Pebble Street Restaurant

ALLERGY ALERT! The chili oil sauce that is on the tables contains mini dried shrimp. I wondered what gave it the extra flavour and suspected it was dried shrimp and I was right. I found several in a large tablespoon of the stuff at the bottom of the chili jar, there is no indication anywhere that the sauce might contain shellfish.
This is a typical Hong Kong type of café restaurant and they expect that most of their customers will read and speak Chinese and if you don’t it will be a less than satisfactory experience especially where service is concerned. It’s good cheap eats, I had a huge portion of shrimp dumplings with tossed noodles.
I don’t want to sound prejudiced but it’s a typical fast Chinese food restaurant, the menu is horrendously hard to read, they skip the numbers of items on their list if they have a picture of it. Most of the lunch dishes are under $ 10 with some around $ 11 – 12. Some specials allow you to add a specialty beverage for $ 1. It features HK style café dishes that are a fusion of Southeast Asian, Italian, and whatever they think works.
If you enter Pebble Street from the parking lot entrance you will eventually realize that Pebble Street and Forbidden City are run by the same company, there is the cashier counter to your left and past that allows you entrance into Forbidden City restaurant and to your right is the café.
Hot tea is served in a plastic tumbler right after you are seated. I would grab a printed take-​out Pebble street menu though the prices are outdated (available at the cashier counter as you enter). It is much easier to read though there are no pictures it is definitely less confusing. The level of English spoken is from poor to not so poor so don’t expect to discuss more than what may be in a dish and even then I’m not sure that if you have allergies that it would be safe, so for those of you who are gluten intolerant or have other allergies I would eat at your own risk. It’s decent Chinese fast-​food and most dishes are just under $ 10.

Worst customer service ever. Not only there is a communication gap, but the customer service is non existent.

Ok, so, I know it’s ridiculous to complain about service at a chinese restaurant but our experience tonight was RANT-​worthy! We had originally intended to eat at their sister restaurant, Forbidden City, but it was closed for a wedding. We should have just turned around right there, but chose to order off the Forbidden City menu while sitting on the Pebble Street side. It took at least 20 minutes for a server to come over to take our order, and when she did come, we wondered if she even worked there considering she had no knowledge of the menu whatsoever. What’s worse, our first (of three, plus white rice) dishes, chicken chow mein, arrived without any plates to eat off of. We were starving so we ate right out of the communal plate it was served on. A second dish arrived, and then the food stopped. For half an hour. The plain white rice we ordered didn’t even arrive! When I flagged someone over to complain, she assured me that the third dish was on its way. Ten minutes later, I got up to tell her I would like to cancel and have my bill. She assured me again that the third dish was on its way but at that point we were full after such a delay. It finally arrived without an apology, but we left without touching the third dish, and we had to pay full price for everything! Worst experience ever. We will never be going back. It would have been easier and cheaper to go to the McDonald’s next door — the service would have been better and faster.

Ohhh pebble street. This is a hit and miss restaurant.
The servers… Are good ¹⁄₁₀. They’re mostly rude, they never smile, they’re very loud when it comes to cleaning tables. It feels like they’re using their silverware to drum their plates. Sometimes I think they do it on purpose to make your ears shatter and bleed.
I said ¹⁄₁₀ times they’re good right? There was this one time that their chicken wings were raw blood and everything, and the server gave us dessert for it. He was a cool server. But that was like 7 years ago.
Not kidding, I go to this place only because their food is good most of the time. But when it’s a miss, it’s a terrible miss. Their drinks are just nasty. Those iced teas? Gross.
I asked the waitress (from several different occassions FYI from different waitresses) to give me soup the same time the main dish comes out (combo meal). Because often, by the time they give me my main meal, the soup is cold and I like hot soup with my rice.
And the waitress smirked, and said that she can’t do that. She can’t or won’t? I don’t know. And another waitress, smirked as well, and just plain said no. And then another (note several times) said that they aren’t allowed to do it like that. Rinse and repeat. Maybe the establishment just really won’t give you your soup served the same time as your meal? I don’t know?
Why is it that so hard?
Anyways, you get the point, service is horrible, they don’t ever smile. They’re rude.
Well now, the food is good. My favourite is the portugese baked rice or the chicken and cream with Rice. It comes with their tea drink, or coffee. I always say no to either cuz their drinks there are nasty, and I am not a picky person either! Their ramen is nice, and their soups and noodles are good as well.
Their appetizers are over priced, I think. The last time I bought their chicken wings was when I got it raw, it wasn’t a good deal.
Recently, I find that their servings are smaller than they used to be, and more expensive.
The place itself is nice to look at at first but when you are about to sit down you see butt prints on the seats and how cracked the pleather is. The tables move and jiggle a bit here and there but that was only 1 table in a span of 10 years.
To be honest, I don’t know why I keep going back. Maybe because my parents always go there and they’re used to crappy service but good food. Or probably because it’s convenient and it’s there.
I give it a 2/​5, almost passing because of old furniture, extremely crappy, unfriendly staff, and increased prices/​decreased portions.

This is a cheap and quick place to eat lunch or dinner, if your not fussed about good service and decent food, then this is the place to go. I had their pork belly on rice and it was good. Sorry i was starving so no photos.

Great place for snacks, congee, fried rice, noodles, fried noodle. Alway consistent with quality.

I’m not sure if I’m supposed to rate on my visit today or in general. I came today expecting what I have not only seen at many other Chinese restaurants but actually, this very one as this is not my first visit. My rating is based on the average of all my visits (1 star for every visit before, 5 stars for today = 3 stars at the moment)
In my years in Calgary I’ve been here many times and the experience was horrendous service, great food. Today, to my surprise, the food was great AND the service was okay. While most people say «okay» is nothing to be proud of, in a Chinese restaurant, that translates to amazing! The waitress checked on us twice! And we didnt even waive her down! People! That’s progress!
On to the food.
The menus are pretty large with selections for everyone. I favor the Hong Kong style foods as it is a little more unique than the typical Chinese food that tends to get ordered by the non exposed customers. Make sure you order a lot of hot sauce, they get chincey with it.
Baked mussels, duck soup, and pan fried hk noodles left me and my beautiful date happier than Buddha’s belly. Now the hard part … leaving the T&T parking lot without hitting a random idiotic pedestrian.
FYI: The parking lot literally has people trying to jump in front of your car to make a fast buck. Tread carefully.

Food is very good, price is reasonable. Service is meh… If you go during rush hour, the wait for a table is brutal… But if you want Chinese food this is the only place in the NE/​SE that’s Good!

Is there a zero review option? I just walked out of this place, it is currently 7:45pm. We walked in at 6pm and ordered our food. Two other tables came in afterwards that got their food and drinks. We didn’t even get our drinks. The manager didn’t bat an eyelash when I tried to flag her down. I’m famished and now sitting at McDonald’s.

Affordable, delicious and fast! Always a win :)

Great place for lunch whenever I make a trip to TNT supermarket for groceries! Their menu has several items from different cuisines-​regional chinese, japanese, and even portuguese dishes. If you come at a specific time-they’ll have dim sum items available. The prices are also pretty fair.
Their dining room, which shares the same kitchen as the dimsum place next door, can seem a bit awkward as you sometimes end up sitting in the larger tables in the middle of the room, which is ok because in more than one occasion have I enjoyed dinner and random conversation with strangers.

I had the lucky opportunity to visit last week with 4 other friends. The service was quick and I found the servings were smaller, however it was worth the price.
Great variety of food to choose from and very flavourful as well. I found the cheesy baked mussels were amazing and the deep-​fried milk custards were crispy and delicious. The shark fin soup was also okay, the best part was probably the sesame oil which gave it a very rich texture and amazing aroma~
Their specialty drinks are not too bad, however I found the taro powdered bubble tea too watery and the bubbles were overly soft and squishy. Yet, throughout our meal, the dining room was about half full. In addition, its sister restaurant which shares the same managment, work staff, and kitchen had a couple of customers. However, there were only a few patrons and many were there for the special hot pot deal.
I found the washrooms to be rather unkempt and there was only one stall for each gender, this seems to rather hazardous for peak hours…
Overall, I found the presentation of food and the flavour to be amazing. However, the quality of drinks and the lack of attention for the washrooms lowers its rating.