Lucky Lin's Restaurant - West Indian (Guyanese) & Chinese Food — Restaurant in Toronto

DO NOT EAT HERE!

It was my first time at this restaurant and I went with my family, who were regulars. They ordered their favourites and I got something different that we’ve never tried before: the BBQ pork slices. Our preteen waitress, who clearly didn’t want to be there, had an attitude when serving us. My sister actually WARNED me of her behaviour since the last time they had been there, which was last week. So we get everything and when I try the dish I picked, the pork, I realize it’s much too salty for my tastes. I tell the waiters this and they shoot me a look, like no one has ever asked to have their plate taken back before. Before I knew it, the little girl, another waitress and an old woman come out and bark at me and my family how we were wrong about the taste of the dish, how they tried it and defended that it “wasn’t even that salty” and that “one of the dishes we had ordered was even saltier than the pork.” I was the only one to touch the dish, I had two pieces and did not recommend it to anyone at my table. After reluctantly taking the dish back to the kitchen, instead of apologizing for the inconvenience or offering to replace said dish with a less salty variant, the other waiter continues to give us attitude when she gives us the bill, expecting us to pay for the dish we refused to eat, claiming we ate “half the plate” and made poor excuses how “if everyone brought dishes back to the kitchen, we’d have to accommodate” even though we were the only complainants in the entire restaurant that night. My mother had enough and when she realized they were too stubborn to take the dish off the bill, the waitress offered to REHEAT the EXACT SAME DISH we had a problem with.

These people have zero restaurant etiquette. Even if we didn’t expect a replacement dish, it’s beneficial when you’re running a business to at least be polite to the customers you’re serving. You don’t have staff members run out screaming gibberish at my family. These people actually blamed US for the inconvenience. If a restaurant blames its customers for their mistakes and their bad cooking, that’s an actual red flag.

If you lack that respect for your paying customers, you shouldn’t be running a business in the first place. Learn some manners and take note of what your competitors are doing, because they’re actually respectful human beings who deserve tips.

It’s restaurants like these that deserve to be on...

This was my second time at this location, I went back to do a double take and see if I missed something, with the food. I have had their chicken before at the old Markham road location, and it's still very good. The fry chicken we had (not shown) was still quite good, but a little heavy on the five spice. Years ago, they had the best cut-up chicken around, but things change. Shown is the dry chilli chicken, it's not really chilli chicken (dry), it's deep fried breaded chicken chunks with mics chilli chopped and quickly hot oil fried and placed on top as a garnish, it was missing the soul. I've had this type of meat dish before at a Sichuan restaurant in Pudong, China. It looked almost exactly, but less flavor, very similar garnish. The roasted pork slices (not shown) were not quite what I expected. Their mixed fried rice was really good and the fry chicken is still their star. I don't discuss price in my reviews, what I can say is that the portions are quite large for Toronto dash and dine restaurants. They are still here and when I can, I will get my fry chicken. They have a series of young students from PRC; I think it's good to help out when you can. On both occasions I had male servers, the first was I think Alex, who was from Zhuhai and the second, I missed his name, but good(8/10) service...

I ordered some food for pickup here and the food was great but the pickup experience was horrid. I walked in and said "picking up a doordash order for Nathan". The lady there thought I meant I'm a dasher picking up an order for someone else. Whenever I go to any store to pick up an order, I use the same phrase and they always know what I mean. She told me, I had to "confirm on the app". I didn't have my phone on me, so I walked back to my car, grabbed my phone and went back in. As soon as she saw me again, she asked "did you order on the app for pickup?". I said yes and then she started talking about how I should've ordered from them directly instead of using the app because I'd save $5 between the Doordash price and their price. One of the other patrons heard her saying this and starting smirking and giggling as if I mistakenly decided to spend more money by using the Doordash app. I'm not an idiot. I know it costs more on the app. What I'm paying for is the ease of being able to pay on my phone ahead of time and just walk in and pick up my food. I didn't pay to walk back and forth from my car, and be embarrassed and laughed at in a public place. Like I said, the food was great but these guys don't understand how people operate these days. Operating for 29 years? I guess they're still stuck back...