Ma's Restaurant — Restaurant in San Jose

WARNING: MA'S IS NOT HALAL

On December 2, 2017, my friends and I decided to go to Ma's Restaurant for lunch. Given that Ma's has been a recent cause for controversy in the community, specifically with regards to whether or not they serve halal meat, we sought to get clarity on the matter. Note that in times past there had been attempts by two other friends (each on separate occasions) to get to the bottom of this, but the results were always inconclusive.

Upon entering the restaurant, one friend (let's call him Muhammad) went straight to one of the waiters - Kevin - and very directly brought up the aforementioned concerns in the community. It's worthy to note that Muhammad has been a loyal patron of this restaurant and has a great rapport with many of the servers (Kevin and Steven being two of them). Kevin ensured our entire group that they are absolutely 100% halal, and proudly boasted that they are the only purely halal restaurant in the Bay area for 28 years. Reassured by his unequivocal guarantee, we entered the restaurant and found ourselves a table. We then proceeded to order the following dishes, making sure to confirm for a second time that all of the meat we ordered was absolutely and unmistakably halal: sweet and sour soup, szechaun beef, szechuan chicken, chicken chow mein and chicken fried rice.

While exchanging pleasantries with Kevin, we discovered that the owner of Ma's was seated at a table across the room from us. We found it a bit peculiar to find bottles of wine at their table, even though Ma's has a strict non-alcoholic menu. During our meal, we asked a different waiter if we could speak with the owner. Failing this, we tried to flag one of them down multiple times while they were passing our table, but our attempts were deliberately ignored. Eventually, with enough persistence, we were able to get the attention of one of the co-owners, Su.

She came over to our table and we warmly greeted her, complimented her on the food and told her that we are regulars at the restaurant. We then brought up concerns that had been floating around amongst the community doubting whether their meat was indeed halal. At this point, Su turned to all of us and admitted that she does not want to lie to us. Then, to everyone's surprise, she told us that due to the volume of food that Ma's goes through weekly, it is sometimes difficult to procure the necessary supply of halal meat, and in such circumstances, they order regular, non-zabiha meat. Specifically, she mentioned the following: (1) lamb is always halal (2) chicken is halal 80-90% of the time (3) beef is usually not halal.

We explained to her that as Muslims, being "mostly halal" doesn't cut it, but we thanked her for her honesty in the matter. Another owner came by and asked what all the commotion was about. We told him about the rumours surrounding their meats supply. Even more surprisingly, he proceeded to deny everything, and claimed that their meat is 100% halal always. We then pointed out that his co-owner, Su, just directly admitted that their meat supply is not always halal. He was baffled, and turned to her and said something in Mandarin. Realizing that the gig was up, he conceded and left the table.

Thereafter, the waiters also acknowledged that their meat is not always halal, but that they "try their best." Specifically, Kevin, who was adamant when we entered the restaurant that their meat is 100% halal all the time with no exceptions, conceded that in fact it is not always halal.

From the behaviour we have seen from this encounter and prior attempts, it seems that Ma's had deliberately trained their staff to lie about their meat being 100% halal all the time, and were it not for the honesty of Su, would have kept up the charade indefinitely. In light of today's discovery, I feel it incumbent on all of us to inform the broader Muslim community of their unlawfulness, fraud and...

Just had the most horrible service of my life at Ma's Restaurant!! We used to like their food but after this sort of service I highly suggest you go spend your money somewhere else because it will only leave you with a horrible time, being yelled at, and being threatened with having cops called on you.

Yes, you read that correctly, I said YELLED AT! On Monday July 3rd at around 8:30pm we (party of 2) were at Ma's for dinner. They seated us in a middle table and it was quite congested there. I'm in my last trimester of pregnancy so sometimes feel a little suffocated in tight spots so asked if we could move to the side table (there was one that had just gotten empty). They told us no because they're seating someone else there. By now a good 10 mins had passed and noone had come yet to take our order or even bring us water. Finally my husband hunted down a waiter so he could get me water and we can order. Then the side table opened up again so we asked once again if we could move, and they refused. Since I wasn't feeling good in the congestion we decided to leave at this point. We just quietly got up, told the waiter who had literally just stepped away from our table with our order to cancel it and walked out.

The waiter got upset that we left and started screaming and yelling at us and followed us outside towards the car. He was upset that we had drank their tap water. My husband being the calm person told him to stop yelling and that he'll pay the 2 dollars for the water. But he wouldn't listen and just lost it at us, their were passerbys who had gathered. He didn't care that he was swearing at us in front of kids there or that I was pregnant. My husband even tried to go inside to pay them the 2 dollars but the waiter continued yelling and kept saying he'll call the cops on us because they cleaned their table for us and gave us water. By this point we were pissed too so we said okay go ahead call the cops. He actually did call the cops, talked to them for a min or two, I'm guessing the cops told him this is nonsense and they won't come for this because he came back and said its okay noone is coming.

I understand it may have been a bit annoying for the server that he seated us and we left before eating, but that is no way to treat someone. Oh and if you think well that's just one waiter and it doesn't speak for the restaurant's management, well then you should know that not one single person from Ma's tried to stop that waiter or said absolutely anything. They went about as if this was completely acceptable behavior from their staff. Definitely never coming...

• Dishonest services * First time coming to this place and the impression was very bad. Upon checkout for the order, I politely asked whether I can use a credit card. The answer that I got was “no and the minimum to use a credit card would be $30”. I paid by cash instead because the bill was more than $20, while still less than $30. Who knew that as soon as I completed the payment, I coincidentally saw another customer whose order was only worth $14.75 but he was easily able to use a credit card without any rejection. Interesting, huh?

So I asked them why. They claimed that it’s because the other customer “did not bring cash”. That doesn’t make real sense. If it’s ok that a customer can use a credit card without cash for an order much below the so-called “minimum order”, no one should be asked to use cash when below the “minimum order” either. We all know that the reason why many Chinese restaurants try to set up a minimum order for using a credit card in this era of technology is because of the bank fees which they want to keep for themselves instead. At the same time we all also know that the reason why customers want to use a credit card is because of convenience as well as credit card rewards. The restaurant discriminated a customer from another and was dishonest on payment options to maximize their profits via unfair practices against different customers.

Furthermore, is it fair to rely on a customer’s claim whether he or she has cash for applying the credit card use minimum order rule? A customer can pretend that he or she doesn’t have enough cash and use a credit card no matter what. It’s very obvious that this restaurant loves to take advantage of honest customers and to encourage dishonesty.

“Pretend that you don’t have cash when going back next time.” You may say. But, this dishonest restaurant is most probably not even worth visiting another time. That’s even better than being a liar like they have been. Plus, their food wasn’t good at all.

• Food was below average * The order was one serving of walnut prawn. The prawn itself was about ok. But everything else in the dish, including the seasoning, sauce and batter, was much less than impressive. I brought it to a party. Guess what, when the party was finished, there was still about half of the dish left that no one had much interest to...