蟹逅 Day&Night Angus Beef . King Crab — Restaurant in Toronto

This is the second time that I have come here. The first time I came, it was not busy and the service was slow to start but the quality of the food and the decent service during the meal (as they help cook and serve the food) made it a good experience overall.

This second time the service was abysmal and did not meet the minimum expectation on a busy Sunday night. We basically had to flag down the wait staff every single time to get any service. It took a couple of minutes to get menus and we actually asked the table next to us to look at theirs since they already ordered. Then it took 15 minutes to get someone to take our order. After that, we had to ask for drinks and we were given tea in glasses (I guess they ran out of teacups with handles). As we waited and our tea got cold, we had to ask for a pot of tea. As we waited longer and longer, we asked a couple times when we could expect the food to come and were told that "Sorry, it is very busy." It was taking so long that we actually flagged down the staff to tell them that we would leave if there was no food coming in the next 10 minutes. After that it only took a couple minutes for the food to arrive but by this time it was nearly an hour from the time we ordered.

Overall, the food was good and the steamed lobster and crab were the best of the entire meal. Unfortunately, the quality of the food could not make up for the inattentive service.

The best service that we got was near the end of our meal when the rush had died down and they actually refilled our tea pot without us having to ask them.

Once we were done and ready to leave, even trying to pay was slow. This place is cash or debit so I was planning to use the machine. From the time that I asked and received the bill, I expected the staff to come back to ask how I wanted to pay but they never came back. After 10 minutes our entire party just wanted to leave so we opted to drop the cash since we no longer wanted to deal with any of the staff.

On this night, the experiences among other tables were similar to ours. The larger table next to us arrived earlier but also said that it took an hour to get their food and had all kinds of trouble flagging down staff for service. Another small table of two ate and left quickly and we overheard the servers asking them to tip better next time - this is pretty farfetched of the staff to say especially if they offered them the same poor service. Being busy is one thing but not having the courtesy to be hospitable and communicate with the customers is unacceptable.

I would think long about visiting this place again and would not even consider for busy times such as Friday nights or weekends. It's not great value money-wise so if you're getting unacceptable service then why bother having a bad experience for that much money.

My advice is if you want to and must come here to eat then choose a day...

This review is based on November 11 (Remembrance Day)

The good:

The good thing about this place is the place is very comfortable to sit and dine. The place wasn’t full / packed but there a lot of spatial to maneuver (unlike hot pot places where there’s no seats or place to stand). This place will have those extra space to wait even if it is full.

The food was great, we ordered the $188 seafood and vegetables (we are a family of three). The server will steam your food (you don’t have to do anything else other than wait for the steam process to finish). There is also a recessed bucket on the table to throw the food waste (you don’t need to get the server to collect and change your plates every once in awhile). The men’s washroom is clean and not smelly, hygiene was maintained well.

The Bad

Towards the end when I come back from washroom, I a server counting the money my family put on the bill. When I went to the table, the waitress says “there not enough tips”, we were short $10.00. First of all, tipping is not by-law nor or “a must” in Canada. Secondly, the waiter / waitress is not allowed to say this (if I am the server, I will NOT say there’s not enough tips!!!). Moving forward, I replied to this server, we will count again, and she fumbled the bill booklet and coins dropped (what a disaster). At the end, we gave enough tips (10%), but I want to point out the fact that this waitress is not allowed to say there is not enough tips. If table service is satisfactory, customers will tip accordingly.

I want to point out there were two female waitress. One wears glasses and speaks Cantonese and one speaks mandarin and doesn’t wear glasses. The one who said there is not enough tips is “waitress with glasses”.

This is really disappointing, I highly suggest the management to instruct their staff about “tipping in Canada”. I myself will also raise this concern with local government, this is not the first restaurant I have seen with waiters / waitress...

For appetizers, we had skewers of pork jowl, beef and chicken were decent sizes and tasty. The garlic toast was a bit weird with some unmelted butter and some slices were stuck together. The roasted bone marrow was nicely presented and had lots of marrow inside that looked and tasted like fat. Came with a really small piece of toast. The seafood was very fresh, we had lobsters and crab legs steamed, both tasted good. The steamed veggies had mushrooms, squash and whole leaf of bok choi, which should be cut up into smaller sizes, were quite bland and needed some sauce to add flavour. We mixed our own with different types at the sauce station but most were salty so I requested some sugar to mix into it. We also had spicy Thai style lobsters and crab ramen noodle soup. The rice cooked in the crab shell looked fancy but doesn’t taste much. After the food finished steaming, there was a broth under the grate which already has some pieces of pork and winter melon. The idea was to make a soup that contained the juices dripped off from the steamed food above. Overall was a good meal. The food was fresh and service was okay. I don’t understand why they have to put a curtain instead of a proper door at the corridor leading to the washrooms. If people were eating shellfish with their hands without gloves on, then it’ll be very dirty when they had to touch the curtain to go through. I stared at it and wonder how often it is washed! I felt uneasy having to touch the curtain after I...