this franchise.

To rest of the customers, there is a KFC in the same plaza as Hakka Chilli. Suggest that for sure. If you value your time, money and peace of mind avoid Hakka...

The two hour take out I have been a long time and probably a last time patron of Haka Chilli (previously salt and pepper and then Haka magic). On November 28th I placed an order online at 12:39. My wife called them at 1:15 to see if the order was ready (we normally do this as they always make you wait and seldom is your food ready) . She was told 20 minutes. When I went to pick up at around 1:45 – 1:50 the server (female server 1) told me it would be another “couple of minutes” after waiting there till 2:15 I asked her to check and she said it would another couple of minutes. I should mention that my wife and two kids were waiting in the car for me. After asking them repeatedly and mentioning the time of the order she said 15 minutes. I told her that when I came back I would like to speak to the manager. Upon my return at 2:35 the order was still not ready. I then had the pleasure of speaking to the most obnoxious server (younger lad) who said that if I would have spoken to him he would never have said twenty minutes at which point I mentioned it was almost 2 hours. He then proceeded to tell me that he could either talk to me or look after the order and proceeded to give me excuses over how busy they were and that orders online were then called by the company so no one was answering the phone. The server (female server 2) brought out my order, it was not 2:50. I noticed that people who entered with me at 2:15 were eating so the kitchen just decided not to cook the order. This is the poorest service I have ever received with not even the slightest attempt to make things right. As I have worked in the hospitality industry for 15 years, I always give service staff the benefit of the doubt. This to me is an owner who does not care about his customers. A kitchen that is dysfunctional and the one server (male one who apparently is the senior) should not be employed. With regards to the food over the years I have always been satisfied There was one experience where the food was bland, however of late I do think the Chef has changed as the food is more greasy and less tasty approaching the level of mediocrity that will have me...