Meet Oyster — Restaurant in Richmond

If you're reading the reviews because you're thinking about coming here, let me save you the time and expense by saying: DON'T DO IT!

Take your hard-earned dollars elsewhere, because the SHOCKING experience we just had tonight at this restaurant was unlike anything I've ever experienced in all my years of dining out in Vancouver or in any other place, period.

On Friday afternoon, at 1:30pm in the afternoon, we made a reservation through the "Reserve a table" link they provided via Snappy restaurant reservations, for 6:00pm that night. Now mind you, the 6:00pm time-slot showed up in their reservations as available and we received not only an email confirmation, but a text confirmation as well that the booking was successful. In the FIVE HOURS between booking the reservation and driving to the restaurant for our dinner that night, NOT ONCE did we receive a phone call, a text, or an email from the restaurant saying anything to us. The reservation system requires you to put in your contact information, so we know FOR A FACT that the restaurant could have easily contacted us if they so chose to. They didn't breathe a word to us.

SEVEN MINUTES before our reservation at 6:00pm was set to begin, we received a text message saying that our reservation was cancelled. Yup, that's right, our 6:00pm reservation was cancelled at 5:53pm (!!!) without any sort of heads-up, explanation, or conversation. By that time, we were already almost at the restaurant, so we drove the rest of the way there and went in to figure out what's going on.

A short Asian woman came over and we told her we have a reservation. She looked at her tablet and said that we don't. It was only when we showed her our email and text confirmations that she was finally forced to admit, "Yup, we cancelled your reservation because we're actually full tonight." Excuse me? We asked, confused as hell, how on earth it's possible that we could've booked a reservation when the restaurant was actually full. The woman then proceeded to tell us that THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO JUST CANCEL RESERVATIONS AT-WILL. I wish I was kidding. Now, keep in mind friends, we drove all the way from White Rock to Richmond to eat here, during rush hour. If you've never made that drive, let me tell you it's an hour on a good day, not to mention the cost of gas. So we let this woman, who claimed to be the manager, know that their reservation system should be fixed, to avoid frustrating situations like this.

Here's where the fun begins, because upon hearing this, this woman's attitude, already unpleasant to begin with for no reason, turned downright nasty and she snapped, yes, SNAPPED at us, "What do you want to do then, huh? What do you want to do?" First off, this is funny as hell because YOU as the customer service professional should be the one thinking of ways to make this right, not us, because YOU guys messed up. Second, I've never witnessed someone in the service industry (and I've worked in service before) speak to a customer like this. No apology, no acknowledgment of their mistake, NOTHING. The way this "lady" was acting, you'd think she was St. Peter and we were begging for admission through the pearly gates.

When we asked her why she cancelled our reservation at the LAST MINUTE, wasting our time and gas money when she had hours to do it prior, she fell silent. Before we left we repeated that they should fix the reservation system and she sarcastically remarked, "Yeah I'll do that." Judging from this interaction, that's not going to happen and the restaurant is going to continue wasting people's time by letting them book time-slots that do not exist.

If you've made it all the way to the end of this review, congratulations and I implore you to learn from my mistake—DO NOT EAT HERE. There is a clear lack of customer service training and respect for patrons. Also, after this fiasco we read through more of the reviews and apparently an alarming number of people have gotten food poisoning from this place, so perhaps tonight was God's divine intervention saving us from...

They have a new all you can eat sukiyaki menu (hotpot). $89 / person for premium which is what we ordered. 5 people ordered 10 oysters. Came only 4. Tiny ones. Ordered 20 more. Never came. Same thing with baked oysters. Ordered 10, came 5, ordered 15, came 4. Waited for an hour. Told there's no more oysters, at an oyster restaurant paying premium? Scallops are great. Only thing. Then went to the washroom, walked passed the kitchen, so the kitchen staff shucking oysters. So not only we paid $107 per head after tips and tax. We got lied to at the end claiming there was no oysters. Dinner time at 6pm... I can't believe they were super slow and can't handle the workload. All servers were poorly trained. Never took empty dishes, walk passed multiple times. You don't need more staff, it's small. You need better staff. And shouldn't be selling premium food and if can't handle people that go there for premium food. Wagyu beef, don't get me started. Vein cuts / muscle cuts, hard to chew, no flavor. Wagyu? Someone please fix their owner which only sat outside smoking all day long. Help or train your staff!. Lying about no oysters is horrible. On top of that. They gave us 2 hr limit. But the food we ordered can't even keep up with our orders. They blamed the small table. Um... their dishes stack, it's like a small dim sum basket. Stack more? Anyways, they cut our order ever since we started ordering. 5 people and can't even order 2 oyster per person. 4 oysters for hotpot that was super tiny for 5 people. 10 baked oysters. Then that was it... we went there for oysters...

Came here for their famous seafood all you can eat AND IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT. I am a seafood lover so I pretty much ordered every seafood item they have on the menu. My favorites were the baked oysters (durian flavor was so special, sweet and salty, and garlic one not salty and cooked to perfection) and they were almost the the size of my hand, the spicy crayfish (the garlic one was soso), sweet shrimp sashimi (we had like 20 for the 2 of us), and the abalones (unlimited!!!).

We got sukiyaki soup and the coconut chicken, both were on the sweet side and it really brings out the flavor of the seafood even without the sauces (but they make it for you in the beginning anyways haha). Yes the service was a little slow, but once you asked them they always bring the food (we are very shameless and we just keep asking if they forgot). Wagyu and abalone were so good with sukiyaki soup base, we also added a bunch of veggies n tofu like we would in a normal sukiyaki place. We got some rolls and surprisingly they were stuffed with fillings and gourmet, unlike some other buffet places that have a lot of rice but no filling (typical all you can eat practice). The chefs at the bar were speaking Japanese, I think its an authentic and beautiful place for a nice dinner.

When we go to a normal hot pot place and like 2 Plates of seafood it already comes out to around 100 per person. But here we can order as much seafood as we want for the same price. I will definitely come back with friends who love...