Petit Potato 大有名糖 — Restaurant in Toronto

UPDATE - July 8

Unfortunately, after last night’s visit, I have to downgrade my star rating from 4 to 2.

The service was absolutely horrendous and the washrooms were in unacceptable condition.

SERVICE

Basically, there was none. When we came in, we were seated and that was the end of our service. I don’t mind ordering from a QR code system but you need to check on your customers every once in a while. We stayed for more than 2 hours and no one came by to bring us water or check if we needed anything. Unfortunately, I made a mistake when first ordering and did not probably submit the order. After, waiting more than 30 minutes, I checked on the system and realized I had made a mistake. While I don’t fault the restaurant for this, I can’t understand why servers don’t bother to check on tables that haven’t placed orders. This is the absolute least you could do. After correcting my mistake, we waited a further 30 minutes for our dessert. After nothing arrived, I had to flag down a manger to ask for water (our cups were empty for over an hour) and inquire about the status of our dessert. From this point, it took an additional 15 minutes to get our food. I know the menu says it’ll take 30 minutes for the dessert but I really have to question why? It took 45 minutes to make toasted bread with ice cream on top. Unless the bread is being freshly baked for each customer (unlikely), I don’t see how the time is being used. Once we finished eating, we again had to flag down a server to bring us the bill. I’m sure we could have just walked out without paying and no one would have noticed at all. It was like we were completely invisible. We paid in cash and just left. There was no point in waiting for any change as we likely would have been waiting forever for someone to come back and pick up the payment.

WASHROOMS

Gross. I walked in to the first stall and walked out immediately as the toilet was covered in feces. In the next stall, there were unknown drippings all over the floor, urine on the toilet seat and no toilet paper (the roll container fits 2 jumbo roles that were both empty). I walked out of that stall and tried another one which happened to be locked (with no one inside so I’m assuming it was out of order). I went back to the first stall to look for toilet paper and again the two jumbo roles were completely empty. It was obvious that like the table service, no one had bothered to check on the washrooms in what must have been hours and most likely at least a day considered the state of the rooms and lack of toilet paper. I washed my hands and decided to just wait until I got home.

While the food here tastes good, I cannot recommend this experience to anyone.

ORIGINAL REVIEW

I’ve been wanting to try this place ever since it opened but the timing was unfortunate since it was right around the start of the pandemic. I finally stopped in and was quite impressed.

To start, this place has quite an extensive menu which include both food and dessert. The desserts look absolutely amazing but are quite large in size so I think they would be better for sharing.

I had the seafood omurice which was very good. I am always looking for omurice around the city to try out as I enjoy it a lot. This particular one would be rated about a four out of five.

The restaurant itself is nicely designed with a lot of space to sit down. Access is from Yonge Street and you will need to head up a flight of stairs (I believe there is also an elevator if needed).

If you are looking for parking, you can either try the street, the green p lot on Empress or the Empress Walk underground parking accessible from...

Glad to see that I am not the only one suffering from poor customer service. It was really disappointing because I love Petit Potato and have high respect for it and am always excited to come. It's my go-to restaurant and pretty much my all-time favourite.

I will come here less often though, even though I was so happy to have a branch along Yonge street and happy for their success amidst COVID and everything.

I came during 2023/2024 Christmas break and it was very cold outside. I needed to charge my phone and so I told the server about this and so he presented me with a menu. I ordered and actually was in a rush, but it was hard to find the server so I flagged down another one for my food. Anyways, after ordering I went up to the original server bc he was serving me to begin with to tell him I will get my phone, as in I needed to exit the restaurant while the food was coming and pretty much take all my belongings from my seat - of course I didn't want the restaurant to think I left and didn't pay - it's a standard thing to do. But that server and another server were at the booking register, and he looked at me in confusion as I told him this. Maybe the servers don't have dedicated tables to serve? I was not sure why he had that look. The lady responded and saved him, saying that it was ok for me to go. Later he didn't want to serve me and I literally waited 20 mins with my hand up and waving to every server that passed by. Funny is he can definitely see me waving, but he pretended to be busy sometimes and not make eye contact. He also would 'busy' himself by staying at the register and talk to the servers there, telling them that he was SO busy. I was in his line of sight and was the only person asking for a server. Yes there are things that he can choose to do still, and you don't leave a customer waiting and waiting - at least redirect me to someone else. It was embarrassing, tiring and stressful too.

At the end of twenty mins, me still not yet being attended to, he was standing aside with his hands in front of him as if he was waiting to serve the next person while watching the whole restaurant, but he STILL chose to ignore me (I was diagonal and very close to him so he could definitely see me but kept pretending not to). It was very rude and left me thinking I did something wrong by going up to him and doing the responsible thing. He could have just permanently redirected me to someone else and I would have been happy to be taken care of.

I've had a very bad experience that day bc I was also worried I wouldn't make it to my next event. Waiting 20 mins to be served? All other servers also passed me by but I was very visible in the middle/front of the restaurant. It's ridiculous!!

I also spent a good amount of food so I would think they should treat paying and respectful customers with due diligence and respect. I'm really sad about this and coming here. In comparison, the Petit Potato at Ravel Road has the best service ever!! They are very...

I've been to this location quite a few times now, at the request of different friends. The first time I ate here, I wasn't fully satisfied with my meal, but I wondered if maybe it was the dish I picked, or the particular cook was off that day, so I gave Petit Potato another chance the next time a different friend suggested it. Each time, I've increasingly felt that Petit Potato was more and more overhyped.

First off, the menu is extensive, and coming here with a group is a great choice, as you can (hopefully) find an interesting dish for everyone. There are a lot of familiar dishes, and many that are new and unique.

On the other hand, the food is also the most glaring element. So far, I've had the omurice, oxtail stew, salmon skillet pasta (? sorry I forgot what it's called), bibimbap, squid ink seafood risotto. All of them tasted quite bland and lackluster to me, especially since others hyped up this place so much for me. If you think the protein in your meal is the spotlight, you'd be sorely disappointed, as in most cases there's only a few pieces of meat and an overwhelming amount of carbs in the dish, and for this reason I often cannot finish the dish with its empty carbs. In my case, I'd pick the omurice over other choices, if you aim to come here for meals.

The food isn't BAD quality per se, but again, I just find it uninspired and basic. $18 for a bowl of risotto with barely any pieces of seafood in it, is just too much. $16 for bibimbap with barely any variety and 2 pieces of kimchi, is too much. $20 for oxtail stew with 4 pieces of beef and 2 pieces of broccoli, and no carrots like shown in the photo, is too much.

The only thing I was actually delighted with, was the kalbi beef. I apologize if Petit Potato is technically more of a dessert place and I should only go there only for dessert or snacks instead (I did have some desserts too), but it IS a Taiwanese fusion style restaurant, and it seemed rather busy both around lunch and dinner when I visited.

I would suggest moving forward - the pasta/ rice portions to either be smaller and at a lower price point, as more of a light meal kind of thing. Or, make the price make sense by putting in more variety in meals (e.g. more than a few pieces of protein?? and more than 2 pieces of vegetables?)

The one plus side is the ambiance, which is fantastic. The restaurant feels both cozy and a bit fancy, without feeling too high end for the average person. Overall, I wouldn't go here again for any lunch/ dinner, I suggest just stick to chilling in the afternoon for a snack if anything. I'd probably avoid Petit Potato in the future, not worth the hype. It kinda just feels like when my friends had a thing for Mabu Station years back (another Taiwanese fusion restaurant that was similar in quality) and that falling out of favour with us and the...