Monkey Magic has been around for a while, but has changed hands multiple times and while previous visits have been favorable, tonight's visit was pretty poor. The current owners are Vietnamese and while this isn't always a problem, in this case the chef seemed to struggle with how to make the Chinese food dishes we ordered. The result was the food was not at all authentic and each dish was quite the 'surprise' and obviously open to the chef's interpretation.
The food wasn't bad per se although, although 3 or the dishes pretty much tasted and looked the same. The more complex dishes like Peking Duck were way over cooked and inferior to what I'd buy pre packaged at Costco.
Service was also very poor- our waiter admitted it was his first night on the job and unfortunately it showed- hospitality might not be his thing. Another more experienced waitress shadowed him and was pleasant enough, but unfortunately got our order wrong multiple times and was forever apologising and the third waiter looked like he really didn't want to be there. They tried to palm us to the banquet, which was obviously the staple dishes they could make easily and were confused when we declined; they also decided what dishes they believed were 'entrees' and what were 'mains' and used this as the excuse for delayed food. When we asked them to bring all the food out in one hit (as chinese food normally is), they ended up just forgetting our dishes, or then made the excuse that they were given to the wrong table. They even got orders for glasses of water wrong.
The restaurant itself was also freezing cold and quite echo-y- contributing to a really bad experience all round. I've eaten here before in previous years and found it fantastic- unfortunately the current owners (and they've apparently been in business since early 2012) don't seem to have maintained its earlier reputation.
Probably give it a miss here on until we hear of a new owner coming on board. read more
