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2009-05-13
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I recently visited this restaurant having heard raving reviews both on the internet and from friends. I was alerted by some openrice.com reviews warning that the service was quite poor for a restaurant of this standard. However, I wanted to try it for myself...I should have listened to the review's advice and stay away.First, lets get the good stuff out of the way:The food is good, comparable to Caprice of the Four Seasons.hotel. This is certainly a good sign as Caprice is one of my favorite
First, lets get the good stuff out of the way:
The food is good, comparable to Caprice of the Four Seasons.hotel. This is certainly a good sign as Caprice is one of my favorite restaurants in Hong Kong.
The decor is a bit over achieving for this district, it sticks out from everything from its surroundings, I am a firm believer that great design should ALWAYS take it's surroundings into consideration, the decor here certainly has a different opinion.
The table setting: The place is quite small, the tables seemed a bit cramped together but what was particular was the really ugly carnation flower (singular) half dead drooping in a tiny vase. Really awkward when matched against everything else, just out of place.
Now onto the bad:
The service simply is HORRIBLE. Be warned, you will be upset about the service. Considering a dinner for 2 easily tops 2500HKD, you should be upset with this service. VERY upset.
Immediately upon seating us, we were asked to order drinks. We were celebrating so we wanted to order wine, but without being presented the wine list, the waiter seemed almost forcing us to order something. I ordered a diet coke, my wife a bottle of sparkling water.
Before I could ask for the wine list, the server ran away from our table.
My Diet Coke arrived COMPLETELY flat, as if the kitchen forgot to cap their bottled coke for 2 weeks and decided it had aged enough to serve. They charged us 50HKD for this Coke, I at least expect a better Coke than McDonalds!! The wine sommelier just so happened to be walking behind me so I flagged him down to complain. He was alarmed! No, not alarmed of the quality of their Coke, but alarmed that a LOWLY customer would actually complain and not appreciate everything they gave us. He VERY rudely swiped my glass of Coke away without a single apology. Then 5 minutes later appeared out of the shadows and slammed a new glass on my table...the Coke? Still rather flat, still worse than McDonalds (only aged 2 days). My wife's Sparkling water, on the other hand, was a success, thankfully.
As we were going through the menu, another waiter came by, seeing that we had Coke and water, then rudely swiped our wine glasses off the table ASSUMING that we wouldn't order wine. Almost with a snide sneer at us that we would be too CHEAP to order wine. This ALL BEFORE we were even given a wine list.
We were a bit perplexed at this point so we asked the main server kindly to give us a wine list and kindly asked to have our wine glasses back, we would be ordering wine. Yes, suckers we are!
We ordered the tasting menu for both of us, the main server was VERY kind (perhaps we had been conditioned already by the other staff) and allowed us to exchange some of the items that we did not eat and even gave us some recommendations.
The food arrived within 15 minutes and was nice and warm, very tasty as well.
The main course arrived: Another waiter (we presume the head server) placed our food down and as with other 5 star restaurants, went on to introduce to us the nice food placed before us. This is all well and all, but he got it all wrong, for example, what he announced to us as Asparagus turned out to be Parsnip. OK, fine, you may say I am being picky, but for 2500HKD, the head server can't get the TASTING MENU items right? Are you KIDDING ME? I have every RIGHT to be picky.
At this point we just wanted to get it over with so we had our coffee and dessert (too much dessert but definitely good tasting).
We got the bill and while I handed over my credit card, my wife just could not contain herself and complained about the many things stated above. The waited (he was again, the head waiter there) took it all in, not a SINGLE word of apology. Not a single word of, "we'll do our best to improve", "thanks for the comments" NOTHING. Just stood there and faking that he was listening to us. My wife was being completely fair and even complimented them on the food. NOTHING.
These guys are so full of themselves it is sad.
Yes the food is good, but there is better. MUCH better for this price. And with this kind of service...it's almost as if we were in an ANDY LAU commercial, we were the BAD SERVICE part of the commercial. The part were people laugh at and assume is unthinkable...unthinkable until you visit CEPAGE.
Final word:
The food is great, the service horrible. Management is simply too full of themselves, they believe they are god's gift to Hong Kong's restaurant scene. I am sure they will continue to be popular for a few more months, but service like this? Forget about it.
Oh, and as we were leaving the restaurant, escorted by the head waiter, do you want to know his final words?
"At least the food was good!" He was so proud.
Fool.
You have been warned.
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