Sampan Express

The food is okay, LOVE the bubble tea, but the service is awful. The manager is very rude both to customers and employees. I’ve heard her call a girl slow and stupid. The food takes a very long time to prepare, and is quite expensive for the lack of quality. If it wasn’t for my addiction to bubble tea, I’d never go back.

Worst chow mein ever. EVER! It was like eating bland flavourless plain noodles. Garbage. Was not very impressed with the rest of my food either. Lots of room for improvement

I have never put soy sauce on chow mein until now. The food was very bland. Meat was dry and overcooked.
The service was terrible. The older short woman is very rude. We certainly won’t be back.

I went here today. I have to say the food was just ok. It wasn’t anything spectacular and honestly tasted about the same as mall food with a little less grease. I had chow mein that I couldn’t finish because it was so soft and over cooked. I had mandarin pork that had big chunks of bone that I was not expecting. I’m just glad I didn’t bite down too hard. Lemon grass chicken was good. Also I have only had bubble tea from one place and this bubble tea was very liquidy and my mango bubble tea tasted like very cheap floral air freshener and not at all like mango. I ended up paying $ 14 for 2 item combo, bubble tea, and spring roll.
What I did not like was one of the women working behind the counter. There was two Asian looking women working. One with long hair the other short hair. Well that short haired lady was a total cow to the other worker. Either she was having a bad day or just clearly hated her coworker but it truly showed and I was not impressed. I’ve worked in the service industry my entire life and this is not something you show in front of customers. She actually snorted when the other girl asked her for help making our bubble tea. We walked in together but we were paying separately. The long haired girl took my friends order and the short haired lady gathered my food but left my bubble tea and payment to the other girl which ended up making us wait quite a bit longer for our drinks. While we were eating I could hear the short haired lady’s tone of voice and it was snide and very unkind. I will not come here again because of how uncomfortable this made me. I felt sorry for the other girl having to work with that woman.
Next time I’ll go to Hope Key for my bubble tea and chinese food!

Sampan Restaurant? YES! Sampan Express? NO WAY! It was greasy, cold, old, and wilty. There are NO vegetable options. NONE.

Good enough take-​out, we’d come back. .. .
Dropped by tonight for the 3 item take-​out times two. Service helpful and friendly.
Ginger beef crispy and very ginger-​y. Black bean chicken, tasty, not alot of black beans and sauce, but flavourful, would have liked more. Note chicken dark meat only, thigh meat. Broccoli still fresh at the hot table and nicely done. My partner gave two thumbs up for his cod in curry sauce and squid and BBQ pork.
We choose fried rice instead of the chow mein based on friend recommendation, and it was a good choice.
Cost about $ 10 for 3-​item take out, plus rice. No leftovers for us, we ate it all. Generous portions, but not enough for leftovers.
You know, it’s not gourmet or as good as homemade, but is good plan b, enough that we’d come back.

Sampan Seafood Restaurant has just expanded and created a new fast-​counter offshoot just down the road from where the original restaurant currently sits. The primary serving style of Sampan Express is a large heating tray display similar to what you’d find at a Manchu Wok with pricing by the number of items you want. There are also menus for made to order dishes, bubble tea and other flavoured drinks, and cured meats such as duck and pork-​belly which are kept in a hanging display much in the same style you’d find in Chinatown. The seating is basic, just a repaint of the fixed seating from the Tim Hortons which occupied the space previously.
I’ve been looking forward to the opening of this place for some time. I quite like their parent restaurant and the ability to get their food without any fuss appeals to me. I went in and ordered a 3 item tray. For the starch (not counted in the 3 items), there was an option of chow mein, shanghai noodles or fried rice (of which I chose the first). I picked sweet and sour pork, curried beef and potatoes, and stir-​fried vegetables. The food was pretty good. I was a little disappointed with the pork as it didn’t have the crispiness I’d come to expect from the parent restaurant, though that’s pretty much impossible in the heating trays so I’m willing to let it slide. On the plus side, the S&S sauce is still pretty good. The vegetables were nicely done and tasted quite good. I also quite liked the beef. It was a touch salty compared to what I’m used to in Thai and Indian curry, but I’m not familiar with Chinese curry so I can’t really make a judgment if that was correct of not and the dish was still very tasty (my favourite of the three). The chow mein was also quite good. I didn’t find it greasy and it had a nice flavour of its own.
The service is pretty good as well. The counter-​service was pretty quick (discounting the person in front of me choosing four different orders at a pace that’d give a tortoise a fit) and the person who helped me was very friendly. They were also prompt and efficient at getting more food from the kitchen as the trays ran low.
A big plus for Express is the value. The three-​item plate came to just a little over $ 10 when tax was included. For the amount of food you get, it is great price. My 3 item tray held what was easily two servings worth of food, leaving me with left-​overs. The smaller, less expensive, two item tray has more than enough food for one meal, for just about anybody.
All in all I’m quite pleased with Sampan Express. It’s not quite up to the standard of quality of its sire, but it’s still pretty darn good and the value and convenience more than make up for the rest.