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I walked up to Sahali area and decided to give this place a shot. You can see them from afar at night because they have a lot of neon lights around their windows. Atmosphere: hole in the wall feel. There's a TV on one side of the wall. Throughout my stay there, I heard an older lady taking orders and delivering to the nearby customers. Background: I'm Chinese. They all speak Taiwanese Mandarin and I can understand them, but I chose to speak in English because I didn't want to speak in Mandarin. I eat at countless Taiwanese restaurants in Vancouver, plus I go to my friends' place to have homestyle Taiwanese food cooked by his parents. So, I'm pretty knowledgeable as to how the Taiwanese cuisine should taste like. Service: Feels like a family restaurant, but when I get a peek in to the kitchen during payment I noticed it was a whole bunch of university aged students cooking at the back. The young man, who was my server, came back in less than 10 seconds asking me if I'm ready to order. I didn't even start flipping through to the second page! When I was ready to order he then informed me that the menu is old and that most of the rice and noodle items are no longer available (what the heck? Why the _____ am I given this old menu?). He suggested I order from the specials, which is a little table menu. I asked him how much are the specials since there is no pricing on the menu and he said $8.90. So, I ordered the cumin lamb. He asked me, "Do you want spice in it?" (I'm thinking, well I ordered 'cumin' lamb...) I asked him, "Do you mean, how spicy I want for my dish? Or how hot I want the dish to be?" He couldn't understand me. It took another minute before we came to an understanding. Selection: Limited. As mentioned above, most of the items are not available per the server. Taste: Very so-so. The cumin is there but a hint of it. The sauce is watery. The siu choy (Chinese cabbage) wasn't seasoned and it tasted like it was just blanched and then put next to the lamb. The siu choy didn't add value to the dish at all. There was one piece of green onion in the entire dish (again, didn't add value). Portion: Small. I'm 5'2 and 110 lbs. I don't eat a lot. I ended up finishing the dish at record time and was about to lick the bowl because I was still hungry. Price: Expensive. The guy at the till said that the dish was actually $10 something. Ugh, what?! I was not informed about this price difference at all. The server boy came to the till and accepted that it was his fault that he didn't tell me and honoured the $8.90 price. I was quite upset and was not happy about the overall experience and the service as I have experienced was not good at all. I don't expect service from a Chinese restaurant, but this is far worse than other Chinese restaurants. I believe tips should be earned instead of a standard. So, as per my overall, I didn't give them any tips. Overall: I will likely not come back again. Reasons? The food was very so-so; the portion is small the service is worse than average Chinese restaurants; the menu is limited (and they don't even bother to print a new one?); and the price is quite high. As I was paying at the till I see all the jars of bubble tea powders. As an experienced bubble tea drinker, this is usually a red flag because it means it will taste a little bit better than Cool-aid but not much better. I would suggest to fellow Asian food seekers to look elsewhere for better hole-in-the-wall experience. Compared to Vancouver, this place would've been shut down within 6 months because the price is so high and the taste is just not there. read more
8 years ago
10 years ago
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910 Columbia St W
Kamloops, BC V2C 1L2
Canada
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