The boyfriend and I decided to celebrate our 1st year anniversary at a fancy-pantsy place. I was given the task of identifying a restaurant and as we are both foodies and have tried A LOT of restaurants in Delhi, I decided that it had to be something we hadn’t tried before. That was my first mistake. I’m tellin’ you, if you plan on celebrating, do it in familiar territory!
Anyway, I thought, hey! Let’s try the Blue Elephant at the Intercontinental Hotel. I have eaten a scrumptious meal at it’s neighbour “The Grill” and figured that if was half as good as The Grill, I was home free.
What’s amazing about this restaurant is the view. It’s on the topmost floor of the hotel so you have a panoramic view of the city. The cuisine as the name suggests, is Thai. The décor is great…lots of Thai influence, complete with a fish pond and bridge! But that’s where the amazing part ends.
1.We were ushered to a smoking section despite specifying that we want a non-smoking table at the time of reservation.
2.The wine list is impressive but the prices!!! My God – for that kinda money, I may as well go to France and swim in wine country! The menu is extensive and a bit overwhelming. We opted for the preset “Thali”
- At Rs 1250 + taxes per person, we expected a decent fare. WRONG! We got 6 minuscule bowls between us – all presented by a very inexperienced waiter. The stand on which the “thali” was presented was basically a wrought iron stand with hollows where the miniscule bowls were precariously placed. The bowls contained cold salad, cold chicken, cold fish, cold veggies, cold rice and cold noodles. To make things worse, the food was dripping out of the bowls so the presentation killed whatever little appetite we had after actually seeing the portion size. The deal included dessert and what we got was canned fruit and vanilla ice cream! WHAT A RIP OFF!!!
4.They were playing badly resung remixed versions of 80’s music and I’m telling you, if it wasn’t for the tragic look on the waiter’s face, we would have screamed. The poor guy looked like he was completely at sea and we just didn’t have the heart to get him into trouble.
In the age of fierce competition and an educated and informed client, it was shocking to see such un - professionalism by a hotel chain of this stature.