Sha-lin Noodle House, Vancouver

Food is not bad, to be fair.

But their service SUCKS. The two girls and the cashier were rude, like someone just ran over their cats. The cashier asked us for a bigger tip today when we were making our payment, ( he probably is the owner/ manager...) or we will be BANNED from their restaurant.

The reason behind a small tip was because the girls that served us were very unfriendly and slow, we don't think they deserve a tip AT ALL. However, the young guy ( who also served us ) was very nice and quick, so to be fair, we left a relatively smaller tip in the end.

But some people were not happy! The Cashier and the girls were practically giving us mean looks when we exit the restaurant and murmured something about how we never left a tip ever. Gee, I guess we did offend them in that sense...

We were just very very disappointed at the way they dealt with the situation. They could have asked us if there is anything they could do to improve, or where did they go wrong. But no, they chose to overlook the slightest fact they they offended their patrons and went ahead to ASK THEIR UNHAPPY PATRONS FOR MORE MONEY...

So, as they said, we WILL take our business to somewhere else. I know people will still go there for their food, but, SHAME ON THEM.

This was the restaurant that VT member rmdw recommended for our Vancouver meeting. I love going to Vancouver for noneother than the fantastic asian cuisine. Seattle has a large Asian population, but it's nowhere near the size of Vancouver's. Therefore, it's also a given that Vancouver's asian restaurants are of much better quality.

I was utterly confused by the menu. They name the noodles based on how they created them i.e. dragging, cutting, pulling, pushing. You order one type of noodles along with your choice of meat, seafood, tofu, etc. and particular flavors (i.e. curry)

Vancouver is often reported as having the best Chinese food in North America. Restaurants like Sha-lin explain why. Their #1 selling point is fresh, fresh noodles, made by hand behind a glass wall, and then cooked fresh for you.

Kids love this place because they line up in front of the glass wall and peer into the wondrous little kitchen. It actually is quite fascinating. Think of Krispy Kreme, albeit with a Chinese flare!

Favorite Dish: The menu is quite overwhelming at first glance. There are MANY different kinds of noodles you can choose from. These include: Dragging, Cutting, Pushing, Stewed, Flavoured ... and that's not the full list!

Here's a fairly comprehensive review of this very interesting restaurant.

My friend had curried noodles with chicken and I had seafood & vegetable soup. We split some vegetable potstickers. Yummy!

This restaurant features food from northern China. They make excellent noodles, and you can see the chef in action and marvel at their skills. They also serve a tea with 8 ingredients. The tea is poured from a tea pot with a long nose.

Look for a 10% discount coupon in the Georgia Straight.