Cynthia's Chinese Restaurant - Oakville — Restaurant in Oakville

09May25: Response to Owner’s Comment. Thank you for your reply. Perhaps the word should have been Gastroenteritis and it can start up pretty quickly with certain microorganisms or undercooked food or hands not properly washed or……….. as per my Merck Medical Manual. Yes my friends were affected too, but mildly; They only took a small taste off my dish. I was guesstimating the 30 mins but it could have been 1 hour or more; we were there a long while, 2.5 hrs. Time flies by when with friends. The food went in your covered box right into my fridge set at 3c within 15 mins max; I live very close and the evening was oddly very cool and windy, despite a 25c day. It was definitely properly stored and unopened/untouched until the next afternoon. I also have my food safety/handling certification and am careful about such things. At this point I had not made any connection to the food and simply wondered what happened. It is a very serious accusation about a restaurant I enjoyed very much a few times over and I am very sadly certain it was the food because on the following day I had only some black coffee in the morning considering I do intermittent fasting. My first meal of the day was a late lunch of the leftovers only, no additions, and the same thing happened for the second time, again; this time the connection was quite clear to me. Halton Health did not get into the situation because I live alone and was too ill to get to a medical facility by myself; most people I knew were unavailable. I had to ride it out by myself. I hope this clarifies why I wrote the review below and why I am replying to your response. Crap happens, all the time. Acknowledging and making amends is a good thing.

Went here last night (29Apr25) with 2 friends to celebrate my birthday. I got the Beef with Mushrooms; Friends, Sizzling Beef & Beef Black Bean. Dumpling appetizers & Mango Cake. Half hour into the meal my tummy starts hurting, Im running to the washroom, Im like a running faucet. Went home and was in so much stomach pain, dizziness & nausea sets in above the faucet situation, took meds, passed out eventually. Thought to drive to emergency but I live alone and just couldn’t drive. Never thought to blame the establishment. Just wondered what had happened. The leftovers were packed and given to me; 90% Beef Mushroom, couple of spoonfuls each of the rest. I ate it for lunch the following day, not connecting the incident to the food, and left home on errands. Well, the nausea, tummy cramps and faucet situation starts up again. Parked in the Oakville Town Centre for 2 hours as I couldn’t drive, running into Metro half a dozen times with the faucet situation. I now know for sure its the food from Cynthia’s that’s contaminated in some way. 2nd Time! What a way to end my birthday celebration! What a way to spend the next day! You guys need to compensate for the health issues & distress & panic & embarassment. Yes, this was FOOD POISONING!!! Of a severe nature. I have to say I have enjoyed this restaurant a year or two ago… but I didn’t get my usual fav entree as the price has now doubled to $42 for a pile of noodles and some shrimp… and clearly FOOD SAFETY has dropped down to very very dangerous, alongwith the portions; no thoughtful birthday gift or piece of cake here either. From other reviews below, I am clearly not the first person to recently face this situation at this restaurant. Please contact me; i had made the reservation for 5pm 29Apr25; you will have my...

I am in shock at how bad this chinese food was. By far the most disgusting flavourless cheap garbage Chinese food I have ever had. I cannot believe this place has been in business for that long charging expensive prices nonetheless and serving this garbage. As soon as I saw the food I knew it was going to be bad but eating it was even worse than it looked. The wonton soups at $6.95 each said they come with bbq pork, the broth was terrible and tasted like they used knorr chicken bouillon cubes to give it chicken flavour, there were a few tiny little cubes of bbq pork in the soup you barely even knew it was there, the chicken fried rice I could tell just from looking at it was horrible and it was. Basically just white rice fried in some vegetable oil with bland chicken, a few green onions and egg and that was it, no other vegetables like carrots or peas which is pretty standard for a chicken fried rice, hardly any sauce or seasoning on the rice, the shanghai noodles looked like the cheap packs of noodles you buy at the grocery store, a bland sauce that was flavourless, a few pieces of pork and shrimp and no other vegetables whatsoever, the sweet and sour pork was fatty chewy pork, no flavour to the sauce and the vegetables may as well have been raw because the person working the wok has no clue what they are doing. This entire meal was absolutely disgusting I almost didn’t even want to finish one plate of this cheap garbage chinese food. I am appalled that this place gets away with calling it fine chinese food and charges premium prices and ends up serving the most garbage Chinese food I’ve eaten anywhere. This place is an absolute joke. I would expect this quality of garbage Chinese food from those cheap places you see in Scarborough charging $8.95 for an all you can eat lunch buffet but not from here. We were scammed tonight by this place. $70 for some cheap flavourless garbage. Never again! I hope other people don’t fall for going to this place and go anywhere else instead. You would be hard pressed to find worse chinese food anywhere than what this place served us tonight. Absolutely disgusting! Ended up throwing all the leftovers out in the garbage because that’s where the food this placed served us belongs in the trash! Not even...

Left to right:

Chinese broccoli - IMO great addition to Chinese food to add in some greens. Cooked perfectly.

Green curry chicken - better than I was preparing myself for but to be honest if it wasn’t for my family recommending that I wouldn’t get it again.

Thai basil beef - constant in our order from Cynthia’s. The beef is tender and cut into good sized pieces. Maybe a bit too much onion for my personal taste. I would maybe add in more peppers if it were up to me to balance the dish out and make it perfect.

BBQ pork fried rice - no notes, 10/10, exceptional. This is exactly how I like my fried rice. It had a bit of char on the bbq and rice itself and tastes so classic.

Sweet and sour pork - as a family that are typically creatures of habit, it takes a loooot to convince my family to try new things or let me order something I want. I have ordered a few different things from the chicken section but find myself getting very frustrated that I can’t tell much from the description (lightly fried, stir fried, deep, dry, saucy, etc). I know in my head what I want and can point to it if I saw a picture, but that doesn’t translate well on a phone order. May I make a recommendation to Cynthia’s to include pictures of all dishes somewhere on the site (there is a tab but it is not all encompassing). The pork sauce came on the side which is not my personal preference and was just an OK dish. Call me basic but sometimes I just want something similar to what you get at the mall that is usually labelled something like “general tao”.

The second picture is taken from another reviewers comment and is an unidentified dish. This is what I was going for and wish I ordered. Cynthia’s - if you can respond with the name of that dish, that would be helpful!

Anyways I crave Cynthia’s whenever I am back in town, just make sure you check pictures and try to identify what you might like if trying...