ODDSEOUL — Restaurant in Toronto

We have given oddseoul 3 weeks to respond after speaking with the owner about this incident. We left our contact information but true to the fashion of this issue they are indifferent about the poor service standards. The kitchen was great but the front end was sub par. Unfortunately this is no surprise as the service has often fallen short. Please read below the experience that we encountered.

December 06 marks the last day we will ever be spending money for dinner at oddseoul restaurant located at 90 ossington

We typically go to oddseoul every 2 months for dinner spending the night with friends and looking forward to good food and a nice atmosphere. To be honest the service has never been extraordinary yet we enjoy the food enough to keep coming back. Our group generally spends 200-400 dollars each visit which I would say is a decent amount of money.

On December 06th we took our friend who has never experienced the restaurant and were so disappointed with the lack of service and outcome of the evening we will never return and will ensure we spread the word of terrible experience to our friends and family.

After enjoying our meal we asked the server to please pack our remaining food up to take home. He came back threw some containers on the table and said here and walked away. Now I understand this is protocol for some restaurants yet these containers wouldn’t even fit some of our food without smashing the sandwiches sideways making the insides spill out. So we asked for tinfoil to wrap up the sandwiches in their box. The server said he could not accommodate. We said wouldn’t there be tinfoil in the kitchen. He said no. We asked again and explained that we didn’t want to ruin our food to take home. He came back with a huge uncut piece of tinfoil threw it on the table and said here with a smirk. We were getting frustrated. I then trying to avoid conflict at the moment tried to scrap the other food into a container. The plate was still so hot and greasy as it was cast iron and retained the heat it burned my hand. Also the only utensils we had to use were chopsticks! I gave up and we asked for help packing it up. The server said “why are you doing this to me just deal with it”. We were now irate and asked to speak with a manager. As we were explaining this to the manager on duty the server continued to walk by with a smirk on his face and egged us on with rude comments. The managers way of dealing with the situation was to tell us don’t leave a tip. We working in the service industry thought this was a unprofessional way of dealing with the situation. Assuming that there is a tip out why would we make the kitchen suffer by not tipping? The food was exceptional therefore we wanted and expected to tip. We weren’t looking for a handout yet were very surprised that the management wouldn’t even think about compensating anything off the bill instead suggested we shouldn’t tip. We asked again what is their solution when the owner came to intervene and he agreed just don’t tip. We think this is a ludacris way to deal with a customer concern! We were extremely irate that they wouldn’t even consider rectifying the situation instead looking for the easy way out and demanding us to pay the full bill. We tipped anyways and demanded that it all go to the kitchen. The attitude at oddsouel is a I’m better than you air. They are not humble at all and their attitude...

One of my old favourites and it hurts me to say that the quality has dropped off since the last time I was here (pre-COVID). I heard that ownership may have changed and this may have regrettably contributed to some of the negative changes.

The old reliables such as the cheesesteak and wings are still delicious but the former was not as substantial as before and the wings were not as crispy and the batter fell off the skin almost like it had been sitting there for a while before being tossed in the sauce. The loosey was good and I’ve no issues with replacing a bun with a good old fashioned piece of white bread but at least toast it enough so that it’s crispy and not soggy all the way through. The scallion and avocado salad was excellent- super flavourful and fresh with enough acidity to cut through the fattiness of the other dishes. The Hakka mushrooms were flavoured well with the Manchurian type sauce but ultimately over seasoned (probably don’t need to salt it if you’re going to pile on the sauce) and again- had soggy batter that was not at all crispy (what’s going on here?!). The steak was substantial in size and very tender but ultimately lacking in flavour and the steamed vegetables on top were quite bland as well.

Our waitress was extremely friendly and attentive. She was a joy. But you do have to wonder why a place like this is open until 2 am every weekday- seems like a bit of a recipe for burnout for the waitstaff and kitchen staff. Nostalgia and the deliciousness of a couple of old favourites bump this up from a 3 to 4 star but barely. Not sure if I’ll be back but maybe if there’s nothing else open on Ossington...

I've given this place 5 stars before. Food hands down 5. Service this time around though...wow. Myself and a good friend of mine experienced an atmosphere about a week ago which was hands down the worst i've ever had in the city. Coming from a hospitality background both myself and friend are General Managers of restaurants here in Toronto. We had been out watching the leafs game at another near by restaurant and decided to pop in for a quick drink and snack. We didn't even bother snacking or getting a second drink as the Bartender, (tall, black, young male --trying to identify him) was brutally rude and unwelcoming. Asked if he could do something warm for us in regards to an alcoholic beverage and the answer was "naw". It was about -12 out that night so instead of just leaving we decided to try an forget about the bartender and ordered 2 drinks while looking at the menu. Odd Soul like most of the other sister restaurants close late but after arriving at 10pm you'd think the staff were getting ready to close at 11pm. We were going to order another drink after the first one went down well and also grab a Kimchi Fried Rice to share but the bartender disappeared. When I say disappeared I mean he was gone for about 20 minutes without giving us any notice he'd be stepping away. After another 5 minutes we luckily asked one of the wait staff that was busy on her phone near the POS for the bill and got out of there as fast as possible. Not sure I'll be back if this staffing issue isn't fixed. Hanmoto is up the street and far superior on a service level...