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2012-06-17
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Without a doubt one of the most frustrating and disappointing restaurant experiences I've had service-wise - I eat out frequently in HK.There were 5 of us dining that night; one of us whom were visiting HK for a few days and thought Dragon King would be a good place to try HK cuisine. Sat night, 8pm dinner.Will begin by first commenting on food quality - it was so-so, passable - I've always thought that the Dragon King in Wanchai was significantly better (now closed down). It wasn't bad and wasn
Without a doubt one of the most frustrating and disappointing restaurant experiences I've had service-wise - I eat out frequently in HK.
There were 5 of us dining that night; one of us whom were visiting HK for a few days and thought Dragon King would be a good place to try HK cuisine. Sat night, 8pm dinner.
Will begin by first commenting on food quality - it was so-so, passable - I've always thought that the Dragon King in Wanchai was significantly better (now closed down). It wasn't bad and wasn't great - being objective I would say that its just on acceptable for the price.
However, the focus point of the night was in the service. It was terrible, especially for a 'nicer' restaurant. We pre-ordered a Peking duck - this was fine - and to supplement between 5 ppl, we surveyed the menu for about 4-5 other dishes. We picked our choices and off the waiter went. About 10-15mins later a waiter came and advised us that one of the dishes is not available, so we look at the menu, pick another, and thought nothing of it. One by one, this then occurred to every single dish (apart from the duck) that we ordered, each time, a (different) waiter came to say a dish wasn't available, and to pick another. What they didn't tell us was that the newly picked dish was also not available.
So not only did the waiter do this one dish at a time, but also when we were told to choose another dish and I queried "are you sure this dish is available", them saying yes, they would then also come back about 10mins later and say "oh its not available either". A full hour passed and we were still unable to order 4 dishes. I fully understand that a restaurant may have limitations on its supply of dishes - but the staff were not only unhelpful, but also casual, dismissive and acted with arrogance. I will also add that about 6-7 different waiters served us, so there was a complete lack of consistency of trying to order. When I finally requested the manager she was a tad less rude, but rather than help the situation, blamed it on us as having a late dinner ("if you eat earlier there's more chance" - why thank you). We ended up settling on 3 other dishes.
By this point our party were fed up and extremely hungry, so when the Peking duck finally came we chomped it down. Half way through, we ran out of the sauce and the sliced cucumbers that come with the duck, so we asked if we could have some extra. The lady said, yes its $40 each. We almost spat out our food. We called the manager and said given the situation tonight, you still want to charge $40 each for a tiny place of sauce, or a measly few slices of cucumber - her response was a straight yes, that's how it is, do you want it or not.
The issue we had that night was not because of the lack of supply - it was the direct rudeness and blatant arrogance of the staff, carrying an air of 'its a privilege to eat here' without any appreciation of why people choose to dine out.
For all of us, we will not be returning to this restaurant again. I cannot fathom giving them a hint that such service is acceptable.
* For those that asked, there was no offer of discount (present or future) nor otherwise.
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