| rev:text
| - I wish we had looked at the Yelp reviews earlier but with no phone on us we just walked in, baited by the $16.99 AYCE price.
My boyfriend wanted to celebrate a win by taking me to AYCE and we decided to finally cross off Mariko on our AYCE hit-list. For $16.99 all-you-can-eat, we didn't have any high expectations of the food quality. We just wanted to be full and be merry.
Food was average-below average but enough to satisfy. Tempura was never crispy (and if you think that's an undercooked yam tempura, no, it's just carrot.) The salmon sashimi was probably the only highlight of our night, though they were poorly deboned.
But oh, did we wait... I think we came in at 9:30PM and our first order didn't come in until 10:20ish. There were only three other tables. It was like this with all our orders until closing time. I guess on the bright side, we finally paced ourselves at AYCE and there were a set of flies that entertained us as we tried to keep them off of our chopsticks.
Service though? Really bad. Like, I don't think I've ever been this baffled by service in my life especially since my entire family (also Chinese) works in the restaurant scene. To start off, we were handed two sheets for AYCE but no pen/pencil. No plates for anything until we asked for them during our second order. Water has no ice and was lukewarm. I would not be surprised if it was like those restaurant stories my parents tell of places that rinse utensils in drinking water. Ha..
Communicating with the staff is terrible. They're always in a rush (to not serve the other customers) and were really condescending. I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt especially if English is not they're first language when it comes to tone (since I understand this issue having interacted with so many ESL Chinese) but no... the staff is just plain grumpy 24/7.
We were charged an extra ~$4 due to some miscommunication and after waiting for our waitress's 20 minute phone call to end, we flagged her down. We disputed this charge but instead of rectifying this issue (sounds familiar to some other yelp reviews?!) they asked why we even bothered coming here instead of the other AYCEs on Bloor. W-what? We were willing to pay the extra charge since it was a misunderstanding on both ends and it was only $4 but the immediate lashing out that occurred from wanting to get the situation clarified was downright unnecessary. They eventually removed the charge and we even *tipped* them (something I will regret to this day.) I was even more put off by how fiercely the waitress grabbed the money off of the table sans the tray by slamming her palm down on the bills and then clenching them in a fist while I was in the middle of exiting the booth..
To those that still want to try Mariko's AYCE for their first time and to those that will unknowingly walk in like we did, stay safe.
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