J. Wong's Thai & Chinese Bistro — Restaurant in Salt Lake City

My friend and I called ahead for takeout, but the hostess who answered the phone had absolutely no idea how to run their point of sale system (she said it was her first day). So we said we'd just walk over.

When we got there, there were no managers, no servers, nobody in sight to offer her help, NO ONE. She even tried to answer the phone and tried to put the people on hold, but inadvertently hung up on them because, she hadn't been trained to use their phone system, either! After she attempted for 20 minutes to enter in the items we ordered, but flubbed it, she said she was going to look for someone who could help us. And so, we waited ... for an additional 20 minutes.

When she finally came back, she asked us if the manager had helped us yet, and when we said they hadn't, she looked utterly confused so we all waited for him for another 12 minutes to finally stroll over, yelling towards the back of the restaurant about some BOH in-joke BS, then casually explain that his hostess was "new", and offer a requisite banal apology.

An hour after we arrived: The manager took our order, didn't explain any of the key presses to his new employee, and then left her to cash us out, but she got that wrong, too because, again, she hasn't been trained how to use the freakin' POS system! So we waited another 20+ minutes for him to come back again! When he finally comes by to cash us out, I write out the tip for her, which was generous, as I didn't want her to be discouraged by this experience, and the manager says, in front of me, my friend, and the lobby filled with customers that aren't being seated because they're waiting to even get to the host stand, "You just got a BOMB ASS TIP!" because, he's a professional, and he should know.

Our food was quickly prepared ... too quickly ... 10 minutes, maybe? When we got back to my place to eat our food, we notice that the tickets stapled to the bags not only didn't have the right names on them, they didn't list the correct items either! When we called to explain the situation, we were hung up on because, the new hostess and their phone system don't mix, as we previously observed.

When we get back there, we explain the situation to the manager, who then proceeds to open up the bags, which are all still stapled up, right there at the front door, he takes out the still full containers, digs into the contents of them, and then announces that all of the food is ours, that it was all mislabeled, and that those guys back in the kitchen don't know what they're doing at all ... complete with an eyeroll.

Over an hour to make an order, and over another hour before we even got to eat it, and all he offered us was some cream cheese wontons ... All of the food we'd ordered, which consisted of rice noodle dishes, was glue by the time we got back, but because we'd dropped $50+ on it all, we had to reheat/rehydrate it all on the stove, which took another 45 minutes. I was so ravenous that I'd have eaten it all if it'd fallen on the ground on the way to the car ...

What kind of manager makes a newbie start on a Friday night, in the middle of downtown? Who throws her out to fend for herself without any training? Who makes customers wait for nearly a half an hour when there's a problem? Who makes crass statements to customers, in front of employees and other customers? What kind of manager does all of this and then blames his employees for their incompetence?

A BAD Manager.

"If you hated it so much, why did you give it two stars?" That's easy, this place would actually be ok if it had better management. The decor is nice-ish, the food, while we did have to reassemble it ourselves, was actually really tasty for Asian Fusion, the ambient lighting is perfect for a first date; warm and glowing. And yet, this place is practically empty on a Friday night, which must happen often because, the cat who runs it likes to (not) train the new person, who has the most important job in the...

Update:

Within two hours of leaving this review I received a phone call from Mr. Wong, the owner. He was extremely courteous and kind. He explained more details about the website, his staff, delivery, and looking into complaints and it was very helpful. When multiple things go wrong and you don't feel that you're getting the right customer service it is easy to get very upset and discouraged. The way that my complaint was handled in such a timely manner and with the sincere kindness from Mr. Wong was completely unexpected and made all the difference in the world. Thank you.

I had a horrendous experience with my order today. I called to place a delivery and was assured that it was not too late to order. I hopped onto the website, but when I tried to complete the order the website kept giving an error message stating the expire date on my card was past even though it doesn't expire until 2018. So I called to place my order and at the end of the order I was put on hold. While on hold the phone disconnected. When I called back, I had to place the order all over again. The delivery driver must not have been using a GPS navigation system because they got lost, so when I received my food it was luke warm. The delivery driver seemed upset with me for not being able to find my house and he ripped off the ticket abruptly before storming away. Not only this, but it was missing the rice and the soup was not what I asked for. When I called them to let them know, the man on the phone was extremely rude. He told me the soup was one of three options for lunch, which I wasn't told when placing the order nor did it show that on the website. When I told him the rice was missing, he first argued with me saying that it was in there even though I had all the food in front of me but there was no fried rice. Then he asked me, "well, did you ask for rice?" Yes, I asked for it. Multiple times actually, and it is even on the ticket. Then he was even more rude by complaining about the timing of when my order was placed, but if I wasn't put on hold so much, if I didn't have to repeat the order, and if the website wasn't having problems, then the order wouldn't have taken 30 minutes to complete. I didn't call them expecting them to deliver rice, especially because they just closed. I've worked in the restaurant and delivery business before. But what drove me to actually leave a review was that there wasn't even an apology for THEIR mistake or an attempt to give good customer service. I will never waste my money...

My first time at J. Wong's was a bit of a disappointment considering when I walked in to pick up my carry out order the place looked really nice and had "Best of Salt Lake City" awards all over the walls. The chicken in my General Tso's Chicken had a small puddle of sauce in the bottom of the box but was only enough to cover a few of the chicken chunks leaving the majority of the chicken with no sauce. The sauce had a very sweet citrus taste with no spice. Almost like they had run out of General Tso's sauce and tried to use orange chicken sauce with some lemon and soy sauce added to it. Most of the chunks of chicken were very good quality and would have tasted great had they had a spicy general Tso's sauce on them but a few of the chunks I had to chew forever and finally had to spit out because it turned out to be grisle​. My order came with ham fried rice but when I opened the box it was in I thought it was plane white rice at first and only after dumping it out of the box into a bowl and digging through it did I discover a grand total 4 teeny tiny pea sized cubes of ham and a few small onion chips. The cream cheese wontons were half the size of the ones at Panda Express and had no flavor to the wonton at all. Was like they had wrapped the cream cheese in thin cardboard and fried it. The cream cheese filling was very good though. Definitely wouldn't waste my money here again. I've eaten Chinese food all over the country and if this is the best Salt Lake City has to offer then there is a huge opportunity for someone to open a Chinese restaurant here and easily take their title as Best in Salt Lake! That's...