W28: So bad that it was funny.

Shop info:

W28

9/F, QRE Plaza, 202 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai

11 August 2012, lunch

$150 per head

If you take trying restaurants you haven't been to as a habit, you'll experience a wide range of emotions in the process - the pleasure of running across good meals, the excitement of finding decent meals at good price, the annoyance of dealing with waiters who don't give a damn, the pain of paying for overpriced meals at sub-par restaurants.

This place, though, has taken it to another level.  This place has left me so shocked that it was funny.  More about that later…

THE ENVIRONMENT

Located on the 9th floor of QRE Plaza in company of other restaurants such as La Cucina Italiana on 21/F, Akita Teppanyaki on 8/F and Zummer on 23/F.  The first impression exiting the lift was that of an elegant, somewhat hip dining room.  Once the staff lead you into the inner parts though, with booth seats and sofas the inner section of the restaurant feels surprisingly crowded.  The booth seats have a strange, unclean feel to it which made me squirm.  Air conditioning was weak.

THE SERVICE

The waitstaff were obviously more interested in their own chit-chat than in serving their customer.  When we walked in nobody was at the door and we had to find a waiter to get a table.  By the time we wanted the bill they were so absorbed in their own cocktail party at the bar that we almost had to dance on our seat to get their attention!  On our way out, they were so excited in their discussion that they didn't even bother to turn around to say goodbye…

Their introduction of the soup of the day, of course, was incomprehensible and the waitress didn't even bother to tell us about the "daily dessert" until we asked.  And then, her mumbling was so quite that I didn't catch much of what she said.

THE FOOD

Seems shocking enough?  The food was definitely more "interesting".  Here goes…

The bread came in an interesting arrangement of dark / light / dark / light.  Normal and whole wheat baguettes, of course.  These came warmed and with a slice of flavourless butter that had a striking resemblance of a slice off an Anchor butter block.  The bread was worse than the butter.  The dehydrated outer layer shouts that it's a few days old, just like those little mermaid baguettes which you'd buy, leave on the dining table and forgot about.  The bread was so dry-aged that the cut surfaces are slightly caved in.  Reheating such a piece of bread, of course, makes no difference - it's still going to be horrid.

Something cream soup, according to the waitress.  This tasted suspiciously like the "white soup" of the "red / white soup" at Hong Kong style "western" restaurants.  A bit more potato-ey and without the typical canned corn and carrot bits.  Quite smooth, but really, that flavour only reminds me of the  soup of the $30 lunch I used to get when in secondary school!

Grilled fillet of sole "Meuniere" with Angel Hair

The fillet of sole was fine.  Still quite HK-western restaurants but the succulent fish went well with the lemon butter sauce (of course, that's a fail safe combination!).  The peripherals, however, were complete failures.  The angel hair was cooked with no seasoning whatsoever.  Bland and tasteless are the only descriptions that I can think of.  It was so bad that it tasted of the starchy leftover water from cooking that angel hair.  I'd even hazard to guess that the water was hardly salted.  Mixing in the lemon butter didn't help much, as after that it tasted of starchy leftover water that has gone sour.  Nicht gute.

The carrots and broccoli weren't any better.  These were simply blanched in boiling water, again without no seasoning and were utterly bland.  Furthermore, the broccoli was in one big lump that you'd have to chop it up yourself.  Frankly, the chef who did these should be sent to wash dishes instead.

As a result, the angel hair, the carrots and the broccoli… were left largely untouched and I left the restaurant still hungry.  It was that bad.

This was almost the sourest and bitterest cup of coffee I've even been served in such a setting.  Way too hot as well.  Thumbs down.

CONCLUSION

Even now, I find it difficult to properly understand this meal.  The setting of the place was that of a mid-to-high-priced restaurant.  Price wasn't cheap, as my fillet of sole lunch costed $118+10%.  Quality was that of a cheap HK-western restaurant (a.k.a. 港式西餐廳).  Service was non-existent.  These were enough strikingly contrasting elements that it takes it beyond annoying or infuriating, and instead made it funny.

This lunch, therefore, was a complete joke.  FML.

My recommendation, therefore, is to avoid this place.  I'm so glad that we didn't try the a la carte "recommended" dishes costing >$300 per dish.  

Oh, by the way, "奶茶咖啡檸茶檸水… 仲有檸蜜".  That's what she said.

Summary (rated 1-5):

FOOD:  (2/5)  Don't expect anything.

SERVICE:  (2/5)  Waitresses don't give a damn.  But at least they didn't pour the coffee on us. 

ENVIRONMENT:  (3/5)  Dirty seats… hmm… 

BIG LOCUST'S RECOMMENDATION:  (2/5)  Don't bother.