Dastaan Modern Indian Cafe and Bistro — Restaurant in White Rock

Hands down the worst dining experience I've had in my life.

A group of 9 of us got together to celebrate a friend's 30th birthday at what was her favourite restaurant. It was the first time we'd all gotten together for dinner since Covid so we were all extremely happy to see each other and all chatting outwardly.

After waiting over half an hour to get served, we were met at our table by Jan, the owner. She proceeded to loudly announce to our table (the whole restaurant) that some of our table would he refused alcohol with our service, specifically pointing out one of the couples we were dining with. Our friends had driven out from Chilliwack to make dinner and were publicly shamed for "being drunk and slurring" even though neither had drank all evening. Jan refused to take their word for that, continuing to accuse them of being intoxicated in front of a packed restaurant. It was only until the rest of our table strongly backed them up that she let it go, yet didn't even muster an apology to either of our friends, one of whom was left humiliated in tears. Ironically, we had 3 designated drivers and a pregnant woman at the table, and yet we were profiled as drunk and belligerent.

We decided to stay and have dinner, even though the whole table felt incredibly uncomfortable and embarrassed that we'd been called out for simply enjoying ourselves. The food was good, their menu is great for gluten free food. We tried to move past it but the woman who's birthday it was, was extremely upset and it really impacted our experience.

Upon paying for our bills, our friends, who were publicly humiliated, commented that the ownership made no attempts to rectify their actions. They weren't offered a discount or even a drink as an olive branch, even after our table put over $1000 into the establishment. Jans response was that it wasn't up to her to make guests feel welcome and she was just trying to run a business. She had no empathy, no sympathy and went to the point of blaming our friends for the situation because "we were loud" We were then told that we weren't welcome in the restaurant again.

My partner has previously worked in the service industry in Vancouver in fine dining restaurants and she has never experienced such horrendous management in her life. She was left disgusted and floored at how disrespectful a business owner could be to a regular group of diners. We eat out numerous times a month and we've never had an experience like this in our lives.

It's clear Jan would rather have her diners be suits and ties over young professionals wanting to have great food and great times with friends. I will be telling everyone I know not to waste their money on such a horrible woman. I hope she's happy she ruined a wonderful person's 30th birthday at expense of owning her own mistakes.

EDIT; The response from ownership is disingenuous and sums up the lack of accountability to her own behaviour. Nothing of what she has said in the response happened. Beyond flabbergasted at the cognitive dissonance in...

I really wanted this to be a great review. We’d been waiting for months to finally have an opportunity to make it out to white rock to go to this gluten friendly restaurant. We went on a weekend for an early dinner and it wasn’t busy. We thought we just had great timing.

The first table we were seated at was terrible, there was barely 2 inches of knee room because it was a fire table with propane underneath (which we were not using). We continuously hit our knees and when we sat back we were so far apart we could barely have a conversation. The only other available table on the patio had this same table so we waited for the one next to us to clear and expressed our desire to move. It took the waitress at least 20 mins to clear the table for us (there were only 3 tables of people at the restaurant. It was not busy by any means).

The tortilla was dry, crumbly, and stale, the taco itself was filled with dry, stale, bagged cabbage with no sauce on it. There were also tasteless slimy “pickled” red onions on top of the taco. The fish itself was incredible dry.

We stopped eating and when the waitress came to check on our first few bites we told her they were very dry and didn’t taste very good. She offered to bring some chipotle mayo. We agreed and tried that on it. It was disgusting. Between us we started with 6 tacos and were barely able to eat two of them.

When the waitress returned, we asked for the bill, she never offered to bring us a take-out container for the remaining 4 tacos (not that we would want it). She did, however, proceed to bring us the full bill including the two taco orders. She didn’t offer to discount it or credit the bill even though we hardly ate any of the meal.

We are out over $60 for the most disgusting meal I’ve ever had. I also cannot believe, after expressing our concern, trying again, and still being unsatisfied, that she charged us the full bill.

I’m incredibly disappointed and would definitely...

My friend and I brought our children to Jan’s because I am celiac. I have eaten here before with my children and my husband and had a great time. This last time was awful. I have to say I have never felt so uncomfortable in my life. Our server was awful. She made many passive aggressive comments to us about our smaller children. It was the worst way to end a great day. I mentioned to the server I was celiac as we were ordering she went yea yea yea. Rolled her eyes when I asked if something was safe and made me feel like I was silly for asking. We ended up asking for crayons and paper because the kids were antsy, they quieted down right away once they got them. The serve went to the table next to us and went would you like to sit outside because of the signals to our table That table went no it’s ok. Then asks again and that table moves outside. The served closed the door and then proceeds to point to us (not discreetly) and I can only assume say something about how unruley our children were. They weren’t. they stayed at the table but they are all aged 1-6 so we’re talking. So kids. It was a Wednesday so wine was half off, my friend and I split a bottle. The server as I was paying was said oh he’s quiet a handful (referring to the baby) who was silent once he got his food and said I would need to drink too to deal with that. It was I guess suppose to be a joke but it was very insulting. She didn’t come check on us and we did have to wait a long time to just pay our bill. It was very uncomfortable. There were more comments but those are the ones that stuck with me. Our servers name was Melissa. It was honestly the worst service I’ve ever had. We just wanted to have a nice dinner with our children. 2 moms doing their best and we both came out feeling like absolute...