Reviews by echostyx0704
Jul 09, 2008
Lido Shopping Mall, Ulsoor, Bangalore
Poor
All that steam for nothing
Some friends recommended this place to us. Said the food was decent and the wine list was elaborate.
So on a lazy saturday afternoon, we decided to see for ourselves.
The most charming part of the restaurant was the rest-room. Seriously. The walls sparkle and its super clean.
(you can't say that about too many restrooms, can you?)
First, things we liked about the place:
- the food is served in a giffy (I wont hazard a guess into why this is so). But, it takes about 10 minutes for them to bring you starters and maincourse, which is really good.
- the menu is reasonably spread out. You have a long list of wines to choose from, the staff are quite helpful in helping you decide what to order
- the ambience is casual, you don't feel like you have to 'dress up' for this place or hold your back straight through the meal. the tables are well-spaced, so you're not forced to sniff the other person's lunch. (especially if u have a tendency to wince at the sight/smell of different meats)
- the food is reasonably ok (though I felt the rates didn't justify it!), its not exceptional. Its a place I would visit if I was in the vicinity, I just wouldn't go out of the way to eat there.
Now, the things we didn't-like-much
- the furniture is heavy, wooden, and reminds you of one of those highway restaurants (heavy drapes, dim lighting). Well, I can't completely put my finger on it, but let's just say its not 'international'.
-although the casual ambience is good in a way, it gets way too noisy. There's no music playing, so people think nothing of adding to the general cacophony. we had a bunch of 18-year olds next to us, and by the end of it, we knew 'sensitive' details about their lives
- Now, here's the part that really upset us. Half way through our wine, we found a floating object in one of the glasses. So we called the waiter and showed it to him. He immediately brought us another glass (without even checking with us if we wanted one). We politely declined it.After some arguing, he took it back.
We go through our dessert and ask for the cheque. We find that he has charged us for that glass of wine! When we called the manager, he told us that he can send us another glass of wine, but cannot strike it off the bill.
Please note that there was absolutely no apology forthcoming, either from the waiter, or the manager, or anyone else higher up. It almost felt like they were blaming US for the floating object!
Again, after some unpleasant arguing and us explaining that we would not pay for something we didn't consume, they struck it off the bill.
Now I can understand restaurants have bad days, and accidents do happen. But my point is that when you are paying around 2,500 for meal for two, you at least expect decent quality and reasonable service. Moreover, if I ran a restaurant and found a bug in the wine (or anything), I would really be worried about it, and take utmost precautions to remedy it immediately. Or at the very least offer a sincere apology.
I think restaurants, especially so-called 'fine-dining' places should realise that in order to sustain their business, they need to deliver the goods.
Otherwise they'd have people like me write unflattering (but brutally honest) reviews and expressing displeasure to the world-at-large.