Sesame
It took a while to seat us even though the restaurant wasn't busy. The hostess & waitress were just standing far away, & there weren't many people at all.
The seating we got was not ideal, right in the middle, on chairs with no backs, directly under a bright light. The ambience would have been better if the lights were dimmer, though the décor itself was nice.
Our waitress ignored us. When one of my friends asked for cups, she brushed it off. When we asked again, she acted rude, dismissive, & made it seem like a chore to get them. We had to ask twice before they finally brought us cups.
We waited quite a while to order. By the time someone came, we already knew what we wanted, so we ordered drinks, appetizers, & mains all together. Water came in just 2 glass bottles, & they never once brought more, even though there were 6 of us.
The service overall was just not good. We felt ignored the entire time. They didn't check in once or ask how the meal was, even though there were barely any tables to serve.
Food:
General Tao rice - Solid 7.5. It had furikake on top & was good, but the chicken tasted more like sweet & sour than General Tao. The veggies were boring-lots of peppers, cabbage, onion, a couple pieces of celery, & only one piece of zucchini. I really wish it had some broccoli.
Chicken Pad Thai - 7.2. Spicy & tasty, but the heat kind of overpowered the other flavors. Not really impressive.
Shrimp Pad Thai - 8. Best flavor out of everything we tried. It was spicy in a good way, but the noodles were slimy & too short, almost like they'd been cut. Vegetables were boring here too. The shrimp, though, was good & not fishy.
Teriyaki - 5. Really disappointing. Almost flavorless, but somehow still had a weird off-taste.
Salmon poke - 6.6. Decent but average. It lacked sauce, & the edamame was a little hard. I've had way better poke bowls at Poke Station.
Fried wontons - 8. Tasty, crunchy, nice sauce. The filling tasted like Costco wontons, but still good overall.
Edamame - 9. Hard to mess up edamame, & they were salty & delicious.
Drinks:
Passion fruit mojito - 7. Good, refreshing, but didn't have enough passion fruit flavor.
Hibiscus litchi (no egg white) - 2. This was terrible. I asked for no egg whites, & they gave me egg whites anyway. The two sips I had tasted like absolutely nothing. If I had an allergy, this could've been dangerous. Just a bad drink.
Margarita appeal - 4.7. Tasted like straight alcohol, with no flavor behind it.
Negroni - 7.5. Fresh, gingery, & enjoyable.
Passionfruit Tropic - 9. Amazing, full passionfruit flavor, delicious. This is the only thing I'd truly recommend from here.
Other notes:
Appetizers came out before our drinks, which usually isn't a good sign.
I specifically said no egg whites in my drink , & they still gave me egg whites.
No one checked on us during the meal.
They refused to give us a table, claiming it was reserved for 10 people but no one ever came to it.
They didn't ask how we wanted to split the bill.
We had to ask twice just to get the bill.
Only positive: when they messed up my drink with the egg whites, the waitress offered me another drink & only charged me for the cheaper one.
All in all, very mid restaurant. I wouldn't go back. I've heard this location is average compared to others, so maybe that's the issue, but overall I was underwhelmed & disappointed.
The food & atmosphere was fantastic. We shared a sampling of various dishes & enjoyed them all. The portion sizes were reasonable & not too big which enticed us to order an extra dish to share. The service was great, even stopping to take our group photo. However, when asked what dishes they would recommend, the server pointed us to the'dishes for two' section, even though our group were more. We were looking more for recommendations on what they thought would be good & were slightly disappointed that they couldn't provide one. Our best guesses worked out in the end, & we will definitely return.
Hanaa was an amazing server & made our experience over the top! ! The food was outstanding! Dumplings, poutine & calamari was to die for! I recommend you make time to try this restaurant! Cocktails, food & ambiance…, it has it all.
