Hy tea lounge — Restaurant in Vancouver

Right off the bat, this place is not what you expected. The building alone is super unique. When looking closer, you dont really feel like this is a place for food at all. There is odd bridal decoration placed in the front of the windows making it oddly confusing for customers.

Doesn't feel very welcoming. What I thought was customers was actually staff. they just sit there and stare at you. Until we asked a male that looked like he worked there we had a reservation. Don't get me wrong though. He was friendly and was telling us about their menu.

Demi Hy Tea $32 What you get here is 3 savories dishes, scone, and 3 house made sweets Scone- this is actually done really well. the texture is crispy on the outside and warm and fluffy on the inside. There is a perfect balance of sweetness to this. Baguette + radish + guacamole + shrimp - Shrimp we fresh and guac was flavorful season withed lemon salt and pepper (basic guac is what im trying to say) No real wow factor here, just taste exactly how you will assume it tastes Quinoa Salad with fresh fruits - Really odd combination in my opinion, however, the quinoa salad alone by itself is actually pretty good, i think it was season with sesame oil to bring out the umami flavors mushroom with truffle cracker - odd mix with tea. the mushroom truffle cracker is decent but not very suitable in this setting, the mushrooms were a little too wet. Creamy hazelnut cup? - This was pretty good, i would say this sweet dish separates itself from others, the texture was really smooth and creamy. Imagine eating the inside of a Ferrero Rocher. The cup holding it was well made as well and not flaky at all Fruit yogurt? - Nothing special here, i think they were going for the Asian clientele of it not being overly sweet. But in reality just taste like a fruit yogurt mango pineapple cheesecake - this really stood out, Imagine outside being like a cheesecake and inside having a texture of biting into a sorbet. Really unique and enjoyable.

Hy Team $38 What you get here is 6 savories dishes, scone, and 4 house made sweets pretty much the same with the above with addition of the following Taco with pork belly - really odd if you think about it, pork belly is overly fatty and the tortilla is soft and soggy, the veggies inside were overpowering and takes over the taste of the pork belly. Green Tea bread? with salmon - again really odd experience. the bread itself is good but combined with salmon? just odd Egg salad bread- exactly how it sounds... but toasted. so imagine buying the egg salad bread from 7-11 and toasting it. That's what you get. Macaroon- its really well made and the filling inside is match which gives it a blend of slight bitterness and sweetness of the pastry.

Tokyo $18 Grilled Chicken with ponzu sauce, poached egg on top of wild rice and some greens. taste really "homecooked" nothing really stood out. The only thing that made it somewhat interesting for me was the poached egg. but again that just taste like poached egg.

Seoul $18 Slow cooked pork belly, kimchi, poached egg on top of wild rice and some greens. pork belly was said to be slow cooked, but the flavors aren't fully simmered into the meat itself. only the outer layer was marinated. Kimchi wasn't overly sour, so thats a plus when eating with the pouched egg. But again nothing really stood out

Rose Garden Tea $7.50 (included in the hytea) black tea with mango rose petals, and apricot - its is a mix of sour, and bitter taste, with a aftertaste of rose

Earl Grey Darjeeling $7.50 (included in the hytea) - feel like it was pre-brewed and poured into the teapot. Super bitter.

Service here, is literary awkward, servers didn't refill the tea when asked they were still standing there talking to each other.

TLDR; Awkward decoration, poor service, poor initiation, mediocre savory food. Pretty good sweets/pastry. Chef makes great pastry and has potential to become big but this place is really hindering the chef to reach that potential.

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BEWARE. Hy Tea deletes reviews. They have already deleted three ‘1 star reviews’ from my party. 

We booked a group reservation for a surprise 30th birthday at Hy Tea, on May 19, for June 11th at 1pm (3 weeks notice.) My friend phoned the restaurant to make the reservation, confirmed the date and time, and was sent a text confirmation.

I informed the lady at the front that we had a reservation. She replied “No, because there is a baby shower. We are full.” She then proceeded behind the bar to look at her iPad. After a while, I walked over to check, and she shows me that the reservation on OpenTable is cancelled. I said, that we did not reserve through open table, we phoned directly to the restaurant. She insisted that WE “cancelled on Thursday.” I replied that is not possible, as we did not book through OpenTable, we wouldn’t cancel through them. She then showed me her iPad, with our cancelled reservation, along with three other reservations for Saturday, who all (conveniently decided on Thursday) to cancel their Saturday reservations as well. I asked her, what are the odds that each one of these separate reservations, collectively decided, on the same day, to cancel their Saturday reservation, versus the restaurant cancelling them all, in favour for this event?

She did not comment.

She then directed the blame onto OpenTable. Claiming they ALWAYS have issues with OpenTable. I have personally been using OpenTable for all my reservations, for years, before the Pandemic, and have never had an issue with it. I understand that these websites are not perfect. But in this situation, where a number of different parties, who all booked at different times, all cancelled on the same day, seems rather opportune. I’m all for the ‘stars aligning’ but these stars seem too convenient. (Side note: even IF what she said was remotely true, that they ALWAYS have problems with OpenTable, why as a business, would you willingly keep using a system that hinders your business?) It is a flawed, and desperate blame shifting excuse.

We were offered a 10% discount because of “OpenTable’s problem.” Saying that they can put a table outside the building in the falling pollen. 
I asked about the food, She said “ya ya, of course we have food!” I asked her if they have fresh food, or are we just getting leftovers from their event. She replied to my fresh food question with, “…We can.” RED FLAG That is not a reassuring reply at all. “We can” implies that we were going to give you leftover food, but since you requested fresh stuff, I guess we can do that too (Or pretend to.) I want to point out that if they had taken our phone reservation, and put it into OpenTable themselves, then they are admitting it was them that cancelled the reservations.
 Had we received any notice of cancellation, we could have spared the celebrant and out of town visitors the trip over there, and chose something else instead.

Hy Tea did not take accountability for their mistakes. Instead, choosing to direct the blame at us, then at OpenTable.

To anyone thinking about trying this establishment, I suggest you take your hard earned money and spend it at one of the other, more professional, Afternoon Tea experiences in Vancouver, such as: Notch8, Secret Garden, or Neverland tea salon. All of which we have frequented numerous times, without issue. To Hy Tea, please do not delete this review. I really don’t want to have to repost again. Be honest and take accountability for your mistakes. We are open to rectify...

This place is NOT good, NOT worth of going.

This is is Chinese owned and it's a shame that the way this chinese owner runs their business. I bought an online coupon deal for 4 at the price of $65.50 (for the value of $130). When we sat down, they waitress mentioned that the coupon are only valid with prior arrangements which we were not aware of. After she check with the owner if they could still honour us the usage as there was only 1 other tables at the time during our dining.

The waitress come back and told us that No we can't use it because many item on the coupon deal requires a lot of time to prepare and that they are not prepare to do so, we've asked them which items was it and we agree to take those items out of the deal if substitute was available and if not we can just take those items out. We just want to use our coupon that was purchase and it's tough to be dining out during this COVID sensitive time.

After we compare all the items in that coupon deal, every single item was listed on their regular menu that was given to us when we sat down. Really there is nothing that they need to prepare because EVERYTHING we ate there was pre-made and bought. The donuts were from Mellow, the meatballs were from Costco, the Mushroom Soup taste like Campbell soups.

Waitress then come back to us once again and said they can make an exception and allow us to use it, we appreciated that they were able to flexible for us; however there were conditions!

1. we must give 18% tips
2. we must order on top of the coupon deal the same amount of value, which is +$68!

Hence; what happen to "not having enough time to prepare" ???

Now, the whole point of us going there was because we found this deal and wanted to give this place a try and to support local business.

It took us 45 minutes to be able and submit our orders. The entire dining experience took 4 hours! The waitress was Missing in Action for 80% of our dinning duration. We had to bring our own food from the kitchen counter to our table, because she was behind the bar tucked away and could not see that the food was ready to be serve!

It took her 30 minutes to get us the bill at the end (with a total of 3 tables on the floor). She calculated my coupon deal value on top of the total we spend and insisted us to give 18% tips for everything.

The service was totally not worth the amount of tips, and the way it was dealt and explain is absolutely horrible!

You can create your own high tea experience way better at home with buying all those sweets and food at these vendors i...