It pains me to have to write a bad review for such a beloved uptown chain, but between the food and the disorganized staff, there was little room for redemption at Phoenix this past weekend.
I was handed a flyer on yonge st so a group of friends and I decided to check it out for lunch. The first thing I noticed is that the menu at this location is significantly smaller than uptown locations, but also more expensive. We sampled a good portion of the menu with:
-steak club sandwich
-baked chicken steak
-soup noodle with fish
-Hainanese chicken
Our food came out pretty quickly but it was hard to hear them call out our numbers, so the waitstaff had to keep coming over to ask for our numbers. After taking our first bites, our table shared a moment of silence and then hesitantly concluded that despite the dishes looking pretty, the food was heavily under-seasoned and bland. Each of us ended up using 3-4 pepper / salt packets to flavour our food.
Other honourable mentions of the visit included:
-extremely wobbly table. We had to fix it ourselves with 2 menus folded up.
-small washrooms. Legit feels like you have to sit on the toilet seat to get the door closed.
-security cameras everywhere! Why do they need to keep such a close eye on their patrons?
-sticky hot sauce packets at the self-serve station
-no credit card payment
-no wifi! Very surprising for a cafe
Needless to say, our group left quite disappointed with Phoenix. I hope this store can improve upon their soft opening as I was super excited to see a Phoenix open downtown.