Just yesterday, my wife and I decided to come back to this restaurant to order some food to take…read moreaway.
The truth is that we used to order from them quite a while ago, but we stopped doing so because of some reason we could not recall. We only could remember that the food wasn't too bad, so we decided to give them a chance as we really wanted to eat some Chinese food.
When we arrive, they had a board by the entrance with some offers, saying that "all chicken dishes include boiled rice or chips, from 7.00eu". We thought "great!", as chicken with cashew nuts are one of our to-go options.
Upstairs, we had a look at the menu and we immediately noticed that the chicken with cashew nuts we wanted was marked with a blue pen over the printed price in the menu, which was initially 6.50eu, with a new price of 7.50eu. "Fair enough", we thought, and then we decided to add a shredded beef in spicy sauce with fried noodles to the order, which were marked as 6.50eu and 3.50eu.
We placed the order to the staff member, and she charged us 18.00eu. I paid with card without thinking about it too much, but then something felt wrong, so I started making the numbers mentally while they prepared the order.
Now, as per the prices shown, we had:
- 1x chicken with cashew nuts + chips= 7.50eu (including the chips as per offer in the board downstairs).
- 1x shredded beef = 6.50eu
- 1x fried noodles = 3.50eu
Total = 17.50eu
Because I didn't want to get to any early conclusions, I waited until they had the order ready, and then I brought to her attention that I thought there was a mistake in the price charges, and explained one by one the prices that were shown in their menu, etc...
Before our astonished eyes and ears, she started arguing that "the price of the chicken shown in the menu was wrong, and it was 8.00eu".
I explained that this can't be right, as the menu clearly stated 7.50eu, so that should be the price. If they wanted to rise the price now, they could have marked it with the blue pen again, but letting the customers know before ordering. Otherwise, it leads to confusion.
She then said something like "No, no. But this is the price in the menu, but this doesn't include chips (pointing with the finger the part in the back of the menu where it says that no dishes include chips or rice unless otherwise stated). We charged you 8.00eu but no charge for the chips. You see, cashew nuts are expensive..."
I transmitted my objections to her, explaining that the offer that the placed downstairs states clearly that "all chicken dish include boiled rice or chips from 7.00eu". This can be taken as "all chicken dishes priced 7.00eu or more include chips" or "all chicken dishes include chips, and may cost 7.00eu or more". I told her that I understand that, but then, if you check the menu and see that the chicken with cashew was 7.50eu, it will be elegible for the offer and the price will be the one marked in the menu. Plus, they rised the price 1 whole euro as far as i can tell, so the "cashew nuts are expensive" argument makes no sense.
She went back to the same explanation again, making special emphasis in the "FROM 7.00eu" part. I told them that, following that logic and as far as I can tell, they could have charged me 20.00eu for the chicken, disregarding completely the price marked in the menu and then throwing the same argument.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing and, to be hones, I was even more shocked when I saw that the older man, which I assume is the owner, was walking around and hearing all the conversation, but doing nothing about it.
Of course, I wasn't offered the refund of the 0.50eu at any point or an apology, but it was getting late and I didn't want to walk away without our dinner, so I suggested them to change their advertisement ways as it could lead to misunderstanding and even be seen as false advertisement.
Finally, we remembered why we stopped going to this restaurant: it was the awful service of the staff and the lack of business principles. As I mentioned before, food is not too bad, but it certainly not the best. However, I'm now suspicions that the chicken pieces they use are not whole pieces of chicken breast, but "chicken fillets", which basically are smaller pieces of chicken, glued together to look like a piece of actual chicken breast (similar to the chicken nuggets), but I can't tell for sure.
I wound not recommend anyone to go there as there are plenty of other places in Fermoy that are probably better. I won't go back again, that's for sure.