I was urged to visit Hakka Ren due to its mixed reviews and my curiosity wanted to confirm what the ravings were about.
They're right - the food is tempered with spicy flavours so beware when ordering. We ordered off the lunch specials and they were decent sized portions which satisfied our hungry appetite. The specials were served with soup as well as a serving of rice or noodles with your preferred entree. I would order the sweet corn soup or the chili baby corn again... But for takeout. Don't get me wrong, the atmosphere is really nice and clean. However, the service is peculiar. We were a table of two on a Wednesday at about 1PM. There were a couple other tables but I wouldn't consider it to be "busy" as they were well staffed and each staff could have had their own table to look after even. Our waitress seemed very impatient throughout our whole dining experience starting by rushing for us to order. We asked for water three times before a different waiter served us by complete coincidence. I had a mouthful of food and plenty left on my plate when she asked if we wanted our food to be packed. We were confused because we were served not even five minutes prior to her asking us. The most infuriating was as we continued to eat our meal, she asked us FOUR times (without exaggeration) if we were going to pay by card or cash. Mind you we weren't even halfway through our meals. She made us feel very unwelcome because she was so insistent on having us leave. I could've understood if it was busy and they needed tables but the restaurant had most of its tables available and it wasn't rush hour. I'm not sure what prompted her to urge us so but it ruined my experience with Hakka Ren. Perhaps I'd consider takeout at a later time but I wouldn't recommend this restaurant for anything more than the food.