The final straw....
My family and I have been going to to this restaurant since it opened. The food was great as was the service so we continually returned. But over the last few years the good staff left, the gentleman owner became over bearing and intrusive, table confusions, empty plates / rubbish not cleared up in a timely manner and service was slow, even if the restaurant was practically empty...
The final straw came when we booked a table for 8 people for our very special family occasion, of which two members had travelled in from abroad, which they do so once a year and we managed to get everyone together for the first time in a long time. We asked for the big table by the window, by the front door and this was confirmed to us. We were even called on the day of our booking to reconfirm that we were still coming, which we confirmed and also confirmed about the specific table we booked and staff confirmed that this was all ok and booked for us.
When we got the the restaurant we saw that our requested table was not free and was currently being used by a Asian family of over 10 people, eating the duck course, so they had not even had their mains yet.
We spoke to the staff and they said that their other staff member gave our table away! Even though we booked in advance AND even though they phoned us on the day of our booking to confirm as above.
The staff said they could make up a table for us, which would be disjointed tables and sorry, that is not good enough as that is not what we booked! We have had random tables slapped together before which was not inclusive to certain family members, leaving some of us isolated from our family on another table.. not ideal and not what we wanted to do again. We wanted the table we booked and confirmed in advance and again on the day when the restaurant called us!
We looked around at the other tables and we saw miserable faces, which I would guess was from people still waiting for their food which they ordered quite some time ago...some which I have experienced for myself in the past on a few occasions regardless of the restaurant was full or not...staff looking flustered and on a sinking ship. An empty table was full of discarded pancake basket containers, drinks glasses and plates.
We turned around, left and went elsewhere. Fortunately another Chinese restaurant were able to fit us in last minuet and were extremely accommodating. Especially on such a special occasion, which was tainted and spoilt by Forbidden City! read more