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Asian Wedding - Grand Catering from Jacky Young

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Deal Fanatic
Dec 31, 2007
5252 posts
1905 upvotes
Richmond Hill

Asian Wedding - Grand Catering from Jacky Young

I found a 2009 thread discussing Jacky Young from Grand Catering, but it was fairly limited. I'm hoping someone has more experience and feedback they'd be willing to share about him. We were fairly comfortable chatting with him at the Bridal Show yesterday. But before I jump on board with his catering company for my wedding, I'd like to see if any RFDers can give me some feedback from weddings attended that he catered or dealt with him directly.

Or, suggest alternative reputable asian caterers and halls. :) We did look at MEC and La Rosa, but those just didn't go low enough under our budget.

Thanks.
33 replies
Member
May 30, 2007
398 posts
21 upvotes
Toronto
Yes knowing your budget would help us help you.

I've both spoken to Jacky regarding our wedding and I've been to a couple of his catered weddings. We did not choose him in the end, but we were quite impressed with him. He is a very reasonable, easy-to-deal with person and really friendly. He has deals with several halls (a lot in Woodbridge) and I believe he has personal interest in Le Jardin. He was able to offer the best discounts for this hall. January-April is low season so bargaining at this time is easiest (he explicitly said that...I never bargained with him though, didn't come to that point).

His food is pretty good; not spectacular but it should suffice. Portions are generous and there was a reasonable amount of shark's fin in the soup. You should know that the food is cooked off-site though, so it may not taste as fresh. They only use the on-site kitchen at the banquet halls to re-warm the food.

His food is WAY better than MEC (which IMHO is terrible, one of the worst places for Chinese wedding banquet in Toronto food-wise) but not quite as good as La Rosa. We wound up going with Dragon Dynasty catering at Atlantis (on the Lakeshore) and everyone was duly impressed. Great food and great service. We had countless people, including our older 40-50's aged guests, telling our parents how happy they were with the food. My parents who are from Edmonton were thrilled and thought it was definitely one of the better banquets they'd eaten (but they're from Edmonton haha...Chinese food sucks there).

I would whole-heartedly recommend Dragon Dynasty and also give a recommendation to Jacky for decent food at a good price, and dealing with an honest, friendly man.
Sr. Member
Sep 30, 2005
711 posts
62 upvotes
imak wrote: Yes knowing your budget would help us help you.
You should know that the food is cooked off-site though, so it may not taste as fresh. They only use the on-site kitchen at the banquet halls to re-warm the food.
This is my opinion as a guest to 2 weddings.

I agree with the poster above that the food did NOT taste fresh and that some of the items were just warm, not hot as if you held it in a Chinese Restaurant and it came right out of the kitchen. ( I found out later that he just warms it up at the hall). Not bad overall.

The second wedding we went to, it was horrible, the roasted pig did not have crispy skin but soggy and cold. Most of the dishes were a little sloppy and mostly luke warm to cold.

This was one in 2008 and the second one in 2009.

Funny Info about Jacky (I use to live "near" him) : He loves to talk on the phone while on the can. :) (he kept his washroom window open and talks really loud!).
Deal Fanatic
Dec 31, 2007
5252 posts
1905 upvotes
Richmond Hill
Thanks guys.

Budget is around 30K. Guest list 200-250, trying to get it exactly 200 to minimize costs.

@IMAK - We had asked him where the food was cooked, he said onsite. So I'm surprised that you got offsite food. Hmm, that raises up a bit of a flag. I'm glad though, that his food is better than MEC.

@SUPSD - Thx for the heads up on the can. :P

I mean, he did mention that we pay him after the wedding, so if the food's cold, then we could ask for a discount.
Newbie
Jan 14, 2011
5 posts
Toronto
Hey!

I'm in the same shoes as you, as my bf and I got engaged a couple months ago. I went to a lot of weddings last summer, so I've had first hand experience with most of the banquet halls. Here's what I've gathered so far, hope this helps:

Jacky: as one of the posters said, his food is good, but definitely not spectacular. I think I went to a total of 2 weddings that were catered by him. His food was definitely catered in though, I've confirmed it with a couple of friends. Some of our food came out cold and it just didn't have the same taste to it. However, my friends did say he was easy to deal with, so that's a plus and he does deal with a lot of banquet halls, so you get a good selection of venues there.

Markham Event Centre: very nice place. Went to 2 weddings here last year too and contrary to some posters here, our friends and I thought the food was good, but definitely not the best. In my opinion, I feel their food is better than Jacky's though. The food came out at a very reasonable temperature and we really enjoyed their fusion Sweet Table. This is one of our top choices, and we really like how they include a lot of stuff in their packages as well.

La Rosa: I personally think out of all the Chinese banquet halls, they may have one of the better tasting food. I visited them for the 2nd time last week and they were doing some renovations to their banquet hall, so that's a plus, cause before their hall was very dark & gloomy the 1st time I visited there.

Shangri-La: nothing special. food was ok, service was ok. I don't really like their hall and how the rooms are, but that's my opinion.

Dragon Dynasty: another caterer that we are going to look into as we may be looking at Grand Baccus. If you are interested, PM me and I'll fill you in after we meet with him.

Lai Wah Heen: one of our top choices again. Food & rep is good, but at the same time, it's also a lot more expensive than a lot of other places...sigh...

Hope this helps. PM me if you have any info that you can give me too! :)

- M
Newbie
Feb 28, 2008
16 posts
1 upvote
I am on the same boat at most of the people here. Iam planning in getting marry in September or October and was in search for the best deal for a Chinese wedding.

MEC - had a meeting with Edmund and the hall look nice, bridal room is really big ( 200 sqft ). They have a 33K min for 2/3 of their hall, which fit around 30-35 tables. Price is on the expensive side, I chose the $1109 menu, so after tax and tip it cost around would be $1419 per table. Their package include decor, dessert table, open bar with domestic beer and bar brand, hor' derv.

Jacky Young - Met with him a week ago and he seem like a friendly guys and know what he talking about. My girlfriend's dad went to a wedding that was cater by him at Le Jardin and he said the crab claw was the best he ever had. However, another guest also told me that there wasn't enough food for a table of 10. Price wise, for the cheapest hall, his $650 menu ( which is really good comparing to other menu ) and servers cost are around $1200 per table. The hall include a open bar, dessert table, decor, chair cover. The price is base on hall, it can range from $1200 - $2000 per table base on the hall you pick.

Dragon Dynasty - They are all booked when I contacted them, so I do not have a review on them. However, I assume they are good and that why they are booked up so quickly.

All the price listed above is before negotiation.

Hope that help. As for me, my hunt continue!!!!
Newbie
Sep 27, 2007
17 posts
3 upvotes
Canada
[quote="pmao83" post_id="12271237" time="1295366488" user_id="146538"]I am on the same boat at most of the people here. Iam planning in getting marry in September or October and was in search for the best deal for a Chinese wedding.

Just as a general comment, if you are looking to have your wedding in September/October 2011, then you better hurry! I looked around at various banquet halls starting July 2010 and a lot of the more popular banquet halls (like MEC, Grand Baccus, Diamond Banquet Hall, etc.) were already booked for August/September 2011.
Member
May 30, 2007
398 posts
21 upvotes
Toronto
@NYIK are you sure Jacky said food is cooked ON SITE?? It is warmed at the on site kitchen but I'm 100% sure it is cooked in a kitchen elsewhere. Jacky was quite honest with me when we discussed this. Seems like other posters have concurred with me on this.

If your budget is $30K and you want it around 200 guests I suspect you won't have an issue. I don't mind divulging that I paid $1000/table for Dragon Dynasty at Atlantis, INCLUDING open bar package. This works out to $1280 (after tax/tip) per table of 10. If we assume you have 20 tables, then you can safely get away with $26,000. Ours wound up being just a bit more than your budget because we had 270 guests, added apps and added dessert table. We also had several vegetarian guests who required special meals which cost extra in a Chinese banquet setting. I also brought in some extra alcohol/red bull at my own expense (my favorite drink is the jagger bomb and I couldn't imagine having my wedding without that). Of course there was some bargaining involved, but my message is that your budget is completely reasonable. Good luck!

In the Toronto Asian wedding scene, your options are fairly limited to these ones that have been bantered about (Jacky, Dragon Dynasty, MEC, La Rosa, Shangri La, Lai Wah Heen) if your goal is to have Chinese banquet in a hall-type setting (ie NOT a restaurant). I think the best bang for your buck comes at restaurants though. I feel like you could easily have a banquet under $1000 per table including tax/tip.
Newbie
Sep 27, 2007
17 posts
3 upvotes
Canada
This might be helpful to you but I met with the two gentlemen from the Rovey group who caters Chinese food from Dragon Dynasty to a lot of different banquet halls. I met with them at their Grand Baccus location and they were pretty helpful.

http://www.rovey.ca/eng/contactus/contactus.asp
Newbie
Aug 14, 2003
53 posts
4 upvotes
I am deciding between these two companies, any suggestions/tips/advice?

It seems like Dragon Dynasty charges more for wait staff compared to Grand Catering. How negotiable are these guys for their food menu?
Deal Addict
Mar 24, 2005
1361 posts
117 upvotes
I had Jacky for my wedding. Very easy to deal with, quite honest and he does his best to look out for your interest. One thing I *really* liked about Jacky was that he always answers his phone - a big plus when you're dealing with vendors. Regarding cooking, he made it clear to me which halls could support cooking on site and which didn't (or what would be cooked and what would be warmed depending on hall location). I thought the food portions were quite small though but you get satisfied enough. He's not very flexible when it comes to certain tweaking of the dishes (i.e. if one dish has too much sauce or a little too much salt). The food overall was good, not amazing. I would highly recommend getting the baked conch to start. I thought his "yee meen" and fried rice were bland. There seemed to be less sharkfin on the wedding day than what was shown to us during the tasting.

Happy with Jacky overall - it's a wedding and I don't expect food to be on the wow side - unless I went with some overly expensive hotel (e.g. lai wah heen) or duke it out in a chinese restaurant backdrop.

You should also know that if you have your heart set on a banquet hall, you may not have a choice of caterer because a lot of the more popular banquet halls have a contract with Jacky if you want chinese catering.
Deal Fanatic
Dec 31, 2007
5252 posts
1905 upvotes
Richmond Hill
imak wrote: @NYIK are you sure Jacky said food is cooked ON SITE?? It is warmed at the on site kitchen but I'm 100% sure it is cooked in a kitchen elsewhere. Jacky was quite honest with me when we discussed this. Seems like other posters have concurred with me on this.

If your budget is $30K and you want it around 200 guests I suspect you won't have an issue. I don't mind divulging that I paid $1000/table for Dragon Dynasty at Atlantis, INCLUDING open bar package. This works out to $1280 (after tax/tip) per table of 10. If we assume you have 20 tables, then you can safely get away with $26,000. Ours wound up being just a bit more than your budget because we had 270 guests, added apps and added dessert table. We also had several vegetarian guests who required special meals which cost extra in a Chinese banquet setting. I also brought in some extra alcohol/red bull at my own expense (my favorite drink is the jagger bomb and I couldn't imagine having my wedding without that). Of course there was some bargaining involved, but my message is that your budget is completely reasonable. Good luck!

In the Toronto Asian wedding scene, your options are fairly limited to these ones that have been bantered about (Jacky, Dragon Dynasty, MEC, La Rosa, Shangri La, Lai Wah Heen) if your goal is to have Chinese banquet in a hall-type setting (ie NOT a restaurant). I think the best bang for your buck comes at restaurants though. I feel like you could easily have a banquet under $1000 per table including tax/tip.

Positive that he said that when we first saw him at the bridal show. We wanted to be clear and make sure we didn't get a caterer who cooked offsite, so we asked him that question. And he said YES it's cooked onsite. So yeah, will definitely need to check this with him when we talk to him later.

Thx for the numbers tho - really helps.
Deal Fanatic
Dec 31, 2007
5252 posts
1905 upvotes
Richmond Hill
Grumpy wrote: This might be helpful to you but I met with the two gentlemen from the Rovey group who caters Chinese food from Dragon Dynasty to a lot of different banquet halls. I met with them at their Grand Baccus location and they were pretty helpful.

http://www.rovey.ca/eng/contactus/contactus.asp

Any rough numbers you could share?
Member
May 30, 2007
398 posts
21 upvotes
Toronto
I can confirm that Jacky now cooks on site. Was at a wedding at Le Jardin catered by him. Asked the waitress and she said it was cooked on site. My bad I guess he changed it up from when we talked to him in 2009
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Jul 5, 2003
1118 posts
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I actually spent over a month deciding between Jacky (Dragon Dynasty) and Harvey (Rovey). Bottom line - Jacky has better prices and will be just fine for a standard chinese banquet in a banquet hall. Harvey while more expensive is equipped to handle more unique weddings and venues. Harvey pays attention to detail and believes every event is different. Jacky seems to think that every wedding is the same and is more about volume production. Jacky is more flexible with rules. In the numerous weddings I went to, Harvey's food tastes better than Jacky's but I found Jacky's food really inconsistent depending on who the crew is.

We are getting married at the Ontario Science Center and have prepared a unique menu that blends western and chinese foods. In the end, while Harvey was a fair bit more expensive, we decided to go with them. I was just uncomfortable around Jacky's capability to handle the execution of the wedding. I was also unhappy that he would not commit to being at my wedding himself and the fact that he denies his weddings ever run late - I was at one where the food was at least an hour behind schedule.

Venue reviews of Jacky are good while reviews of Harvey are raving.

Harvey is not that flexible on labour cost but overall negotiation is dependent on how much he wants your business. For example, is it at a venue he has never done a wedding before .. is it going to help his portfolio or get him on a preferred vendor list. Jacky didn't seem to care and offered his best price forward.
Deal Addict
Dec 13, 2004
3495 posts
189 upvotes
Toronto
I got married in June and used Jacky as our caterer I had nothing but great things to say about him. Very friendly as easy to deal with and if there were any issues with the food he was able to accommodate e.g. I had sharks fin soup minus the shark fin since half the guests would not be Chinese.

His prices are pretty good and can also confirm that our food was cooked on site. As for timing he ran exactly on time, timing of food is dependent on your schedule. I spoke to Jacky early about our schedule as was very easily able to build around his requirements.

If you're really paranoid do a paid tasting early.

Full disclosure: I'm friends with his niece who helps with the business and she was a guest at my wedding.

I've also been to a wedding where he the catering before my wedding and found the food excellent.

$30K for 200 people might be really pushing it. You'll really have to watch your budget.

We ended up at $34K for 190 people and we cut costs on invites, flowers, center pieces and basically wherever we could.
Deal Fanatic
Dec 31, 2007
5252 posts
1905 upvotes
Richmond Hill
GemInite wrote: I got married in June and used Jacky as our caterer I had nothing but great things to say about him. Very friendly as easy to deal with and if there were any issues with the food he was able to accommodate e.g. I had sharks fin soup minus the shark fin since half the guests would not be Chinese.

His prices are pretty good and can also confirm that our food was cooked on site. As for timing he ran exactly on time, timing of food is dependent on your schedule. I spoke to Jacky early about our schedule as was very easily able to build around his requirements.

If you're really paranoid do a paid tasting early.

Full disclosure: I'm friends with his niece who helps with the business and she was a guest at my wedding.

I've also been to a wedding where he the catering before my wedding and found the food excellent.

$30K for 200 people might be really pushing it. You'll really have to watch your budget.

We ended up at $34K for 190 people and we cut costs on invites, flowers, center pieces and basically wherever we could.


Thanks for the responses. Have been dealing with Jacky for a few weeks now. So far he's been very accomodating and upfront about everything. He pointed us to Le Jardin as it gives the largest discount ratio. Can anyone comment on Le Jardin? We did take a look last week and it looks quite good compared to other halls.
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Jul 5, 2003
1118 posts
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I am now married and thought to check back in with a review on Rovey Catering Services (Dragon Dynasty). I spent weeks and weeks going back and forth trying to make a decision between the two big caterers. I will start off by saying that I am so happy that I went with them and no question that they were the best for the job. They did such an amazing job for our wedding that they are now the exclusive Chinese caterer for the Ontario Science Center. I don’t think our wedding would have been such a success if I hired anyone else.

Harvey (our prime contact) was truly phenomenal and worked extremely hard. He cared about our wedding like it was his own. My friends were all so impressed by his ability to coordinate and make things happen. We had over 30 helpers and they were all amazed by him – he was just always there making sure magic happened. If you are planning a unique wedding and not a standard banquet hall wedding, I truly believe that Rovey / Dragon Dynasty is the only one that can pull it off.

Preparation
Although our prime contact was Harvey, he always bought someone else along to make sure nothing is missed and that there was a backup plan. Harvey is extremely detailed oriented and made sure all the paper work was in order. His operational plan was very impressive and worked with me through 6 iterations. He is quick to respond to emails all hours of the day and was always reachable by phone no matter how busy he was. Heck, he even picked up my call at 11 PM before the wedding. Harvey and his team attended numerous site visits and walk through to make sure we are well prepared. I am not an easy customer but not once did he complain. Harvey was extremely accommodating.

Set-up
The set-up at the Science Center is very complex. First of all, we don’t get the venue until 6:00 PM – this meant that Harvey had 45 minutes to setup for the cocktail hour and under 2 hours for the dinner. Further, we had to rent almost everything – so every single table, chair, linen had to be organized and setup. On top of that, I had purchased a ton of stuff – chargers, linens, napkins, napkin rings – that he had to coordinate and setup under horrible conditions because my friends delivered things in chaos and we couldn’t find anything.

Our cocktail hour had numerous food stations – peking duck, bubble tea station, noodle station, sushi station and dim sum. Harvey made it all happen on time! The reception room was setup even early!

Service
It is not often that I hear guests raving about the service but I got so many positive reviews from our guests. Our western guests commented that Harvey’s staff was able to explain every dish for them. The ones that made special requests like less seafood or more meat were all accommodated with care by his staff. They were pleased that their water and wine glasses were always filled and they never had to ask.

My husband and I also got special service – I really felt pampered. His staff found me to see if I wanted hors d’oeuvers because I was running around like a mad woman. They wanted to make sure I was well fed and taken care of. They made sure our champagne glasses, knife sets etc were all cleaned and packed away for us.

My wedding planner was garbage and Harvey essentially did her job too throughout the day.

Food
The food was good (not super amazing) but I am very picky on food and have proper expectations for Chinese banquet food. I personally felt the food was better than Jacky’s food based on the weddings I have been to. My guests all thought the food was really good except for the fish which was ok. We changed up a few dishes and did things out of the ordinary - Harvey was very flexible and accommodating to all my requests. As examples, he got me a bubble tea station, waffle stations, cotton candy station … and even sorted out how to make the mini egg waffles (but I didn’t go with it at the end). Overall, no complaints at all – it isn’t gourmet food but I was impressed with the presentation of it (even my guests that had weddings with Jacky commented that the presentation was much better).

Bar
Their bar staff are all smart serve certified but we had a lot of wasted guests by the end of the night. The washrooms were apparently filled with vomit … haha. However, everyone was safe and had a blast. The drinks were stiff and they accommodated special drinks for us. In short, I don’t think we would say our wedding was a success if people weren’t drunk and having as much fun as they were.

After Care
The crew did a great job cleaning up and packing up. It isn’t an easy task because they had to pack up all our rentals (24 tables) and make sure they got back to the rental company. He also sorted out all the items we owned and put them away in storage. This included 24 massive center pieces (over 4 feet tall). The storage room was really far away yet his team wheeled everything there for us to pick up later.

I honestly felt bad seeing his staff afterwards and how tired they were. They didn’t even get to eat until almost 3 AM! They really worked hard to make everything happen.


Sorry for the long read but wanted to share my experience for anyone struggling with a decision. We really couldn’t have been happier with our choice. I am truly super picky and not easily impressed but Harvey did it. Even though it has been almost a month since my wedding … I still feel that I haven’t thanked them enough for the job they have done.
Deal Addict
Dec 15, 2004
2092 posts
449 upvotes
Thanks for sharing ;) I recall our photographer mentioned she was assisting with a Science Centre wedding a few weeks ago and I had never thought of it as a venue when she mentioned it. Sounds like a success! Congrats!

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