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2013-04-16
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I visited the Salted Pig for Sunday lunch and was immediately impressed with the decor, tables and chairs etc. The menu also stood out as simple and of unique design. So far v. impressed. My party of five arrived at about 11.10am and were told the kitchen doesn't open until 11.30am. Fair enough, no problem there, so we ordered drinks and chatted away until 11.35am when we told we could order. It was very quiet when we ordered. Besides ourselves there were a maximum of 4 other diners present and
My party of five arrived at about 11.10am and were told the kitchen doesn't open until 11.30am. Fair enough, no problem there, so we ordered drinks and chatted away until 11.35am when we told we could order. It was very quiet when we ordered. Besides ourselves there were a maximum of 4 other diners present and as we were first to arrive at the restaurant first I would assume that we were first to order.
We ordered:
Two all day breakfasts $128 each, one pork burger and chips $138, pork skillet something or another and the other i honestly can't remember. I won't go into detail about the quality of the food, all I will say is that we were all very satisfied with our meals. However, we expected to be able to enjoy our meals at the same time, as a group of 5 but this wasn't the case. Our meals came out in 3 rounds! The first to arrive were the two all day breakfasts that arrived 40-45mins after ordering. The next meals to leave the kitchen arrived 10-15 minutes after the first 2, leaving one person still without food and one person having already finished their meal. Finally, the last meal arrived 5 mins after the previous wave.
Each time we asked a server when our food would arrive they assured us in an apologetic tone that it would arrive shortly but were given no explanation or apology for the inconvenience. Therefore, I have no reason not to believe that The Salted Pig think it is acceptable to bring a table's mains out with a 20mins difference between them and a return visit would result in a similar experience.
Another thing that annoyed me was that while 3 of us were still waiting for our food, one of the severs was sitting at the far end of the bar eating his lunch. Maybe that's what was keeping the kitchen busy I really don't know. Even if it was a packed lunch his loving mother prepared for him before she kissed him goodbye that morning it's inappropriate to tuck into your lunch in view of customers who are still waiting for theirs.
Just before we left, my girlfriend and I got up to check out the open kitchen just because we're interested in things like that. They are lucky to have a very big kitchen at the Salted Pig and it's great when the customers can see their meals being prepared and cooked (we were seated at the other end of the restaurant).
All the time we were waiting for our meals we tried to think what could possibly be taking the kitchen so long. We speculated that apart from the possibility that such practices are the norm at the salted pig, maybe because we ordered as the kitchen opened the chef might not have been prepared. Still not acceptable. W also considered that there might only be one chef working but when we got up to check out the open kitchen i counted no fewer than 5 chefs/kitchen porters!!
SHOCK. I've worked in restaurants that have served lunch with one chef and one kitchen porter in a space half the size of the kitchen at TSP and they will always send a tables's dishes out at the same time. There would never be a gap of more than 5 mins between dishes. When we made mistakes and customers were greatly inconvenienced we voluntarily removed the service charge because it's disrepectful to the customer.
In the end we paid the 10% service charge because the service was satisfactory and the servers shouldn't have to suffer because of the kitchen. If we did refuse to pay service then maybe the waiting staff would give the kitchen kick up the arse for losing them money but I've never refused to pay service charge here in HK and don't know how that would go down, especially with the culture/language barrier.
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