East Kitchen — Restaurant in Vancouver

Very disappointing! My mother and I read an online 5-star review posted just three months ago that this place had lots of variety, generous portions and was cheap. So since we were in the vicinity we decided to try it out.

A rinky dink place and no other customer was there even though you would expect peak lunch hour to be busy.

Fried rice was just fried rice with a little bit of chopped green onion, not at all appetizing, even though the woman serving there insisted we wouldn't be able to cook as nice at home -- really? Fried rice with nothing but bits of chopped green onion and hardly any? And then when we opted for white rice instead, she was so disparaging, said we were trying to save a dollar on rice because she charged an extra dollar for her fried rice!

Not much else for variety. Besides the rice, there was a pan of noodles all dried up from sitting there too long, one pan of eggplant (nothing else with it), a pan of beef and bell peppers, a pan of nappa cabbage and vermicelli, Szechuan bean curd with slivers of meat, and three dishes of the same breaded halibut cooked three different ways. Nothing else.

I have food sensitivities so there wasn't much I could choose from. So then the server suggested we take two of the same items of bean curd to make the combo -- wow, that's what you call a combo! We decided instead of a three-item combo, we settled for two: fish and beancurd, and of course the white rice, all for $9.50 plus GST.

As for the quantity that 5 star review claimed was so generous -- turns out the carton wasn't even full and most of it was the white rice. So not worth the raved review we read! Makes us suspect that the person giving the 5-star review was paid to make it sound better than it actually was.

Originally, we thought to buy some frozen foods to take with us to cook at home: dumplings, fishballs, etc, that the server had advertised besides the cooked food, but we were so turned off already by our experience, we lost our appetite and decided not get any. We definitely will not be returning to that...

Misleading advertisement and poor service. Went to buy fishball noodle soup...banner outside said $4.99...ended up paying $6.29. Charged me $1 for the 2 containers - 1 for the noodles and 1 for the soup. That is purely ripping off customers as they have no choice for takeout containers since this is a takeout place. Even if they charge for containers, not $.50 each for a small plastic bowl and didn't even bother asking me if I needed to separate the soup and noodles. Purely profit to the owners. Also was shortchanged and before I even asked her, she was helping another customer and then said that I should have inquired about the change earlier. I get that the food is cheaper there but it doesn't mean you should get ripped off and be provided with lousy customer service. This container/plastic bag fee is a Vancouver bylaw but restaurants are taking advantage of customers by charging more than they should for a plastic bag or containers...do they expect us to bring our own containers and put takeout food in there? But the restaurants would refuse this for covid reasons...therefore, no choice but be gouged by unethical restaurant owners/staff. Definitely not returning to this place or recommending...

I was on hunt for a better place that's on par with Kent's Kitchen. My dad suggested we get a take out here so I gave it a try.

I refused to go here few times since it was hard to see what's under the buffet trays. I ordered rice with 3 side dishes ($7.95 and 50 cents extra on beef brisket) and 4 pcs of drumsticks ($5).

The menu is similar to KK, but not much variety though. I often eat spicy food and couldn't see something that caught my eyes. Rice was freshly made. Broccoli, beef brisket and cod were not bad. Food was rather on the bland side. Good thing it wasn't too oily.

They didn't have any noodles and prawns to order. Food was alright. I actually liked the drumsticks though. East Kitchen also sells frozen food. Staff were friendly and they also speak English which is good. They thought I'm a business owner when I kept taking some of the photos. They...