Mr Delicious by the Beach — Restaurant in Pickering

Decided to try Mr. Delicious after seeing mixed reviews on TikTok and here. It’s honestly a hit or miss depending on what you get.

For the positive highlights, I really enjoyed how they transformed an ordinary parking lot into a mini Caribbean oasis. The colours, oil drum seats, and materials made it feel like you were being transported to Jamaica. I did, however, find the outdoor seating needed some cleaning up. Dusty, rickety seats and tables, things covered in garbage bags. Perhaps that adds to the “authentic” vibe. Some music would have helped to add to the atmosphere. While the seating may have had an “authentic Jamaican” vibe, much of the food we tried was far from it.

The party platter was reasonably priced, however, we were surprised to find that some of the items were processed oven inserts, such as the mozzarella sticks and mac & cheese bites. The cheese in the mac & cheese bites was cheap and greasy. The wings were flavoured alright but were overcooked. The calamari, however, was nice and well flavoured.

The Samosas are probably the highlight of this restaurant. They are packed well with a good amount of filling. We ordered ackee & saltfish, curry goat, jerk chicken, oxtail, and curry chicken samosas. The best samosas were the curry chicken followed by the ackee. I would have loved to try the curry goat, but was very disappointed to find that there was no curry goat samosas that we ordered. They seemed to have mixed up our curry goat for more jerk chicken samosas. When we told them this, which was sometime after—since they don’t check on you often—they didn’t bother to apologize or replace them. So we ended up having 4 jerk chicken samosas (instead of 2 jerk and 2 curry goat), which we didn’t enjoy as much as some of the others. The jerk chicken samosas were okay but a bit on the dry side. Nonetheless, I thought that rice and peas and jerk chicken in samosas is a cool concept. My least favourite samosa was definitely the oxtail. This oxtail had absolutely no authentic oxtail flavours. It tasted more like a very wet and bland beef stew. The rice and peas also tasted very unauthentic. It tasted exactly like the taste and mushy texture of rice used in white pudding. If blindfolded, I could have never guessed that I was eating rice and peas.

As for the drinks, we tried the rum punch after hearing good reviews about it online, however, we found the rum punch to have been made with a heavy hand when it comes to the spices. They put enough allspice, clove, cinnamon, and essence in that one drink for at least 100 coconut buns and 100 different Easters. It wasn’t even palatable at that point, much less, enjoyable. We tried to mitigate the very strong flavour by buying extra mango drink and mixing some of the punch with it, but it was still very pungent. We barely drank it. Not even the bees wanted the rum punch.

We wanted to try the pumpkin soup, however, they didn’t have it nor did they have the red pea soup. Those might’ve been better than what we tried.

I can appreciate the variety of what they offer here. However, I would rather they narrow down on what they offer and focus on doing it better.

Service was pleasant at first but a bit slow. They don’t give you water or napkins unless you ask. Also, after telling them our honest thoughts on the rum punch and letting them know that we never received the curry goat samosas that we ordered, they didn’t bother to apologize, replace the curry goat samosas, or otherwise try to make it right.

It seems like the quality really varies depending on what you get. Looking at photos online, the kitchen team makes some odd culinary choices, such as putting cranberries, blueberries, and cheese in a “tropical salad”, using canned corn, and highly processed oven inserts. Expect that some of what you get is not going to be cooked from scratch.

All in all, I would say you should try it for yourself. You can’t go wrong with the samosas—except of course, the...

The three stars is because it wasn’t totally bad but it definitely should have been better for the following reasons: -As first time customers, we had no idea of their protocol when we entered. We were contemplating sitting outside, but there was no signage indicating if you wait to be seated, or you just give yourself a seat. It’s not a problem if they don’t have a person right there, but confusion can all be avoided with some clear signage. -Our server, while very polite and respectful, was quite mixed up during the whole service; mixed up the drinks, forgetting one completely, needing to be reminded of orders, not knowing about the menu…etc. They were even telling us about mishaps they should have kept to themself. Luckily we were a bit amused but I’m sure others would not be. This brings me to the next point… Due to the service we asked the server if they were new. They admitted they hadn’t there for very long. That being the case, someone should have been checking their area. We were initially the only ones outdoors, but then another couple came and sat down. They were there for at least 10 or 15 minutes during which our server never came back. When they came, to bring us our salad, they did not acknowledge the couple who had been sitting there waiting and went back inside. The couple got up and left. I mean, the place wasn’t that busy. They have to do better than that or they will lose more potential customers. -Now, the food gives it the 3 stars because I would try their food again, hopefully without the obvious added sugar to the rice and peas and festival (toooo sweet) and hopefully with the tasty salad in some cute wooden bowls instead of these small heavy cast iron pots…(why?? I mean, it’s a cold summer salad). Another thing we didn’t get is my friend and I ordered the same meal yet I almost finished mine before hers came…how does that happen? I mean I’m not a chef but did they have to do a grocery run? Don’t you just cook the food together and portion it accordingly? We are not sure if this was our server’s fault or the kitchen but it made no sense. All in all, it was alright because we’re pretty relaxed but come on Mr. Delicious. We want to support you....

My partner and I have been walking by this place regularly since we made the move to Pickering. We were excited to give it a try since it had such rave reviews. Decided to give it a go on a Sunday afternoon just after opening. Their tables were full outside and we must have arrived there no later than 3:15.

After payment was made, and noticing that there were orders pouring in, I asked if it would be some time before we got our order. The (only) server told us, yes, and after a little prompting she told us she expected about 45 minutes. In our foodie experience, this seemed like quite a long time. But, we had been waiting so long to try this place we decided to stick with it. The server told us to expect a call when it was ready, and we went on about our business. We returned to the establishment after 60 minutes and waited another 15 minutes before we received our order.

What we ordered: 2 jerk samosa; 2 ackee and salt fish samosa; steak and cheese samosa; pepper shrimp samosa; veggie samosa; curried goat meal; jerk chicken roti; beef pattie.

What went wrong: missing pepper shrimp samosas; this wouldn't have been so disappointing except I had asked if they had all the samosa options available prior to ordering and if we had been notified of the discrepancy upon pickup every samosa was a mystery samosa since they were all labelled incorrectly; would have been more of an issue if there were allergies or if one of us were strictly vegetarian the main entrée of goat was served with rice and corn when we expected the more traditional rice and peas request for extra goat gravy was not reflected in the order the pepper sauce left much to be desired; tasted like minimal pepper and swiss chalet sauce

What went right: goat was tender and flavorful ackee and saltfish samosa was quite palatable although the jerk chicken roti was not what we had expected (it lacked chicken/was less saucy than I am accustomed to) the added pineapple chunks...