Kwong Chow Congee & Noodle House — Restaurant in Vancouver

So first time experience and we chose this place because of the ratings! So my father in law is in town for Canada day since it's raining we decided some hot soup was just what we needed. We sat down and the waitress brought us tea and menus. We ordered wonton soup, sweet snd sour pork and chicken chow mein to share. We got our soup first which was fine to start with. She refilled our tea which was great. Then she brought our sweet and sour pork alone. So we waited and as it was pretty chilly in the restaurant after 10 minutes we were getting annoyed not having our main part of the meal all together. So my husband go up to ask. The waitress brought it right out. No tea refills for the rest of the meal. Half our main course was luke warm at best by then. We had finished our meal and waited, waited, waited as the servers walked by and by again and by again looking right at us and our table. There were only 3 other tables with customers in the restaurant and as someone who's worked in the industry for almost a decade with that volume including takeout orders. You can't be that busy you can't refill tea, ask about water, up sell, or maybe have a cheque ready to leave at the table. So i figured maybe you have to go up yourself? As we were about to get up to pay, my father in law got up and insisted on paying the bill before he went outside to smoke. Shortly after that the waitress walked past my husband and up to me and said that the bill was paid but my father in law didn't leave a tip and handed me the receipt and bill holder!!! I was speechless and my husband was outraged! We didn't get a second refill on tea or offer of any other beverage, there was no quality check, we had to ask and follow up on half our meal (still don't know if going up to ask for the bill is the norm for this place but giving benefit of the doubt it is..?) If my father in law didn't feel the meal or service deserved a tip is HIS discretion. As a server you should never assume a tip or any amount! And if there is no tip given maybe that's your cue to look at and think about the quality of service or food you served! The food by the way was OK really nothing great and other restaurants we've been to (which have been much busier) have quality checked with smiles and had endless tea refills. One more with the main meal would have been nice. Coming over to mention the fact that my father in law didn't leave a tip is completely unprofessional though. Later when we got into the car and we told him about it. He said the only options for tips were 15% and up. He didn't want to tip the service but said he would've tipped 10% for the kitchen he just didn't have change and didn't think he should be forced to tip for service he didn't feel deserved it. Needless to say we won't be back and we'll all be telling all our friends about our...

November 2024: ordered on their website (thru zomi) for takeout. Showed up ten minutes later and then waited another 40 mins (when we showed up we were told “just a second”, and then “it’s coming now” twenty minutes later” and then to wait another 20 holy fack). Not sure if zomi is monitored or not slot gets automatically pushed but it was really unpleasant to see people who came in and sat down afterwards getting served. We were so hungry so we added Chinese donuts we could eat in the car on the teeny minute drive home. They charged us the $4 for it. If it were me I would have comp’d it.

While waiting it was annoying to be asked by three separate people how many seats we needed or what we wanted to order (zero communication with each other), or what we had ordered. To be pestered with questions and to reexplain that require us to use energy when we are that hungry made the experience so much more frustrating.

Saw another table get up to ask again for takeout containers they previously asked for but which the waiting staff forgot to bring them. They just wanted to pack up and get going.

September 2024:

Really good and well balanced congee. All my visits here have been positive/pleasant. Staff are pleasant and speak softly rather than obnoxiously. We’ve come here a lot and haven’t had one negative experience yet. Menu has almost everything you can imagine and every comfort food in your repertoire. YT ppl will be YT ppl and order innocuously vanilla food like sweet and sour pork so there’s sth for them too.

My mom said one time she was here they were barely served and gave up asking multiple times for tea refills. There was a failure in service so she didn’t tip (she normally tips generously). Apparently they chased her out the door. Unusual compared to my experience so maybe this behaviour has been rectified but this behaviour should not happen. Tips are not an...

We went to Kwong Chou (my 5th visit) on Saturday October 30 right when they opened at 11am hoping to grab some quick congee with Chinese doughnuts. When we came we were the 3rd group who just arrived. It took them a while to come get our order, which we understood as they're short staffed. After 15 mins sitting down they took our order and we waited for about 20 mins before getting our congee. No Chinese doughnuts or drink being served and we kept asking about it but they didn't deliver despite they served other customers who came much later than us (also Chinese doughnuts order). Chinese doughnuts is the most basic order at any of the HK restaurants and should not take an hour to deliver. Finally after we were like 75% done with our congee the doughnuts came but not the drink, which was horlick (also a very basic order). We saw the waitress walking back and forth multiple times serving drinks to the other tables who came like an hour after us, so we asked them twice and the second time the lady was telling us very rudely that they're so busy. We didn't get the horlick. And the cashier refused to discount our bill for an order we did not get. No apology was being said as well. We understand that it's a hard time with a lot of restaurants as they are very short staffed and have to accommodate busy crowds. But to not even listen to the customers, and not serving our order regardless of how small the order is and being rude when we were asking politely is totally unacceptable. From now on I will absolutely never again visit this place. There are a lot of other good Chinese restaurants with more decent service. I'm not expecting to be treated like a queen in a Chinese restaurant but as a customer I still deserve to get my order properly and be respected as a...