Last night I went to Federick's with my friend's family because we were craving some good Hakka food. I absolutely love Hakka and whenever I mention it, the name Federick's always seems to pop up. Even though I've seen the Scarborough location several times, I've never went in and ordered anything. My Go-To Hakka spot has always been Lucky's by Scarborough Golf Club & Lawrence.
So, when my friend's mother mentioned heading to Federick's (the Markham location) I was game! :)
The spot was packed and people were lining up waiting to chow down. Luckily the parent's got there earlier and saved a table. The seating is quite crowded in this place. I'm someone who's quite aware of my surroundings and I actually hit two other patron's while trying to just get out of my seat. Our waiter came and took our order. We ordered 4 dishes and the first one came out rather quickly. Unfortunately the next dishes didn't come out until 10 minutes later. Wasn't a huge fan of that as I usually like to eat all the dishes at the same time and not in sections.
The food was very good though. Very comparable to Lucky's! The chili chicken didn't have as much heat as Lucky's does. Lucky's offers an option of making it "Spicy" even though chili chicken is quite hot, they "Spicy" option has LOTS of heat! Federick's doesn't offer this option so the chicken was rather tame but still quite tasty. We also ordered veggie friend rice, chicken chow mein and crispy chicken. All of those dishes were enjoyable as well.
Once we asked for the bill, it took about 10-15 minutes which was also quite annoying. It's a busy spot so I see how chaotic it can get, but I think they should look into expanding the store so that we aren't constantly jabbing people with the close seating. The atmosphere in Markham was a lot cleaner then the one in Scarborough but that is understandable as the Markham location is still fairly new.
The prices are also very reasonable. About $40 for 4 dishes to feed a family of 5 isn't bad at all!
I would recommend ordering for take-out as opposed to dining though. The slow disorganized service and crowded seating takes away from really enjoying the food.