Really disappointing experience at Champa. Everything here was below average from start to finish, save our server who was so completely overbooked she didn't have any time to do her job (not her fault).
We came in the other night with a party of 5, and the restaurant in general looks nice. It's not dirty and the decor is pretty, but the seats we sat in were busted and uncomfortable.
The host seemed to be taking every single table that came in the door. We made a reservation over the phone earlier in the day and showed up and the reservation was lost. It looks like the host did her whole job on pen and paper, but seemed to be completely untrained. We offered to wait a bit longer and she insisted they could seat us as a walk in. At the same time we came in, a man asked for a walk in party of 14 people. I was pretty surprised because for a party that large it's rude to do that last minute. Rather than turn him down, the host assured him they could also be seated immediately.
Due to the volume at that point, I probably should've just left - I read they have poor service in other reviews, but was shocked at just how bad it was.
The host seated us and we didn't see our server for at least 20 minutes and water took a full 30 mins to come out. There were really young children working and our server seemed to be the only adult. Our food order didn't get taken until a full hour into us sitting there, and our food took another hour to even come out. ALSO - tell me why the party of 14 was halfway through dinner before we even got our order taken??? Half of their party wasn't even present when we came in and they were sat at least 20 mins later. We spent SO MUCH time waiting for them to get it together we probably should've just got up and left.
I felt so bad for our poor server - she was clearly the superstar of the restaurant, but because their staff is all high school age or under, they all sat at the front behind the counter in a group rather than help her. I watched her sit and process receipts most of the night while also juggling the majority of the serving for the ENTIRE restaurant alone. The host should not have sat that many people, but the restaurant should also look at employing actual servers, not kids.
By the time the food came the pad see ew was drenched in sesame oil and the two people in our party who ordered it found it inedible. The fried rice was good, the duck entree was cold and very bad. We ordered a sashimi platter and the fish was fresh and worth the $25 we paid for.
Overall, the sashimi and fresh sushi looked to be pretty good, but the variety of hot entrees were not. This is an Asian fusion restaurant, so they blend Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and perhaps more cuisines. I found only the Japanese entrees were really worth anything, and overall an entire restaurant cannot rest on the back of the 1 good staff member they had working that night. There were so many problems with the night we would probably never consider coming back and would not recommend eating here. read more