Da Fu Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Toronto

If I could give zero stars, I would. I rarely write reviews, but wanted to share my dinner experience here tonight as a PSA. I am Chinese and have gone out with my family to Chinese restaurants all my life - so we're used to the general standard of service when it comes to Chinese restaurants. The service we received tonight sure was exceptional though (not in a good way). I have never witnessed such blatantly unscrupulous business practices in my life!

Our party of four ordered three dishes and one Peking duck. As the second course following the actual duck wraps, we opted for stir fried duck bones (as opposed to lettuce wraps with chopped veggies and duck meat, which are $8 more expensive). The complimentary soup arrived shortly after we placed our order. However, it was another thirty minutes before any other food arrived. We were fortunate that the stir fried pea shoots with garlic were quite good - lucky because at least we had something decent to munch on while we waited another fifteen minutes for our two other dishes (very unusual for Chinese restaurants to have such a long lapse between the serving of dishes).

Fast forward twenty minutes, and we're all pretty full at this point. The rest of our duck was nowhere to be seen. We asked one of the waitresses to follow up on it, as we're almost done the rest of the food. She told us that she will follow up with the kitchen. We continued picking at what little of left of the other dishes. Ten minutes later, there was still no duck. However, we saw some other Peking duck wraps come out of the kitchen...so maybe our duck was coming soon?

The same waitress then came over and told us that she's sorry, but the chef "made a mistake and accidentally prepared lettuce wraps instead of the stir fried duck. Is that alright? Usually it's $8 more for lettuce wraps, but we won't charge you for them this time." At this point, I was thinking not really...I don't really want lettuce wraps. But at this point, it had already been more than an hour since we sat down, so my parents just told her that was fine. You'd think that since the mistake had already been made, we'd receive the lettuce wraps pretty soon after this generous offer. Unfortunately "pretty soon" turned out to be another ten minute wait. The lettuce "cups" and wrap filling arrive. I literally asked my family where the rest of the duck went - there was a laughingly small amount of meat. We agreed that the ratio of veggies to meat was 1:1, which isn't the norm for Peking duck lettuce wraps. My mom immediately said "I'll bet you that's pork and not duck." My brother made a wrap and announced "it's definitely pork." I picked up one piece of meat and it definitely tasted like duck. However, I looked at the plate of meat again, and tasted a very pale looking piece of meat that had a huge piece of fat attached to it. It was definitely pork.

To be frank, when it comes to Chinese restaurants my standards are set really low. It's just unfortunately the nature of the beast. I don't expect my wants and needs to be catered to - I don't even expect the waitstaff to be remotely polite. If the food is of decent quality, I'm a satisfied customer. The sheer amount of waiting that occurred this dinner was annoying, but in all fairness, it seemed fairly busy. The fact that they ran out of duck (this is obviously what happened) way after we received our first half of the menu item was absurd - especially since parties that sat down much later continued to receive their Peking duck wraps. But the most ridiculous and unacceptable part of the experience was being blatantly lied to our faces by waitstaff who made it sound like they were doing us a favour by "comping" us $8. Sorry, but I think I've eaten enough pork and duck in my life to be able to differentiate between the two.

Save yourself the time and frustration, and bring your money and business somewhere else. Or maybe come here if you want to see how a business can stoop so low. You'd be...

Pretty busy place that on a Friday mid morning there was a wait for a table. Fairly good food with some specials like $18.99 for lobster e-fu noodles or $4.99 steamed oyster with vermicelli and black beans. The wait staff are pretty efficient and fairly good service but they are busy and sometimes you'll need to flag someone.

Update April 2024: price for S, M & L still $4.68. There are things which have a higher price like sweet and sour pork for $7.99 but it's a good size dish for that price. If you get a VIP card (for a fee, no expiry date), you can get the tea charge free, only need to pay for table cloth fee. 10% discount I think for paying cash.

Update Jan 2024: all day pricing M-F for S,M & L $4.68, weekends and holidays $4.88. Additional lunch specials. Pretty large portions and good quality.

Update Oct 2024: if you have the VIP card you can still get the 10% discount except on items which are specials. You don't pay for the tea per person but rather a table cloth price. The service is fast but almost to the point where it feels like they're trying to rush you out the door. Food portions are still pretty decent and they have some good desserts like a flaky durian desert that seems to actually have durian pieces inside. One item that wasn't so great was the deep fried dough fritter with the rice roll. The fritter was so hard it seemed like it was leftovers...

It was my first time coming to this restaurant and it will be my last. I had high expectations since friends and family spoke about the nice prices and serving sizes. Firstly, we noticed pieces of garbage lying around on the floor and none of the staff would do anything about it. Then, as we waited for our food, my mom saw an insect with many legs crawling on the floor, which made her shiver and lose some of her appetite. Luckily, my dad quickly stepped on it. We went for dimsum early in the morning so wasn't surprised that the place was packed but we were hungry and impatient as it took approximately 15 minutes before our first dish arrived. However, I was definitely impressed with their food quality. Every dish served was prepared fresh and hot. The serving size was decent. We also ordered the Puppy Mousse Cake. Because not a lot of people ordered it, I wasn't surprised that it came last. We don't know if they forgot about it but we waited 5-10 minutes after finishing the other dishes before asking the waiter about it. It definitely looked the same as the picture in the menu but much smaller than I imagined. As my mom took a bite of it, she instantly said that the milk they used had gone bad. She didn't eat anymore and we didn't want to waste the food so my dad and I ate the rest. A couple of hours later, both my parents had diarrhea whereas I only had a...