Qin's Garden — Restaurant in Toronto

FOOD POISONING ALERT!

I took my two kids, 10 and 12, and my 74yo mother there for lunch yesterday. We ordered chicken fried rice, vegetable chow mein, And six trays of soup dumplings. Less than an 30 minutes after leaving the restaurant, three of us got sick. We were at the room when my 10-year-old threw up and the Chinese exhibit and I went to the bathroom and threw up twice. We had to leave the museum and start heading home because my mother was also nauseous. On the way home, my son threw up two more times once on the sidewalk and another time into a garbage can at Union Station. We were supposed to spend the day at the museum and walk around a little bit in downtown, but our plans had to be canceled because of the food poisoning.

I had to call the restaurant twice and never got a call back from the manager. The person that spoke to me did not speak English very well and asked me at one point if I spoke, Mandarin, but I’m not Chinese. I am Korean. I told her about what happened how the food at that restaurant derailed their plans for the day in the city. I asked for a refund given our awful experience after eating at Qin Garden. Her response involved mentioning the possibility that we might have an allergy where all three of the four people had a shared allergy problem. She also said that the restaurant needed to investigate the claim, that the restaurant had passed the health inspection so they weren’t really expecting to turn up anything that would support our supposed food poisoning.

She told me the manager was too busy to call me herself. She sais the manager asked me asked to email her with my complaint and the pictures of the throw up I took after my son threw up 3 times. One photo showed that it was food he ate at the restaurant. One was taken after he threw up on the floor in the ROM. And no photos of the third throw up because he was bent over a trash bin in Union Station.

We will never be dining here again. I didn’t even really care too much about how disgusting the bathrooms were—nobody is bothering with the facilities there. But food poisoning is serious business.

Do not eat here. If you do and get sick the management will not bother to make things right. Instead they will make every effort possible to make it as hard for you get some...

The restaurant itself is a great atmosphere with beautiful decor. We came to place a take out order, we were prompted by the staff to scan a QR code to order. Online ordering is a bit confusing so we asked the staff if we can place an order with her, the staff confirmed our order 2-3 times before purchasing. We purchased 1 order of pork soup dumplings (4 pcs) and 1 order of pan fried dumplings (6 pcs). We were told it would take 10 min for the order to be ready. After 25 min from when my order was placed, I asked the staff how much longer it would take as I had somewhere to be, and at the time of ordering I had 30 min left on my Presto transfer. We were then informed that the staff member in charge of making the pan fried dumplings.... WAS NOT on premises...??? If the order was going to take more than that time, the right thing to do would be to let the customer know so they can make a decision whether or not they'd like to move forward with a purchase so we were left with the options of receiving a refund or waiting until the employee arrived. Had the employee communicated that my wait time would be longer for the pan fried dumplings, I would've simply ordered 2 orders of soup dumplings, but communication was a huge issue across the entire interaction. After a total of 35 min from when my order was placed, I received my order. The staff informed me they gave an extra 4 pan fried dumplings as an apology. They didn't have to do that, and the reperations they attempted to make with the extra food was received well, that was until I opened the take out package, everything was packed beautifuly with napkins, sauces and cutlery....and sitting directly on top of it was a long black hair 😑 after waiting 35 min with absolutely no customers inside, you'd think that the quality would be at its best, and this was not the case. The food itself was cold once I was able to eat it, which was only 15 min from when we left the establishment, but otherwise very flavourful and filling. I've seen this place all over tik tok and it's definitely popular only for the dine...

First and foremost this is not Shanghai food this is Wuxi food. Most people will get confuse by it, I would not blame them. In reality they just made mixture of Shanghai, Ningbo, Suzhou, & Wuxi food and kept dumping sugar on everything. The food here is edible and looks photogenic but definitely not authentic aside from the plating and naming conventions in menu. I am half Wuxi and Bao in Wuxi does not look like this. It felt like northern Chinese made Bao if anything. If you love sugar you might like this place. They put sugar in everything even dishes that are suppose to be salty tasted very sweet. You will feel like you drank whole jug of fruitopia after eating with the sticky tinge in your mouth. To make matters worst, no water was provided. The Bao is not cooked properly, the dough is still raw you can see the white texture when biting into the top. They have ningbo style spring rolls at a Wuxi place which the ingredients seems fine but the soy sauce just ruins it. They need more oil to get rid of the raw napa smell. The wonton looks legit in a 1980s cup and placed with ingredients from the stalls but please go easy on the soy sauce. The spear ribs are not separated enough to absorb the sauce, likely undercooked. I believe the sets of two are made to serve easier. The chicken is definitely a NO! It is the worst chicken I have ever had in any Chinese restaurant. The chicken needs to be fresh free range chicken and not frozen thawed hormone chicken that tasted luncheon meat. The colour of poached chicken is suppose to clear white and not yellow. I will try their other dishes a second time perhaps they have different chefs working on different days and give an updated review if anything changes. For the time being I would not recommend this place unless you like your dinner tasting like dessert from the north...