Julie B.
Yelp
Visited HAE on our trip to Van City after seeing that it was highly rated on Yelp, and the location was close to our hotel. We ordered the five spice chicken wings to start and a chicken bowl and pork belly bowl. You order at the front counter and they call your receipt number when your food is ready.
We had been walking/being touristy all day so we had worked up quite an appetite. Once our food arrived, we all tucked in. I enjoyed the ginger topping on my chicken bowl (appeared to be mashed fresh ginger with herbs) as it added a fresh bite to the rice, shredded cabbage salad, wood ear mushrooms, and soft boiled egg. The fried chicken exterior had a nice crisp, and as I was taking pieces off to give to my young son, I noticed the inside of my chicken leg was red. I tore the piece deeper and to my horror the inside was RAW with blood running in the center. Now at this point I had taken bites off of the chicken and given pieces to my son. I was afraid we were going to get food poisoning from the poorly cooked chicken, and I don't know about you, but I def do not want to get sick while on vacation!
I brought the bowl up and showed the cashier who then asked who I presume was the manager to take a look. He saw the uncooked leg and apologized and asked if I wanted to wait while they made me another bowl. I was honestly so grossed out at that point that I said no, I would just like a refund. So at first they gave me cash, but I requested the money be put back on the credit card I had used to pay as we were returning to the U.S. and I didn't want to have Canadian money left over. No one seemed to know how to do a credit refund. But after a couple mins the manager figured it out and it worked. He did also hand me their bus card and said that if for some reason the refund didn't go through, to call back and they would fix it.
I was still starving and thankfully the wings were fully cooked. What a disappointment though. As for the parts of the chicken bowl I did taste - good, not great. The wood ear mushrooms were overcooked and were mushy, the rice with the deep fried taro (?) strips was decent, and as I said before, I enjoyed the fresh ginger mash topping. The five spice wings were ok, but nothing to write home about. My sister thought her pork belly bowl was just ok as well - the belly was super soft, but there was nothing overly impressive with the dish.
If I were ever back in the area, I don't think I would visit again. Let this serve as a reminder to ALWAYS CHECK THAT YOUR POULTRY IS THOROUGHLY COOKED BEFORE EATING!