Hai Phong: How are they so highly rated?!

After our failed escape from Locked Canada's Asylum puzzle room, we were famished (and high on adrenaline)! BeautyQueen suggested a place nearby and here we were! There's lots of free parking up front, which is great!

Restaurant: Hai Phong Vietnamese Restaurant (visit their website here)

Location: 1246 Kingsway, Vancouver
Cuisine: Vietnamese, Noodle Soup
Price range: $10-15



Date of visit: May 14, 2015
Atmosphere: 3/5
Staff/service: 2/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 1.5/5
Buck worthy? 1/5

It was quite empty for a Friday night around 7pm, which kinda took me by surprise since they were so highly rated on Urbanspoon. Anyways, looked through the menu, there was a lot of variety for each person's liking. Their Garlic Butter Chicken Wings ($7.95 for 6 wings) sounded delicious! Utterly disappointed at how they looked when they arrived and disgusted when I tasted it. They were fresh and hot, but so salty it stung my mouth and throat. They were overcooked and dry, not crispy on the outside either. The lemon pepper sauce didn't have the pepper mixed in either =/.

RetroGirl and I got their small Rare Beef, Brisket, Tendon, and Tripe Rice Noodle Soup ($7.50), I got it without the rare beef. This was average, it met the norm but I wouldn't say it was exceptional. Broth was hot, rich and meaty, and there was a good amount of beef in it.

GoddessV ordered a Small Shrimp and Crab Patty Noodle Soup ($8.50) without the pork feet and pork blood. It actually looked pretty good and she said the broth was really yummy. She got really thirsty as she continued eating it though, probably too much MSG =(

Overall I wasn't impressed and felt scammed that they were so highly rated (maybe I ordered the wrong things). BigGuns tried many attempts at flagging down a waitress to get our bill but they completely ignored him. Not even a busy night, there were around 5 small tables of people and two waitresses managing the storefront. Quite disappointing for a Vancouver restaurant to operate so poorly. At least Locked Canada was fun, and I was with great company ^-^

Milestones @ High Street: High level of disappointment

All the way in Abbotsford for ChelleShocks' birthday festivities! After some fun times at Castle Fun Park, we arrived at this relatively new Milestones location for dinner! Seemed to bode well considering we couldn't get a booking until 7:30pm!

Restaurant: Milestones Grill and Bar (visit their website here)

Location: 3122 Mount Lehman Road, Abbotsford
Cuisine: American, Western
Price range: $20-50 per person





Date of visit: November 8, 2014
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4/5
Food variety: 3/5
Food quality: 1/5
Buck worthy? 1/5

We were seated cozily (and by that I mean quite squished) into a 7-person booth. There were 9 of us. At least we didn't have to wait in line for a table! Sadly, it seems they don't honor reservations at all. Shame. Anyways, the layout is beautiful here and the atmosphere is quite nice. For my appetizer (I had a coupon), I ordered their Sicilian Mussels ($14.00). I shared this with ChelleShocks and there were quite a lot on the plate. The sauce was delicious and the mussels were very fresh. However, many of them were undercooked and not edible (I ate a super undercooked one but survived, hence why I concluded they were very fresh haha). It was a wine cream sauce and I could taste a hint of the wine, which enhanced the mussel flavors.

For my entree, I ordered their Cajun Seafood Fettuccine ($19.00). It sounded delicious with prawns, mussels, salmon, and calamari in a Cajun cream sauce. Irony is when it arrived differently than advertised. It had no prawns and the pasta was dry and salty. Super strong Cajun flavor and no cream whatsoever. Pasta was al dente and the only thing right about this dish. I couldn't eat more than 1/3 of it because it was so salty and strong. Considered returning it, but considering the slow service and my irrational fear of them adding "extras" to my dish, I just packed it home. Sad I never got to see those prawns. I think this is the first Milestones that I've had this dish with missing ingredients and overseasoned. Utterly disappointed. Did I mention the calamari felt like fishcake and tasted more like octopus? It was like eating softened rubber. I imagined calamari to be rings... =/

Lastly, after asking to split a birthday dessert between three people's bills and having much confusion around that, our waitress got the idea and ended up making it on the house for ChelleShocks' birthday. Many thanks to her, but the confusion was quite... unnecessary. Either way, we ordered her The Cookie ($7.99) and she quite enjoyed it. The warm soft double chocolate cookie with vanilla gelato to cool it off was a beautiful combination.

Overall, it wasn't a great experience, but the waitress was helpful when she was available. I guess there were some expectations around service at restaurants like these, but it was definitely lacking here. I felt she tried to be attentive but wasn't around most of the time when I wanted to ask her a question. Anyways, after everything was sorted out, she was lovely and we enjoyed our dinner. Probably won't ever be back until they improve... don't want to risk dying from undercooked food or incorrect orders. They sure have an abundant amount of room for improvement.