Island Mix Restaurant & Lounge

My family and I, order take out from here whenever we are craving good curry. We normally get curry goat, beef or chicken with paratha or dhalpuri. Also the doubles and oxtail are delicious. We have never tried anything else from their menu but probably should :)

3 stars — the cocktails are amazing here! There were a few mixes I hadn’t come across before which I enjoyed and a few more that I’d actually come back for (like the island mix punch!). Tip: they use homemade ginger beer and sorrel :)
However, the lunch «special», i.e. the hot food buffet tray, was fairly disappointing. The rice was crunchy and undercooked while the chicken and beef dishes I selected were cold (I disclosed this to the waiter after paying the bill). I guess for $ 9.95 a plate you had better lower your standards :(Service was quite slow and a little neglectful. I’m surprised they have been open for 11 years — I thought they were a new business.
I would go back on a Thursday night when it’s a little more livelier and try their a-​la-​carte dinner service and of course, a few more cocktails.

I love West Indian food! Island mix is my go to on any given day! They have weekly specials and a great lunch deal which I’ve heard about but yet to try-it’s on my bucket list!
Today I popped in for a quick take out order of chicken low mein and their amazing chicken curry with the paratha roti on the side.
Both dishes were amazing and the wait not too long-​I always call ahead because they can be busy some nights!
The food is always great, prices reasonable (for the burbs), and if I had one comment, work on improving the service for dine in clients.
Final verdict: definitely a regular client and always bring friends here when they are craving good West Indian curry.

I must say, I am a big fan of Caribbean cuisine. I guess it could be the fact that I grew up in the Caribbean for most of my childhood days, and I got so accustomed to the food, that I made it a point to have it every week. That, and because at home we don’t cook any Caribbean food.
Its funny how I’ve always seen this place whenever I go to Gagan Sweets for either the lunch or dinner buffet, but I’ve never had the «urge» to try this place out.
My coworkers and I went out for my birthday, and upon arriving I was impressed with the ambiance. There were already 2 other tables that were occupied, and the server/​host came and sat us down. I usually get the wrong impression, when I see an empty to semi empty restaurant, as that usually tells patrons that something is wrong with the restaurant. Not in this case however.
After looking at the menu, which by the way they have just the right amount of items — Caribbean, Chinese/​Caribbean and Indian/​Caribbean all mixed, I ordered the Spicy Garlic chicken. Yes I know I should have ordered a Caribbean dish, but hey, I thought I’d try this out first. After we placed our orders, the server brought us a selection of hot sauces of different flavours and spice levels. I was looking for scotch bonnet, but they didn’t have it :(Apparently they sell their lines of hot sauces, so that is something interesting. I am not sure of the price however, but I intend on finding out the next time I visit there.
Service is a bit slow, albeit the restaurant not being too busy. We had to wait roughly 25 minutes before the orders came to our tables. Right off the bat, the portions were great. After taking a bite out of the first chicken, my taste buds were in heaven. At the end, I was able to finish every last bit, and heck I even licked the plate clean. Okay, I must admit — I didn’t, but hey, I could have.
The second time around, we went back in the same week, with different coworkers, and this time around I ordered the tofu vegetable/​vegetarian curry with dhal pouri/​dhal roti. Again the portions were great, and the curry was fantastic. However, when it said vegetable, I thought there would be veggies with the curry. Instead there were potatoes. If they can add veggies to the curry, then it will be even better. The service was the same, it took a while before the food could arrive.
Overall, this is a place that I would come back to for the food. As for the lounge/​patio they have in the back, it is closed now, until summer. I definitely look forward to that on weekend evenings/​nights. Its been ages since I last danced to soca and dance hall music.

Great little spot. Discovered it at the recommendation of a friend.
The food is quite good here — better than most of the Caribbean places i’ve come across. They tend to be a bit dingy, but the place is really nice as well. The hotsauce selection is excellent and you can purchase bottles at $ 5 a piece to take home with you. The menu is also pan Caribbean, with your traditional and indo-​chinese options as well.
The only downside of this place is the service — it’s rather slow and wait times for food can be significant.

Island mix has great Caribbean food! It’s a casual atmosphere with lots of variety in food.
The goat curry is my favourite! Good quality meat with lots of flavour. They also serve some Chinese food such as sizzling platters which are really good.
The only downfall is that it can get busy at times and there may only be one server working … But other than that it’s a great place to eat! love it !

I had the chicken roti. It was fresh and the price can’t beat!
(7.99)
I ordered a side of dalpouri roti… delish!

Love island mix! Love the large variety of food here. Only downside is it sometimes gets a little busy and the server times are not the best, but all rounds it is a great place to eat! Ps the take home spice bottles are a great value and taste great!

Today I’ll be reviewing the catering at Island Mix.
My best friend recently got married last week and instead of using the food from the reception venue, she went with catering from one of her favorite West Indian restaurants «Island Mix» which is a blend of Asian/​Caribbean inspired dishes.
The first dish was the wonton pork soup. By no fault of the caterer’s themselves, the soup was cold when I ate it. It was my fault because I was the Maid of Honor and was running around when the dish was placed at my seat. I had to double check with the servers that the soup didn’t contain any fish oil as most Asian-​inspired meals do. My sister is deathly allergic and this could have been a very bad situation if it was added as an ingredient. Luckily, it didn’t and no epi pen was needed. I very much appreciated that as sometimes products that are labeled as veggie or meat, will contain the smallest trace of fish which would create a serious episode. Even though my soup was cold, I was very much hungry and ate every last spoonful. It was delicious!!! The wonton’s had some seasoned pork inside and the broth wasn’t too salty but definitely not bland. YUM!
The second course was a salad which I found delicious but it’s an acquired taste for sure. It seemed to be split down the line as to who enjoyed it. Because it had goat cheese and balsamic dressing added to it, some people found it to be smelly and didn’t enjoy the taste. But I love cheese. ALL cheese so it tasted DELICIOUS to me! I wish I had MORE of that to be honest.
The dinner itself… can’t lie, seemed a bit mediocre. It could have been the fact that it was kinda cold though so it’s hard to say if it just didn’t taste that great because it was cold. The chicken was like a fried chicken and it was flavorful. The fried rice tasted a tad disappointing but again, it could be just because fried rice never tastes good cold. And the broccoli in this garlic style sauce was actually pretty yummy. I wish there was a little sauce for the chicken though. Paired with the fried rice I remember thinking it was a tad dry.
I never had dessert even though it looked and I heard was delicious. It was a 3 mini styled desserts with cheesecake and 2 other styled cakes.

Terrible customer service! I’ve been here a few times to dine in and take out. The only reason I return is because it’s close to home.
First time, the waitress argued with me that low mein noodles and chow mein noddles are the same. It’s not!
Second, their portion sizes are disgusting. I just spent $ 13 on pepper shrimp and I got 12 shrimps. In comparison to other Caribbean restaurants, that portion size is unbelievable considering this isn’t a 5 star establishment.
Third, I called to speak to the manager. The waitress answered and passed the phone to her «manager» the kid that took my order.
Now I will drive the extra 10 mins and go to Caribbean Heat! The food taste better and the prices are more reasonable and the portion sizes are Large for what you’re paying.
–This place doesn’t even deserve the one star that my phone prompted me to give!

The food is always consistently very good. They only reason for the 4 star review is the price as they are pricier than most West Indian Guyanese Chinese Food. The staff is very attentive and friendly. Overall, a very good experience.

Discovered this place after dining at an Indian restaurant in the same plaza (in front of Vaughan Mills).
While the menu is a fusion of Chinese and Jamaican, it lacks the heat of the latter.
On our last visit we ordered:
Oxtail
Jerk chicken
Rice
The oxtail was very good (I did not try it here as previous encounters with oxtail have been fraught with unpleasant memories), but the person in our party thoroughly enjoyed it.
Jerk chicken was bland, bland, bland. If you’ve been to Jamaica you’ll be in the know that sometimes you can get spicy jerk chicken or you can get the subdued, richer flavour that comes from smoking the chicken. This was neither. It was a major disappointment considering this is a placed called «Island Mix». If you’ve ever been to The Jerk (downtown), you’ll know that this place missed the boat. Big Time.
We found it to be a bit overpriced for quantity and quality of food.
Too bad, I had such high expectations for this place

We discovered Island Mix not long ago. I can tell you the place is small and far from fancy but the food is absolutely delicious and very reasonably priced. In the last four visits we tried pretty much everything but chili chicken is a must to have in this joint. I would highly recommend Island Mix …

I go here when I’m in the mood for something different and too lazy to drive further to get Jamaican food. I have tried the Jerk Chicken fried rice which is a good size portion of fried rice with Jerk Chicken on top. The chicken is tasty, spicy and tender. I also always get the pepper shrimp appetizer which is also very tasty and spicy.
The prices are reasonable and food is fresh. I will have to try some other dishes in the near future! The thing that could use improvement is their service.

I would probably give these guys a 0 rate if I could. Let me start off by saying that I love the Pickering chain of island mix, in fact it’s one of my tops. We were looking forward to an amazing meal only to be very disappointed with the take out we ordered. It was a shame as I was planning on holding a bday jam at that spot. We ordered the island mix fried rice with the fried chicken, doubles, chicken roti and jerk chicken with rice and peas. We ended up throwing out all the food. What a waste of money, We were insulted and upset that they would even sell this as food. The fried chicken was clearly fried the day before and stuck in the fridge and then re-​fried and thrown on top of the re-​fried soaked in grease rice. The jerk chicken was the same and a sorry rice and peas which tasted like they threw soya sauce on it. The chicken roti was dry and we were wondering where the curry was. The double, I would rate a 3 ½ they were pretty good. Would I go back? Never to this location! They so lost!