Newtown Restaurant — Restaurant in Regina

For a culinary adventure, choose Newtown!

Never in my life have I experienced flavours such as these.

Truth be told, J&A's website had a security issue, and I couldn't order online from them. It's 2024, so I don't do phone calls anymore.

Here we are in a Chinese food mode. What to do? Newtown used to be good, let's give it another try. Their website was decent, but they deliver through door dash, I try to avoid the third party delivery apps, but in a fun twist of fate, the Door Dash guy showed up with a lovely, and mostly soiled, skip the dishes bag.

The food is the real story here:

If you love the taste of bean sprouts, you're in for a treat. The was no shortage of bean sprouts. What is that? An entire container of bean sprouts? Oh no, that's chicken chop suey, but buried under warmish bean sprouts. I mean, I guess it was chicken chop suey. There were at least 4 pieces of chicken, at least 3 carrot chunks, don't forget some loose corn kernels. No crunchy vegetables at all, no peas, no water chestnuts, no crunch at all; except, of course, the bean sprouts were a little crunchy. This was more of a bean sprout soup, with some scatterings added in, clearly hoping no one would notice. Nice try, we caught ya!

Next we have the beef mixed vegetables. There was some standard square bits of beef, I also found one broccoli stem. I was really wishing for more bean sprouts, this did not disappoint. There were even more here, so many in fact, that the beef and broccoli simply tasted like bean sprouts. Bravo!

The deep fried shrimp were almost the winner here. The first one was delicious, the batter was great, the meat was excellent. But not to fault on consistency, the second shrimp was quite the opposite. Chewy spongey shrimp, yummy! We managed to eat 4 of these babies. Two of the 4 were great. A 50% quality excellence rating is nothing to scoff at! Mixing old food in with fresh is a time honored tradition amongst restaurants striving for financial excellence. Well done here again!

The chicken balls were out of this world. Like seriously, this is the first time I've ever had chicken balls like this. The batter was similar to the shrimp, but instead of the meat being spongy, this chicken was sort of hard. Kind of like biting into a grape, just without any flavour. No surprises here at least.

After all of this, I can't tell you about the special fried rice. I mean, it was there, I ate it but I was so flabbergasted by everything that I have no memory of eating the special fried rice.

I don't know why the wontons tasted sweet, but they sure did, perhaps a desert version? That might explain the cold broth. shrug

I managed to finish 75% of my plate, and my partner got through almost 50% of hers. The rest went straight in the trash, it's always great to not have to deal with leftovers.

In retrospect, I would have had a better experience just taking $80 and depositing it right in the dumpster. 20/20 hindsight always wins. Next...

The place where they have the buffet set up is showing its age. Some of the tables were still not wiped clean between seating. The chairs were not placed back around the table properly so it was hard to get back to my table that we were to be seated at. The way they have the area decorated on the ceiling has a bit of issues when you hear fluttering as the ventation fan turns on, which scared some of us when we were there.

The dishes were not labeled correctly so I was eating certain foods that I was allergic too when I believe it was something else. The dishes were not hot or refilled quickly when we showed up before noon on a weekday of all things. The things that were hot were tasty but really not a lot of variety for stir fry vegetable dishes, unless you like bean sprouts. I did have a bit of reaction after eating, but it is because of the dishes being mislabeled. They place items in the wrong tray when being refilled is on that I found. I had a surprise thinking I got a few freshly made chicken wings and they were ribs.

They had limited items on the buffet and desserts, which is understandable with all the downtown construction going on which was limiting the foot traffic to this place. So it could be the reason so not having much made to be thrown out after their lunch rush.

The service lacked a bit of happiness or friendliness in my opinion when in front of customers until...

Walked in today with my wifey at 3 something, we were hoping to try the buffet but that runs from 11AM-2PM so we ordered off the menu and were not disappointed. First off the customer service was excellent, we were seated immediately and given waters and menus. The menu is filled with affordable and great sounding options. She opted for a C combo and I got quick fry squid and small wonton soup to split with her. We were given a sizable appetizer on the house as we waited which immediately set the tone for a good time. First we got the soup which was large enough my wife and I each had 2 small bowls before I finished the leftover broth and the soup was made very well, crunchy vegetables, soft wontons and the broth flavorful. Next arrived my wife's combo which was a very sizable plate. She quite enjoyed it and from what I ate from it I can say it's spot on as well. As for the squid, it was phenomenal, truly cooked well, I was warned it was a spicy dish and that didn't bother me but you can trust that the advice of the staff as it would bother most people when they get a particularly spicy bite. Afterwards we were given take home containers and free desert and, of course, fortune cookies! It was a great experience and I would love to go again, probably try the smorg. My overall order was 40.09 and I still have food left....