| rev:text
| - We went last night, partially because of the good Yelp reviews, partially because it is 3 blocks away from our home. I honestly left quite disappointed.
Lovely woman serving us who unfortunately had problems expressing herself easily in English or French but I won't take points away for that. She was very nice, quick to smile and quick to apologize or offer suggestions.
The first issue - we immediately ordered a couple of Sapporo beers. They arrived warm. Really warm. I called the woman over and asked if I could get cold beer or icy glasses. She said she didn't have cold beer or cold glasses but she could bring me some ice cubes. So that's what we had to do......put 8 small ice cubes into our beer to bring them to a cool (not cold) temperature. Not a great start to a nice meal.....the ice melted very quickly so now we are just drinking watery beer.
The second issue - it was 30 degrees outside and it's extremely warm in there. Air conditioning is not really a "nice to have" in a Monkland Avenue restaurant that has dishes on the menu that are $40.
We looked at the menu and the seasonal menu up on the chalkboard for some time and decided on dumplings with peanut sauce, seasonal soft shell crab, an order of rice, seasonal asparagus and chicken vermicelli. All of the food was good, not great.
The third issue - half of the restaurant looks run down, slapped together and not welcoming at all. Extension cords haphazardly strewn across the wall, boxes of supplies stored at the front door under some really old and very ugly bit of furniture from someone's basement, very large and unattractive fridge and supplies in the dining room, angry older woman in the open kitchen in a baseball hat yelling at the staff, giant television playing The Food Network's "You Gotta Eat Here" as the center display of the grill and bar area, bin of peppers waiting for some staff to get to it with scissors sticking out of it in the middle of a table in the dining room.....all of it was pretty tacky. We have no problem paying $90 for dinner for 2 (plus 2 beers) but you've got to clean yourself up a little here.
I wouldn't go back. I would probably order takeout over the phone and go pick it up one of these days.
Gia Ba.....take a day to cover up that extension cord, put away your supplies, get rid off the television because you are not a sports bar, don't store food on tables in the dining room, put a screen up in front of the fridge and just put some nice lounge music on. Little things go a long way :-) .
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