Hanlin Tea & Patisserie — Restaurant in Richmond

WARNING: Be very careful with the plates. They will charge $20 if you damage it, even by accident.

I had a very disappointing experience at this cafe. After accidentally chipping one of their small, supposedly handmade, plates imported from Japan, they asked me to cover the cost of the damage. Initially, they said they would need to charge “$10-15 in order to explain to their manager.” However, they were unable to provide me with the exact price and ended up charging me $19.99 plus tax (the price of a retail mug) claiming there was no button for the plate on their POS system. Even in the case that they needed to charge me, they should have confirmed the price with the manager and charged me accordingly, instead of basing it on the price of a retail item.

I feel that the way this situation was handled lacked transparency and fairness. If a business chooses to carry expensive handmade plates imported from Japan, they should acknowledge the possibility of accidental damage. This risk of damage should be a cost they incur themselves, rather than passing it onto customers. Seeing the employees prioritize pleasing the manager over customer service is very disappointing.

If this is a store policy, clear and fair guidelines should be communicated to customers upfront. I appreciate that the Earl Grey roll cake wasn't too sweet and had good flavour, however, if I had known there was a chance I would be paying $30, I would have opted not to receive a plate or not have ordered it in the first place.

I respectfully request a refund of the overcharge and suggest they review their policy regarding accidental damages and consider communicating it to customers to ensure transparency and fairness.

EDIT: I went back to the cafe and received a full refund and a complimentary cake. However, I was asked to delete my review in exchange for this compensation. I want to clarify that I will not be deleting my review, as it accurately reflects my experience. This situation should not have happened in the first place and the transparency is important for future customers. I want to thank Joey for addressing the issue, but I stand by my...

It's fun opening the formule box. Cute presentation.

I also ordered the savory set. However, what you get is only 2/4 of the items listed and 2/4 items is an unknown replacement not on the menu. In fact, I got doubles of this chicken salad croissant and with my formule box ended up with 3 of these chicken salad croissants instead of a variety of different items I had expected.

My savory set was: -2 cranberry chicken salad croissants -one cheeseburger -one radish beef cake

What I was supposed to get in the savory set on the menu was :

"-one radish beef cake -one salmon roe sandwich -one quail egg burger -one chicken croissant"

My formule box was: -one cranberry chicken salad croissant -one cheeseburger -one radish beef cake -half a white chocolate mouse cake -half a Thai tea cake -half a matcha mouse cake -whipped cream in a little container

Another substitute is this mini cheeseburger that I suspect may be microwaved and they then add a lettuce leaf to since the bread was dry and hard and the patty was hard and dry as well ... But it's still cute I guess.

In summary, if I could revise my order, I would have just got the formule box as the savory box was a redundant order that had two same croissants in addition to the same items as the formule box.

Overall though, it is a cute box to get and there is some merit in the nice...

I encountered EXTREMELY RUDE service that needed to be called out on. I went there with my boyfriend to study quite often for about a year we always purchasing something to drink and/or eat. They never had a good service but my focus was mainly to study so never minded it. Today their worker threw a paper at the request of their boss at my boyfriend saying "You're not allowed to stay for free as you haven't purchased anything." Let me remind you, I had already purchased something because he doesn't really like flavoured drinks. I asked how come we can't share a drink? They said it's requirement of 1 drink per person to stay? What a joke honestly!!! I don't see a point in wasting food and money if we knew we weren't finishing it. It wasn't even busy day so what was the point of kicking out people who had continuously supported their sales???? Very disappointed. Will not be coming to such a money hungry place...