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2011-07-22
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This review will be a rather long one, because there are some details to justify the rating.We visited the Boathouse before and found the seafood quite nice; hence, we booked it again in a campaign called the Hong Kong Restaurant Week. It was lunch time on the first day of the Restaurant Week when we visited the Boathouse. We took the first table on the 3/F, and subsequently there were two more tables occupied. We were expecting an easy and relaxing lunch at the Boathouse.We asked the waitress f
We visited the Boathouse before and found the seafood quite nice; hence, we booked it again in a campaign called the Hong Kong Restaurant Week. It was lunch time on the first day of the Restaurant Week when we visited the Boathouse. We took the first table on the 3/F, and subsequently there were two more tables occupied. We were expecting an easy and relaxing lunch at the Boathouse.
We asked the waitress for the Restaurant Week lunch menu ($158 for all participating restaurants) as soon as we sat down, and the waitress passed me one without the price on it after 10 minutes. There were two options for the appetizer (salad / soup) and two options for the main course (steak / fish & chips). Dessert and tea/coffee are included. So we confirmed the price separately (as we thought such menu was really a very good deal for $158, we wanted to make sure the menu was correct), and then we ordered one for each. We opted to have an iced tea at the same time.
After almost 30 minutes, the waitress came back to us with another menu, saying that the previous menu was not for the Restaurant Week. The actual one would not include any drinks, and steak was replaced with pasta. At the same time, she was requesting us to present the email confirmation to prove that we really made the reservation through the Restaurant Week. These were awkward. First of all, it was already 30 mins after we ordered and then they discovered they made a mistake on the menu, which involved changing of courses, so we needed to consider again if we would still stick with the menu and we also had to pay for the tea. Secondly, there was no reminder in the email that we had to bring the printout of it and the Boathouse had never called us to do so but now wanted to reject us because of this. We tried to be patient, and we were ready to pick a-la-carte. The waitress also paid an effort to confirm our identity without the email printout. Finally we changed to pasta, and agreed to pay for the tea that we were having. So after 10 minutes we thought this was settled and we expected the appetizer would come shortly.
After another 30 minutes, when the other table on the 3/F had already finished their last dishes (another table had checked out already), all we had had was merely the bread (without any refill given). We had been sitting in the Boathouse for an hour but we had had no proper food yet. The dishes we ordered were not difficult ones – Caesar salad, chowder soup, fish & chips and pasta with dried tomato. In fact one of the other tables also ordered fish & chips and they had it on their table quickly. We wanted to find out what caused such delay and the waitress explained that “the kitchen is busy because there is a party on 2/F”. To us, this sounded like the Restaurant Week diners should be punished because of the extra administrative work and the “special” menu, and also because we did not pick the right time to dine in, i.e. when they are hosting a party. We would rather hear an answer / a lie like “the salad and soup are all freshly made upon order”, although it still would not justify the delay. The waitress seemed to understand our dissatisfaction from our long face and helped to chase up the kitchen, and stated that the manager would “come up to 3/F and see what can be done to help”. However, the soup and salad, still, did not come until 10 mins later, and the manager never showed up. It took more than an hour in total for us to really start having our lunch.
To end the story, the waitress offered us two free iced tea (on top of the one we needed to pay for) voluntarily (we did not request that) after we silently and quickly finished the lunch, and we paid for two lunch sets and an iced tea (still with service charge). This encounter was not a pleasant one as you can tell. The service was not particularly great or bad in our previous visits, but this time was really very disappointing. The restaurant obviously was not well prepared for the Restaurant Week and did not have the ability to handle busy orders. Our view is, if the restaurant join the campaign it should well prepare itself for it; if it actually does not value the campaign there is no point to join it. Or if the restaurant is not able to manage walk-in customers when hosting a party, it should close the door and be exclusive for the party. Going to Stanley is always relaxing, but we did not expect to wait for over an hour (at the same time with so many problems) for our lunch to come. This definitely had ruined our mood.
We would give all 2 marks of service rating to the waitress because she had done her job and was rather innocent in such scenario. Apart from the service, the food (pasta and fish & chips) was standard and brought no surprise. If you are not a big fan of seafood (e.g. seafood bucket) nor this boat-style house / decoration, this restaurant will not be a "must" in Stanley. There are many other restaurants offering similar things and having a similar / better view. We will go to other restaurants when we visit Stanley again.
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