Nine Ting - Chinatown — Restaurant in Philadelphia

I used to frequent this place a few years ago for the novelty experience and the friendly staff. My visit a few weeks ago was very much different from what I usually experienced at Nine Ting. The food was the same, as it never changes, and flavors are what you make it since you have to cook it yourself, make your own sauces, and bring your own bottles. What changed for the worse, however, was the staff. I visited with three friends for a birthday dinner and while the usual barbeque/hot pot experience was nice (if a little old at this point), our waitress left much to be desired. As a college student, I've worked my fair share of customer service positions so I never hold it against a worker for not being smiley or peppy. But our waitress was boardering on rude. We saw her three times during the entire night. Once, when she took the order. Again, when she took refills on the raw food. And lastly, when she gave us the check. She never came around for anything else we may have needed like drink refills, plates, napkins, anything. We weren't too concerned because other, friendlier staff, helped us when we needed it but in the multitude of times I had visited this place I had never been stuck with such an inattentive waitress. When she first took our order, most of us requested barbeque and one person got the hot pot. She let us know that if we chose to share all of our meals with each other that we would all be charged for both hot pot and barbeque. Makes sense! The whole night, the people who ordered either hot pot or barbeque stuck to their respective cuisines. At one point, however, the person with the hot pot wanted to share some mushrooms with me, and I politely accepted. She took a plate and placed a small share of mushrooms on it and handed it to me. The person next to me nibbled on the mushrooms a bit and left it alone and so did I. When we saw our waitress for the second time that night, she informed us that she would have to charge for the shared plate. We didn't kick up a fuss because we were already informed about this. What we didn't expect was that everyone at the table was charged for sharing all of our food even though the only instance of shared food was a tiny plate with a few mushrooms on it that went unfinished. The charges were inconsequential as it only added about $15 to our bill, but we all felt as if we were being targeted for rather unsavory business practices which no one should have to stand for. Our inattentive waitress made it seem like we would all be charged if we were going around sharing both the barbeque and hot pot with everyone at the table. I was perfectly fine with paying a charge for the bit that was handed to me but the fact that she tried to charge our entire table was unfair and even more rude than her just being a bad waitress. I brought my concerns to the front desk and, with no exaggeration, four members of the staff plus the waitress tried to argue with me to justify why we were all charged extra. One staff member even pulled up the security feed to prove that we were all sharing and thus needed to be charged and I let him because I knew what he would see when he pulled up the feed: one plate with a small serving of mushrooms that was left practically untouched. Because of the feed, he adjusted the bill to where I was only charged the fee, which is what we were led to believe would happen in the first place. I and my friends are excellent tippers and considerate patrons. We don't make messes and we treat restaurant staff with respect. There was no reason for this establishment to target us for secret upcharges or whatever it is that they were trying to pull. Not only did they lose out on a very generous tip, but they have permanently lost four regular patrons who are better off visiting a place that treat their customers like people and not potential...

UNPROFESSIONAL, ILLEGAL, WAITERS/OWNERS BULLY CUSTOMERS INTO LEAVING MORE TIP, NOT EDIBLE. Came here last night for my grandmothers birthday dinner. She heard that you get a free meal if it's your birthday so she insisted we come here even though my siblings and I had no interest (we know it's not good having been here when they first opened, and from word of mouth we know it hasn't gotten any better). The kind of customers this place attracts are usually people who are looking "all-you-can-eat" because it's the only place in Chinatown that offers this. But if you're looking for quality, spend more and go to Hippot Shabu Shabu at 10th and Arch. I arrived a few minutes late, right after my family members had placed their orders. The waiter informed me that they had ordered enough but I still wanted to add some more vegetarian options. As soon as I asked if I could add more, the waiter told/yelled at me no and I should wait until we finish what we ordered first before ordering more. I quickly shot back, "so I can't eat??" he continued to go back and forth with me until he finally gave in and said "k, fine, go ahead", he stormed off and a waitress took my order. The food comes out, the broth is bland, the ramen noodles looked and tasted like plastic/cardboard, the fried tofu was not tofu at all just a fried empty hole. Nothing was good. We barely finished what we ordered and did not order any more because it was not edible. The check comes, my grandmother gives them her ID to confirm her birthday. My grandmother also insists on treating us. She pays cash. Gets her change and leaves the rest as tip. The waiters and waitresses stand in the corner and laugh and giggle the entire time you are eating but I guess they also watch to see how much tip you are leaving because when got up to leave, the waitress comes over and tells us we did not leave enough and bully us into leaving more.... yes you read that right. She demanded we leave her more money. After going back and forth with her a little and then feeling bad that this place puts their employees in a position that they have to ask for more money, we decide to give her a fee more dollars. This is sad and disgusting!! It's unprofessional and SUPER uncomfortable. If anything, do not support a place that does this!!! The waitress also continued to argue with me (her argument seemed very rehearsed) and hovered over my grandmother who was scrambling for change to give her! I had to tell the waitress to stop arguing with me because we are giving her more money! What is the point of continuing if you see us giving you more than you deserve?? And for god's sake, you know it's her birthday and Mother's Day was just the day before!! Unbelievable and seriously despicable. There are so many better places to eat in Chinatown PLEASE AVOID THIS PLACE AT ALL COSTS. My family owns businesses in the area and I will be telling all of our family, friends, employees, and clients to go elsewhere. Bad service, rude staff, food not edible, force you to leave more money. Don’t say I...

I very seldom leave negative reviews, preferring to promote than detract from hardworking restaurants. However, my group's experience at Nine Ting was both disappointing and frustrating. They openly advertised a birthday promotion where the birthday person's meal was free, and so our friend wanted to go, given that she both loves Korean and is short on cash. We showed up with 7 people total, and once we were seated and about to order, mentioned the promotion to the waitress and offered her our friend's ID as proof. She shook us off and just said "later", refusing to look at the ID being held out to her. Despite there being signs on the wall advertising the correct way to eat Korean BBQ (i.e) with lettuce cups, we had to ask our server multiple times bring the lettuce, after we got our food. They treated the request as annoying and unusual, and made us repeat ourselves several times. "You want lettuce?? (x3)". Requests for a side of rice were treated similarly. They also made zero mention of the condiment/sauce bar, another critical part of the meal, which we only discovered when a member of our party went to the restroom and passed it. Despite this we enjoyed our food. They brought the bill once our table was clean, (we hadn't asked, which is fine) and we noticed that the birthday promotion hadn't been applied. We mentioned this (nicely) to our server, and once again offered her the ID, expecting it to be no issue. We were very surprised when they told us that we would have had to give them the ID before the bill, and we now could not get the promotion because "they had already printed the bill". We tried (again, nicely) to ask them to simply void and re-print it, minus the birthday girl's meal, and they refused outright. For the first time in my life, I asked for a manager and explained the situation. He first said no, then went away for several minutes and came back with a voucher for another free meal (with multiple stipulations including that there had to be at least 3 other people paying), tucked into our original bill. At this point we simply said no. We had tried to share the information about the birthday, been rebuffed, and had never asked for the bill in the first place, negating their second point that we should have tried again. It became extremely clear that this was how they do business, and had made it difficult to apply the promotion on purpose, expecting people to simply take the voucher and leave, rather than arguing. We stood firm through their excuses that "the bill was already in the system" and explained that they were going to void it, and re-charge. We finally got the correct bill (still over 200), paid, (tipped) and left. Extremely disappointing experience. I don't expect people to speak perfect English, or cater to obnoxious, over the top customer demands, but was taken aback by how poorly and aggressively we were treated by both staff and management. We all love hotpot, and Korean BBQ, but will definitely choose one of the other places in town for our...