I visited Zaica Brookefileds this weekend for dinner. The moment you enter the restuarant, you get a very good first impression. Spacious, very neat, and slick ambience. You get a good feeling and look forward to a good dining experience. Thats well supported by very good service by the waiters. They take the order promptly, and serve the food in time (In approx. 15 mins in our case). Now you are all set to take a plunge and validate all your assumptions on value of food served.
This is where the downside begins. We were let down by the taste and the quality of the main course dishes. It was more of curry and less of the content. And the taste was definitely not worth mentioning. We had ordered Punjabi Mili-juli, and some ’hundi’, a preparation of Mushrooms, Baby Corn etc. Another thing we ordered was Pudina Thanda, a drink supposed be driving taste of Pudina as one might assume going by the name. However it appeared to be a cross between Aam Panna and Jaljeera. Very difficult to associate with anything I had tasted before and not palatable at all (to me).
Overall, it was a big let down, and no value for money for a 250-350 per person dinner. Keep on reading for the ’big mouth’ + customer-is-stupid’ manager part. Anyhow we finish the dinner. There is a power outage while we are waiting for our bill. They serve us complimentary Jalebis probably to make-up for the delay due to absence of any power back-up. And then comes the bill. I am a bit surprised to see a Rs 40/- against a 1000 ml bottle of Kinley mineral water that clearly had Rs. 14 as MRP on it. So, I decide to check with the waiter. He explains that as per price that is given in the menu. Please note that the menu does not mention the volume of bottle that will be served. The waiter calls upon his manager upon asking a few more questions. This is where, things take an ugly turn, as the manager (someone by the name Charles), suggests that as I may not have visited a restaurant of Jaica’s class and quality earlier, I might be completely un-familiar with the normal practice of other (hold your breath) "5 star" restaurants. Trying hard to keep my cool, I explain the rule that one can not charge more than the MRP if the Bottle was sold ’as is’. Then, I ask him to give it to me in writing that Zaica sells a 1000 ml bottle with an MRP of 14/- for 40/-. This is where Charles decides to test my nerves really hard by telling me that he (Charles, the manager) is ready to cancel the charge for water bottle if I am not ’able’ to pay for it. In no mood to argue further, I take that option. To strengthen his claims of propriety Charles agrees to provide me his business card (that he procures from the back of another waiter’s id-card or something) for any further investigation that I may want on this matter.
Just to mention, being a big time foodie I have a deep respect for any quality of food, and the people who make it happen. Its just that some days (or dinners, or maybe for some hard customers) it doesn’t work. I hope that was the case here.
So, go ahead, if you want to take your chances!