I visited them on the 15th of August, 2007 for lunch. Accompanied by my family, ten people in all, I was in a rude shock to see that the service sucked at the place where I had had a lovely lunch with my newly wedded wife in 2001. Their cuisine is as boastful as ever and the menu card is quite exhausting, what with continental, mexican, italian and indian- all at one place.
The names are long and self explanatory. The dishes served are portions reminding leftovers and tasteless to a larger extent. The Ran-e-sikandari that we had ordered was already carved and cut into unrecognisable pieces. The meat was tender-yes, but the flavor of this delightful dish was missing. The only face saver was the Dal tadka. It was really tasty.
The food was pasable otherwise. Nothing to write much about, but edible for most part. What was demanding and excruciatingly bad was the service on offer. There was a notice at the entrance "DRY DAY". The behavior of the waiting staff led us to believe that it was probably a dry day, since all liquor had been consumed by the staff. The water, cold as it should have been, took 20 minutes coming.
This set the trend for what was to come. Delays all around. The best was saved for the last. The bill that we wanted to desperately pay and move out took 45 minutes in the making. One long preparation, I’d say. We actually went up to the cashier and offered to calculate the bill with the help of the menu in the end. 15% discount offered on the display card at the table was not featured.
On reminding were told that no such offer was available. On confrontation with the card in hand, they requested to know the no. of guests (the discount was applicable for a gathering of 10 or more.) Surprise, we had requested a table for 10 people on arrival. Another 20 minutes and we were ready to make the payment and finally leave.
We requested to meet the manager to apprise him of the matters hand.
"The manager is off for the day", was the response.
"Can we speak to him on his mobile?"
"No, we dont have his no. He probably does not have a mobile at all!"
"Can we have a peek at the complaint, comment, or suggestion book that you might have?"
"What is that? We have nothing of that sort."
This led us to believe that it was time to make a tired retreat since it was getting close to dinnertime. With such a wonderful service available, it’s a wonder why there was even one more table occupied, apart from ours.
All this is for everyone’s understanding and knowledge. Everyone is welcome to try out the place and share their experience. I would be relieved to know that ours was the only bad experience.
By the way- the lamb casserole was delicious.