Review Fountain Restaurant - Victoria

This place is decent Chinese restaurant in Victoria, and quite a space of tables for people to eat! Foods are delicious, and quite a big portions! Everything quite great, except the waitress a bit slow in refilling the hot tea for us, as the restaurant not quite busy. Other than that, the foods are amazing! One of the Chinese restaurant seems like hong kong style ones!

Standard Chinese restaurant, you should expect good food and not good service because you won't get it here. Authentic Chinese customer service 100% 🤣 Food was good, bbq duck and the steamed ginger chicken was so fresh. Unfortunately I found hair in my favourite dish, spicy calamari and the gailan was old and chewy, tofu too salty and chicken was so chewy we didn't eat it. you get free rice and red bean dessert after which I think is decent deal considering everywhere else charges for rice We didn't complain because as mentioned above no service plus they were so busy you're kind of forgotten once your orders are done and you're dining.. very Chinese 👍🏻

The food is very very good. Tastes fresh, is well seasoned and prepared. I thought the staff were very caring and attentive. Not sure what these other reviews are on about. Absolutely go and try it! I think you will be pleasantly surprised 😋

I have to say, personally this Chinese Restaurant is my favorite place to go in Victoria! Especially when friends come over from a place like Calgary / mainland Vancouver or even from Beijing, this is always THE BEST CHINESE RESTAURANT I take my friends to ! I love this place because they have never failed me! You can go for dim sum in the morning or go for dinner in the evening, they will always provide their customers with delicious Chinese food and excellent customer service ! All of my friends who had been there before were really appreciative with their service and high quality Chinese food!

Food is over all good ! Very little inconsistencies but it does happened hence the 4 star review. Great for parking and bigger groups that are looking to enjoy a lot of options in the menu

Far as Victoria goes it's one of the best Chinese you can get around town.

Had a very authentic Chinese meal, some interesting items on the menu too! Tried squab for the first time and a delicious lobster/ crab dish. A bit crowd though, and needed stronger A/C

Ordered through Skip the Dishes. Prompt delivery, delicious food, large portions for great price.

For $16 comes with jumbo size beef noodles, taste a lot better than some restaurant in Vancouver, definitely will come back again!

Always enjoy coming here. We like to get there early, right at opening, they fill up fast and have lots of reservations.

I have been enjoying Fountain delivery since the James Bay location first closed. Fountain kept the quality that JB once had but now lacks. Always apologetic for time, while most places take 1.5 hours, Fountain usually arrives in 30-45 minutes. We enjoy the meal combos and find it's a great value with good flavour. Personally not a fan of the beef used and do find it chewy, but any chicken, shrimp, or veg has been great.

Exactly the late night snack we were looking for. The sauce on the fried rice was a bit uneven. But otherwise good

Love the new reno's and new management! Always lots of Asian people whenever I go. Love it! Service is top notch. More authentic Chinese food, too! Tasty!

This is like the worst service you can experience at a restaurant. Ordered food and a hour and a half and still no food. Make things worse when we complained they said our order couldnt be made because they ran out of ingredients. If i could give them a NEGATIVE star I would.

The food last night was actually quite good. I give it a 5 star!

food was good and the service was excellent....

Great food👍🏻Highly recommended one of the best Chinese restaurants in Victoria

Walked in when the restaurant was nearly dead 11:30 More customers walked in and they were served their orders almost immediately! We waited for our orders for an hour and a half then we decided to walk out. Me and my friends were the only white skinned people and i think that is why they put our orders on the back burner. Racist assholes, thanks for the flavourless tea, you just lost 3 customers.

I strongly advise anyone to avoid this restaurant at all costs! Dining at the Fountain Restaurant (2680 Blanshard) on September 10, 2017 was the worst and most traumatizing incident I have ever experienced in my entire life! First of all, their Chop Suey tasted like it had been cooked in old fat that was turning rancid. The chicken was not fresh and tasted very bad. But the awful food paled in comparison to their callous customer service. The staff in the restaurant actually let a criminal into their restaurant. This young girl lied and said that she was part of our table and the staff actually let her walk to our table - which should never have happened! They should not have allowed her into the restaurant, asked us before they did, or accompanied her. Also there is no protection for customers - it was 9 PM and there was no security and no security cameras. My friend had put a $20 bill on the table to pay for her meal and this young girl grabbed the money and walked out of the restaurant. Because the staff had allowed her to come to the table, we thought she was a waitress - we did not realize that we had been robbed until she starting running past the staff and out the door. What happened next was horrific. I screamed over and over at the Asian waiter who was near the door, pleading with him to stop the girl and that my friend had been robbed! He stood there and smiled and did NOTHING. Consequently, the girl got away. What bothered us even more than the robbery was the callous and heartless indifference by the staff of that restaurant. They laughed at us, smiled at us, and refused to help us. They could not have cared less what had happened to us! I asked the young waiter to call the police because we had been robbed. He flatly refused! Finally he agreed and the police came to get our statements. Then the owner, "Barry", came to talk to us. He was aggressive, arrogant, rude and extremely unkind to us. I was very shaken up by this brazen robbery and my friend who lost $20 was in tears. But Barry could not have cared less. He made no effort to comfort us, grilled us with questions, made rude comments and even tried to blame us for what happened by asking "Well, how come you didn't do anything right away?" (I am a senior woman and my friend is an older woman as well.) The truth is, he and his staff are to blame for letting that young girl come to our table and we "did not react right away" because we thought they had sent a waitress down to collect our money. After the trauma of a robbery, we were revictimized by the hard-hearted manager and his staff. My friend was in tears - she is on a very low income and cannot afford to eat out. She had saved her money to go out and dine on this evening. But Barry very unkindly and very aggressively insisted that she pay for her meal, even though her money that she had saved for the meal had just been stolen. I realize that the restaurant had no obligation to waive the cost of a meal after a robbery but under the circumstances, it was the decent and appropriate thing to do, in my opinion. But there was nothing decent or kind about this manager - or his staff. My friend said to Barry, "You are actually going to make me pay for this meal when my payment was stolen?". Barry said "Yes, I am!" I told my friend that I would pay for her meal but she insisted on taking it out of her food money. The final blow was when my friend went up to pay for her meal and told the woman cashier what had happened, and the woman laughed at her, like my friend's suffering was just one big joke to her. Then I said to the female cashier "How could you treat my friend like that when she is so upset at being robbed of all her money?" This callous woman looked right at me and make a phoney gesture like she was crying and said, laughing, "Why should I cry for her? Ha ha ha!" The treatment that my friend and I endured by the staff of the Fountain Restaurant on the evening of September 10 went beyond simply 'uncaring.' It was absolutely CRUEL! We will never ever go back! ------ Doreen Marion Gee

We've come here many many times over the years. One of our regular dinner and daytime dimsum spots. There's only so many choices in Victoria after all! For dinner we generally like the set menu items as they come with appetizer soup and a desert soup. Their tofu hotpot is quite good. Their dimsum is ok. Shrimp dumplings are huge, I'll give them that. Service ranges from questionable to ok.

Bring a Chinese friend along and order off the Chinese menu!! 1000x better than the westernized food they offer to regular folks :) my favourite is the deep fried pork intestine dipped in sweet and sour sauce, or the jelly fish!

Went last night for the last time.<br/>We had the D special and the noodles had been nuked in place and so were cold in the middle, the veggies had been nuked too and some were flat out refrigerated like cold and the sweet and sour pieces were hard like little rocks and had been nuked as well.<br/>The only hot and fresh item were the prawns which were nice.<br/>I complained and the manager said he would talk to the owner and so when we left I was amazed to get a bill for the full price especially since the majority of the food was in doggy bags for the dog as we went for a quick bite at McDonald's.<br/>The capper was when the manager said the owner said that the meal was complex and so the heat irregularities which is bullshit it was poor prep (one piece of broccoli was so big I couldn't get in my mouth) and indifferent cooking.<br/>I found it especially galling since I owned a restaurant and if we would have had a customer who was upset for any reason we would have comped the meal and probably kicked in a coupon not come up with a lame excuse.<br/>There were only a few customers when we went in and from looking at the reviews now I can see why.<br/>I now wonder how long that food had sat out before being nuked.<br/>This is sad but there you go.<br/>My recommendation is the Tim Horton's just around the corner in the same area of the mall.<br/>

While visiting victoria with my Girlfriend, their family friend was going away and wanted to take everyone out for dinner. Fountain Restaurant was the choice. The atmosphere seemed nice, service was existent.  Overall their food was just alright. For Chinese food in Victoria, I'll say it's pretty good I guess since people tell me it's all westernized Chinese food. The price seemed a little steep but I'm comparing to Vancouver so.... eh.<br/><br/>The BBQ pork sucked and the peeking duck tasted as if they used leftover duck with new fresh duck as some of the duck was extremely hard and others very juicy.

This place was always known for late night snacks after clubbing as it closed at 3AM. It has changed hands a few times over the last few years. They tried dimsum in the morning, but rumours has it that it wasn't so great. I have never tried their dimsum, so I can't agree nor disagree. <br/><br/>So few months ago they changed owners again (owner of James Bay Fish and Chips) so my family decided to come for dinner. The place looks a little more fancier and definitely more waiters/waitresses working. The food itself was alright. I think I got spoiled by the foods in Vancouver after living there for two years. The portion was small for the price we were paying. We spent easily over $300. In the end it was enjoying time with family.<br/><br/>For everyone who goes to Ocean Garden and knows who is the "grumpy/mean waitress" she now works here!

This place has turned itself around for the better. Great wor wonton soup, good combo dinners if you like western Chinese, we really like the walnut prawns and the sweet and sour pork is our favourite. The dim sum on the weekend is good, small selection but quite tasty. We like the BBQ pork steam buns and the crispy beef steak buns. This is the only place we eat Chinese food now as it's good and reasonably priced

Ordered takeout tonight with a friend. The dumplings were perfectly cooked to a golden tinge. Our chow mein was also great and not too salty like many Chinese restaurants seem to do. Even though the delivery was about a 30 minute drive, the food was hot and fresh. Would recommend this Chinese joint, and it is open late

This is probably the best Chinese Restaurant in Victoria if you know anything about Chinese food. The restaurant seems to be under new management and the food is fresh.

我們八月份在這裏吃了一次晚飯，食物是在全個維多利亞城市裏，是最正中的中國菜了，價錢合理適中，服務態度好，餸菜美味，味道不會太重，我們一行三個成年人，叫了一道四和菜，约五十多元，包例湯白飯及糖水，祇能吃下一半的餸菜，剩下的取回家仍够一人吃一餐。餐館內裝修仍新，清潔整理，可惜早上沒有早茶點心。@

The Fountain used to be awful but, now has new owners. The same people who own James Bay Fish and Chips. The food is great same as you would get at their other location except no fish and chips. <br/>Have been to the restaurant at least four times since it reopened and food has been good every time. It can occasionally be very busy at lunch and I haven't been for dinner except to grab some take out for dinner at home <br/>Portion sizes are very generous and I highly recommend trying them out.

Always a good spot for Dim Sun, service is fast? After 11 you may have to wait 20mins as it gets full by then. Food is excellent, fresh and traditional.

Overcharging me. I phoned them yesterday to order the Szechuan dinner special for 2 with chow mein. The lady who picked up the phone didn't understand me apparently and got another individual to take the order. They hung up shortly after they took my order but didn't even ask for my name, phone number, or when I'm going to pick it up. <br/><br/>So I get there to pick up the food and they didn't even show us the receipt/order and just asked how we're paying for it. I paid for it but later found out today that I got overcharged. On the flyer the Szechuan dinner special for 2 is $19.95, you get a 10% off for pick-up which they DIDN'T take off. I got charged $24.10. Which doesn't add up correctly, it should've been $20.95 or so.. not $24.10. That's absurd. They're basically tipping themselves 15+% on my behalf.<br/><br/>This is ridiculous and would avoid this restaurant at all costs. The employees overcharge you for your food (which is loaded with way too much MSG) and their service is terrible.

Food missing. Recently I have ordered from this restaurant either by delivery or take out and both times they have forgot things from my families order and then when I went in the other day I asked why they weren't taking the 10% discount off for our take out order they said they didn't do that anymore. Sorry but egg foo yung is supposed to come with a sauce and supposed to have more than one small omelette and you are NOT to serve it BURNT or dry, family dinners aka dinner for 2, 4 etc are supposed to come with all that you order even if you don't get the combos you are to give all the stuff the person orders. No one was in the restaurant when we went there except for some young male staff members, one other person came in but quickly left. The Italian statue at the front door was filthy so who knows about the rest of the restaurant. I noticed something they now have fabric benches for people to eat at, that is a mistake to have those in any restaurant as they are not easy to clean. The list goes on for things that are not right with the restaurant, it has been going downhill for a while now. I am going to look elsewhere for a different restaurant especially one that doesn't keep ripping my family and I off and who knows who else.

Great chinese food. The food is great. Server is friendly. Menu is very varies. Food is hot and fast! no idea why this place is not busy.

Yum. The jellyfish is pretty good here. The fried rice needs more salt.. They had renovated and it looks great inside! The ambiance is nice. Great attentive service.

Yum. Have been here a few times and order pick up from them. The first time I went I had the pleasure of the managers daughter helping me she was very knowledgeable about the menu and helpful with my selections. Its hard to find traditional Chinese in general and they have a very large menu featuring traditional dishes such as Fish Maw soup and Jellyfish. There Hot and Sour soup is the best I have had in the city.

Delicious and reasonably priced. I come here every now and then for a large Wor Won ton with friends for lunch, but tonight I picked up an entire feast to go. It was late, 9:45 but the Fountain is open late even on Sundays. I spoke with Theona on the phone and she was helpful and friendly. I have had beef hot pot at other places before so I asked her about it she said they have a beef flank hot pot with radish, so I tried it and the beef is amazing. So tender and perfectly spiced with that authentic spice taste. The Chinese radish is not my thing as it turns out as it is a fairly unusual vegetable but the large chunks of tasty tender beef is what this dish is all about. So good. The house special fried rice was great, with fresh shrimp and beef, chicken, pork, egg, carrot, peas, baby lima beans, green beans and more, and the portion size is very generous. The gai lan with minced garlic was tender, crisp and great. Lastly I had Assorted meats and seafood Hong Kong style chow mein, and it was perfect. It is a generous heaping of piping hot perfectly cooked baby bok choy, prawns, pork, beef, squid, chicken, carrots, and more, and delicious sauce, over crispy HK style noodles, and the sauce cooks the noodles. I would say it was amongst the best HKCM I have had. They have a plastic dome for a tray lid that keeps the dish looking perfect when packed to go which is a nice touch. I also had the plain won ton soup and the wontons were large, and tasty, the broth was also very nice, with green onions, and you get a generous amount even with a single order. Everything was delicious, a quite generous portion, and the prices are reasonable. If you are expecting a glamorous dining experience you are probably going to be disappointed because this restaurant is not glamorous. Don't expect to be coddled. This is a no-nonsense, not frilly or fancy place, but the chefs here know what they are doing and they cook a huge range of off-menu authentic dishes and they also have live crab and lobster, so you cant get any fresher. Fountain is a Victoria staple with good food, and they don't charge a huge amount. It's not the Manhattan Plaza Hotel dining room, its in the city in an old shopping center across from the projects so I expect some people are rating this place poorly based on the low-end location and no frills service alone, That would be a mistake. Oh yes and my pickup order was ready within 30 seconds of their estimate (25 minutes). I will definitely order dinner here again, as well as having my Wor Won Ton lunches.

The manager is not friendly and do not want to answer your question which is very rude. We wait very long time to pick up our dish. We are not happy about it won't come back again

Why even deliver??. I called to place a delivery order at 11:30pm on a Saturday night. I placed an order for a dinner for two as the lady on the phone couldn't understand me and I definitely couldn't understand her. I had wanted some deep fried prawns as well as a few other items but it didn't seem worth trying to explain. I said for delivery 3 times and each time she said "you pick up" "10% off" I said no I can't pick up delivery but she hung up without taking my address. I called back 4min later and spoke with a different person who took my address.<br/>At 12:48am I called back to see where my order was as by this point I was just ready to go to bed. At first they said they didn't have an order for me and then said he was on his way.<br/><br/>The driver was very nice but the food was horrible!!<br/><br/>Bottom line don't advertise delivery if you don't want to and don't order food here because the service and quality is awful!!

Terrible. Dont ever go to this restaurant anymore. my experience was horrible! the waitress was very rude and their delivery is horrible as well. i was trying to order at around 12:15 am and i asked her what time their delivery closes and she said that it was at 1 am so i tried placing my order then she hung up on me then i called again and she said that their driver was sick and had to go home then she hung up on me again. a simple no would've sufficed rather than being rude and lying in the first place.

Trying to place an order at this place is only slightly less painful than pulling teeth. No matter how slowly I repeated my phone number, when she read it back to me there would be extra numbers, that I hadn't even spoken. The address and phone number process was literally 10 minutes of my 12 minute call. I timed it. The last 2 minutes were split between my order, and her trying to muster out the total to me. That phone call was probably the most frustrating delivery call I have ever experienced, and I lived in Vancouver for many years. But, as one other reviewer wrote, finding any late night restaurant in Victoria is near impossible, with late night delivery falling under the 1%. The food is what you'd expect from a western Chinese rest, surprising as after the non lingual call I had hoped for a more authentic experience. So don't hold any delusions. This is pure msg through and through. The angry Asian act is just that, an act. Don't be fooled by the front.

Bad bad service. Waited long time before our order was taken, the lady owner was shouting at costumers. They cancelled our order of string beans but they included it in the bill. Not coming back in this restaurant

Terrible ! I would have never said that ten users ago it was a decent place to eat but recently I took my son there for lunch and I was really disappointed the server didn't Ben know what ginger ale was an when I told her she didn't even know if they had it the god was just as bad as the service we could only stomach a few bites each this place has really home downhill ill stick to fan tan cafe it's the best and always consistent go to the fountain if you want BBQ pigeon ( eww)

Has gone downhill fast. The dim sum used to be great (I lived in Hong Kong for many years, but it's rubbish now.

Typical Late Night Chinese. I went here at about 12 am. In Victoria, a place open at 12 am is already a wonderful thing to see. Coming from a place where there are plenty of late night and all night restaurants, I was happy to see it so close to my neighbourhood.<br/><br/>The servers talked to me in Mandarin (which I don't speak, but understand very simple phrases of) and I didn't find any problem with that. I was able to communicate fine with hand gestures and the menu to point at.<br/><br/>I ordered a bean curd and mushroom hot pot and a broccoli and scallop dish and I thought it was on par, if not better than a lot of the places I used to frequent in the Chinatown of my old city. <br/><br/>It's not fancy. There's no vat of red sweet and sour sauce. You'll have to flag down the server. You may have to work a bit to communicate, but it's not difficult. <br/><br/>Would my parents enjoy it? Not so much. Would my friends enjoy it after a night out? Totally. I'm putting it on my list for late night food!

Best neighbourhood chinese. There's some nasty reviews of this place, but they seem to centre around the buffet and the so-called 'unfriendly' service. service is chinese style, which means, if you really need the server, you can just wave them over. shout across the room. whatever. "Xiao jie!!" you know? food is heavy but tasty. try the cod or the spicy egg plant. get a vegetable dish. soup. buffet is fast, but so is a fresh, hot cooked number heated right on your table with one of those flaming energy puck things, whatever those are. fountain i love you! who else will bring me rice noodles at 2 in the morning??

Terrible!! A very big disappointment! What a pathetic excuse for a buffet, gross food, not at all a good selection! The so called dessert bar consisted of jello and a cookie with orange slices, such a rip off!! Best to avoid this place!!!

Dissappointed. I never pass up a chinese smorg ...but this is one place I would keep on driving by. I stopped there today and had lunch,....food was cold, selection was the oddest things, nothing that would really impress you as a good chinese selection .

I ordered their BBQ pork & duck to go and when I went to it it tasted like it was left over from yesterday and just reheated. The worse I've ever tasted and I order that all the time. I called to complain and ask for a refund & the girl said no its today and hung up. I called back & another girl said sorry & hung up. Never will eat there again. Bad food and rude workers and managers!

Skip it.. You know when your're driving through a bad part of town and look to your passenger and say "I wouldn't have the Chinese food from around here"? Well, Fountain is perhaps one or two steps up from that.<br/><br/>This place left a lot up to the diner's imagination. The food had a unique ability to let the diner decide for him or herself how it should taste and how hot it should be. <br/><br/>The flavourless, soggy and cool broccoli made no attempts to distract me from the greasy noodles and lukewarm rice. I never knew cauliflower could be any more boring than it usually is but Fountain managed to take away what little life it had to start with. <br/><br/>I didn't feel particularly safe eating the seafood dishes so I quickly move past those and onto the McCain Tater Tots, although those too seemed a little overdone which is scary considering how hard it is to screw those up.<br/><br/>The potstickers and sweet & sour pork were surprisingly acceptable, on par with what you'd get for a $5.99 food fair take-away, but the deep fried chicken balls didn't get a second sampling when I went back for seconds. <br/><br/>They left us to sit in front of our dirty plates for about 20 minutes before taking them away, giving us ample time to sample some of the desserts - don't bother with the desserts.

Best avoided !. Most third world bus stations provide better decor and food than this place.<br/>Hours old food in the buffet. Oily and unappealing.<br/>Indifferent servers.<br/>Filthy washroom.<br/>No thanks!

Service is non existent. Over priced for mediocre food. Staff eating in front of guests. Cater more so to their ethnic guests. Very uncaring, bad disposition to have with only 15 guests in at dinner rush. Place should be closed!

DO NOT eat here if you would like to keep your mouth in one piece.... My family and I ordered food here a few days ago. When we ordered they called us to confirm that we had ordered. We said yes. They called us back an hour later confirming the order again and told us it would take 45 minutes to get to us. We are fairly laid back people so we let it slide because we were hungry and just wanted to eat by this point. The food got to us lukewarm and the quality of the food was so-so. When I went back for leftovers the next day I was eating some of the ginger beef and I felt a sharp pain in the roof of my mouth. I then pulled a staple from the roof of my mouth that had been in my food. When I called to complain all they told me was that it must have fallen in to our food when we opened the bag and that there was no issue. When I emphasized the fact that the staple had INJURED me he simply said "So what's the problem?" I will never be going back to this disgusting restaurant ever again if this is the type of service and food I will be receiving. Regardless of whether or not the staple "fell in" to the food from the bag being stapled, all I would have liked is an apology for the fact that there was a metallic object in my food that thankfully only harmed me a little bit...I shudder to think what would have happened if I had swallowed it. Perhaps they shouldn't be stapling their food bags shut if this is what is going to happen and they should learn a thing or two about customer service

Ordered delivery. Very bad food. Seriously, why are there blue spots on the chicken?!

Terrible buffet at night. I had previously tried the noon buffet. It was OK. Then I made the big mistake of trying the evening buffet. We got there at 6:00 pm. The buffet had started at 5:00. There were very few people in the restaurant.<br/>The food on the buffet steam table was warm at best, dried out, tasteless and very tired. <br/>The young male waiter (who we found out later was the owner's son) was completely indifferent to my comments and requests to bring out fresh food. <br/>A large group came in just as we were getting ready to leave. They looked with some concern at the buffet, but they were assured there would be fresh food coming out. Too bad the restaurant did not extend the same courtesy to us.<br/>The owner arrived as we went to pay our bill. I expressed my concern to her about the quality of the food and the potential danger of tired seafood on a less than hot steam table. <br/>The owner eventually did not accept payment for one of the two meals but was then loudly chastised by her son for giving away one meal.<br/>All in all an extremely disappointing and unpleasant dining experience.