Ann's Congee — Restaurant in Vaughan

If you have never eaten here before first of all I highly recommend it. We order often for large family gatherings and my fam luvs when I order from Ann's. Personally im ordering here weekly thru Ubereats bc its too far from my work but its worth getting larger dishes so it covers 2 to 3 meals for me. Very accommodating to me as I request to separate the sauce from the noodles.

Ok so the location is a small takeout place. Hole in wall kind of gem. There are few tables but no one really eats there. Besides Ann there is sometimes a young lady to help but the kitchen has 2 hard working talented chefs. Quality is consistent using fresh ingredients. Are they perfect? Of course not. We have had 2 occasions out of 20 times where had one dish be off out of 8 to 10 dish orders. Forgiveable. They do a good amount of volume for the community and can get quite busy. These are probably the times people feel that Ann is rude. About Ann. She is an immigrant and her English is pretty good but not perfect so there can be some frustration there. On the phone with her bc of the noise or her phone I find she can misunderstand sometimes. I am a Canadian born Korean guy btw and I have many Chinese friends so I think I have an easier time understanding her than some other people and even I have to speak extra clear sometimes. All good. Just a little patience is needed. Also, she is very straight forward so it can come across as rude (she can have an aggressive tone). In fact when I first started going I felt like she was rude too but usually I realized I was calling during her peak hours. If she can fit you in she will try but if she cant she will bluntly say so. To sum up you have to be light hearted and not take her sooo seriously. You can make jokes with her, she does laugh and smile. This outfit works hard to provide consistently good Chinese food. We are lucky to have her in our area otherwise you have to go further to get this quality like East Richmond Hill or Markham. You get the option of larger dishes like some rice dishes and noodles like Chow Mein which I highly recommend amongst many other dishes. I honestly dont mind her rude talk anymore. Its like a rite of passage. Soup Kitchen in Seinfeld. I will always buy my Chinese takeout at Anns Congee! Thank you Ann and chefs!

Tips: order early and know what you want especially during holidays andbbusy hours or you may be disappointed Dont take it so seriously if u feel she is rude. Its not personal. She is hard working and is really nice when she has a moment so be kind, it will pay off one day. Take it as a badge of honour if she is rude to you. To me she is a an awesome character and characters make our lives more interesting...

Please read the reviews before you order -

I have had take out for years from this place - and each time the owner Anne- was rude. Food is mediocre and they do not honor allergy requests.

After years of not going back we decided to try this again, and the level of disrespect to customers was appalling.

I will confirm that all the negative reviews about Anne's service is true and there are over 100 on her google page, and none of them are responded to from the owner. Instead of me repeating them please read for yourself.

I leave it to you to judge if this business owner deserves any business as she does not care about the community nor give any basic common curtesy when asking basic questions regarding the menu.

Anne is aware of this review, as I reached out to her on the day of the incident (July 2024) by phone, after my daughter had picked up the food. She was clear that she (Anne) can be rude, and stated she is in the CASH business and she believed she had the right to look inside a purse to see CASH and demand it over any other payment method. Anne was clear that she does not like the community. Anne stated she does not respect woman and prefers to have men come to pick up and pay. Her statements are not appropriate to include, but she does not respect anyone.

I do not like to write negative reviews, but in this case, after another friend confirmed the same, only a few days later, it was time that Anne have a better understanding of the importance of customer appreciation and standard business practice and respect to the community that engages with her. Maybe this review will encourage someone to skip the order from Annes and order from anywhere else !!!!

Note that even the 5 star reviews on the food state Anne is rude and offers zero friendly service ever

Lets remember the food industry is hospitality and Anne must have missed this course. She offers everything you don't want to do when running a restaurant.

I hope that Anne reads this and looks to change her attitude, and offers an apology to all the people who experienced being treated badly, when all they wanted was just to eat Chinese Food.

At the time of writing Anne had never called me back to apology for the way she treated myself...

A lot of people routinely compare this place to Cynthia's and Szechuan and while I think they all belong to the upper-middle echelons of Chinese Food restaurants, Szechuan still comes out on top (for me). I would tie Ann's and Cynthia's for second place- both are great and get my business more than Szechuan, merely due to proximity. Despite living a minute away, I only just learned of Ann's a couple months ago, but have since made it a regular staple of my Westernized Chinese Food Outings (WCFO's). I've sampled most of the dishes and they're all great for the most part. You can really tell everything is freshly made by the taste (in case the constantly erupting jet engine in the back wasn't indication enough) and the ingredients seem to be of high quality. The one gripe I've got is this: if I'm already going for some WCF (Westernized Chinese Food), I want the flavour to be overpowering... lots of salt, spice, etc. Cynthia's and Szechuan routinely hit those notes, but Ann's can be a bit-- only relatively speaking-- bland at times. Most of the time. But that's okay and it probably serves me better in the long run as I don't find myself waking up four times throughout the night just to hydrate afterwards as I do after consuming WCF from the other joints. While I've had several truly fantastic WCF dishes from Ann's over the past few months, I never take away that cheap "WOW" feeling as I do after having grub from the other two spots, which consistently leave me knowing what I just scarfed down. The feeling/thought process after Ann's is "okay, I'm full, but I'm not sure off what"- I mean that in the sense that it falls under fairly pedestrian tasting on the WCF spectrum. Again, it's a good-- even great-- example of WCF, but is also sort of forgettable to the palette. As crass as it sounds, I want to be able to still taste the food I downed two hours ago via my burps- they can serve as nice little souvenirs once the weight of life has settled back in after a binge-eating experience which only restaurants such as this can accommodate. Blah, blah, blah. I could go on and on and go as deep as dish-by-dish comparisons from each restaurant, but I won't bore you guys as I'm sure you've got other mediocre...