Jack Astor's Bar & Grill Argentia — Restaurant in Mississauga

Recently celebrated my birthday and was treated to take out meal. Was so excited to have my favorite shrimp pad tai. We order 2 along with a cheese burger meal and 2 slices of chocolate peanut butter cheesecake (nearly 11.00 ea). Quite disappointing! Both pad tai were returned because the noodles were so over cooked that they were just 1 big blob on the bottom of the bowl and the red peppers were flavorless. It also didn't have some of the ingredients as stated in the menu description no peanuts, no green onion. I do wish to point out that when I called, I spoke with the manager for the night. She was nice, polite and was willing to prepare a fresh batch for me with ALL ingredients. She mentioned that she would take it up with the kitchen manager who actually prepared the meal to begin with. Yikes kitchen manager sets example of how food is prepared and presented to customers. As a kitchen manager, shame on her for not making sure of excellence in quality. (Reminding that I now had to drive a second time and interrupt my birthday dinner) The second round of pad tai was better, flavorful, but the noodles were still mushy but not as bad as the first time. It almost seems that they might be precooking large batches and then somehow reheating. The clincher, the cheesecake. The slice was a sliver, maybe 1 inch wide at most. Basically 1/16 of a 9" or 10" round cake. Barely could taste any peanut butter flavor, with a little side of chocolate icing to scoop out and add to your cake. Hardly worth 11.00 a piece. For that kind of money that piece of cake should have been twice the size, as any bakery or restaurant or home baker would site that piece as very stingy. This means for a 9 or 10 inch cake they are taking in at least 250% return. NOT worth it. I don't like posting reviews like this but I really felt taken advantage of as a consumer. In these days were going out for dinner or having a special take out is a luxury for many, it is truly sad that big money is spent, quantity is less, quality is compromised, and then some wonder why business may be declining. I for one won't be doing this again.

I would like to point out, however, the greeter was lovely and friendly. The manager for the night was polite and courteous.

Disappointing!

UPDATE:

Appreciate Jack Astor's GM reaching out and recognising the issues. Have offered me coupons in returns for me to give another opportunity of sampling the food. Let's see what happens.

UPDATE: Got my Gift certificates in the mail this week. Decided to take another chance, but decided to try something different. With 50.00 in gift certificates we ordered the Chicken Parmesan, Asiago Chicken bow ties and Sauce and Toss chicken fingers with fries of which we paid the difference. Everything was delicious! Chicken fingers were generously sized and the other 2 meals were a decent size. The only criticism would be the Asiago coating on the Chicken breast was a bit burned (for my liking) but the chicken was still very tender and flavorful. Greeter was lovely and polite again and the Manager, who addressed my complaint was actually there and was very nice. Bravo to making things right...

This was my first time coming to jack Astor's and I was super excited to try the chicken Parm I asked for no tomato sauce on the chicken and to replace it with the rosé sauce on it instead and he thought I asked for no sauce on it which wasn't really a problem Caz he brought extra sauce but then I try it and after one bite the spice was just burning all the way down I knew I wasn't going to be able to eat it and ik I'm sensitive to spice but this was enough to mention on the menu but there was nowhere saying it was Spicy!! So I then tried the Caesar chicken salad but added the boiled egg to it I was so excited to try it was a big portion and I'm not one for lemon on my salad I say a big chunk of lemon and thought okay I'll just remove it and eat that part first so I can enjoy the rest of the salad and I swear the squeezed lemon all over it and put another piece on the side Caz it all was strong tasting of lemon!! I ate it because I was so hungry after waiting two hours for my food I really enjoyed the chicken and it was the star of the show!! We did get the cheese pan garlic bread and I liked it I'm a big fan of garlic, I just felt they were light on the cheese only the center had cheese. But still really yummy the price isn't bad either it's cheaper than most places when it comes to entrees at least! I just found it a bit frustrating because it was my anniversary dinner and I can never have a smooth dinner I thought I'd try something new and I don't think I'd be going back here at least not this location! The server seems defensive when I told him I asked for sauce on the chicken and ik that I told him Caz I told him three times knowing he wasn't understanding and I thought he did the last time I said it because he acknowledged it so when I came dry I wasn't very happy but when speaking to the server I was calm and nice about it so when he tried telling me that I got what I asked for I was taken back by it and after that point he tried to make things better so I felt like maybe it was me but after talking to my partner he confirmed I didn't do anything wrong. I think after he got defensive he realized how he acted because miscommunication can happen I'd like to think I'm understanding and so the rest of my dinner he was nice about everything but apart from me I think it's because he wanted a nice tip. I just didn't feel comfortable being there after the issues arose! I wanted dessert so we ordered it to go they were doing the last call anyways so it worked out when ordering the birthday cake I asked if the raspberry sauce and toppings came on the side and he said yes . I got home and it was on the side and on the cake which is why I think the lemon was the same case on my salad and if the person in the kitchen was doing this on purpose they should be fired this is very unprofessional and has lost multiple...

Sunday, October 2/22,

Went to the Argentia Jack Astor's today for lunch with my mom and sister. My mom ordered the pad Thai with shrimp. Right off the bat she knew something was wrong when she noticed there were no peanuts that normally come with it, and it was very dry. She let it go but then a couple bites later she bites down on a tooth pick (circled top left). We're all sitting at the table in disbelief as to how this could have possibly happened. While we're doing this, I look over at her dish and see yet ANOTHER tooth pick (circled bottom right). Our server was nowhere to be seen - I'll get to that later - so my mom left the table and brought it to another staff member who explained that they use the tooth picks to indicate which dishes have alterations in them, and that the server is supposed to remove them before bringing it to the table. Immediately 2 things wrong with this:

Just like it happened today, the server forgot to take it out of her dish (nevermind the fact that there's 2 in the dish) and The tooth pick is the same colour as the noodles. God forbid my mom bit down on either of these in the wrong way and gave herself an unwanted lip piercing.

Going back to what I mentioned that our server was nowhere to be seen;

I've personally worked in the restaurant business so I want to stress that we are NOT upset with our server, we understand she did the best she could with what she was given. We're upset with the restaurant and how they handle their practices. When we got here, just before 1:30 pm, the host let us know that it was a bit of a wait because they had a huge party of approximately 30 sat in the bar with only 3 servers to tend the ENTIRE restaurant, that party should've had at least 2 servers alone. These poor girls were understaffed and overworked.

Needless to say we are severely disappointed with what happened here today and will not be...