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2013-04-16
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Finally!!!!! I have manage to make a reservation on that saturday night after my tennis game to eat at Famous Mario Batali restaurant Lupa in Central. Its been a long time I wanted to go despite all I hear about it. I am not specifically a fan of Mario but I found the guy nice and genuine so I dont think with that qualities that the experience should be bad. I made a reservation few days ago thinking on a saturday night it might be difficult to get a table... but maybe not!!!when comes Saturday
when comes Saturday 8pm the fact that the restaurant is not exactly full do not bother me as it should be a better service and better food then.... yeahhh!!!!
But did I forget where am I? Am I so optimistic that I cant seem to accept the reality of Hong Kong? My girlfriend seem to think so. Anyway, we arrive at the restaurant and nicely the hostess offer to take my tennis bag to get it out of the way for ease of service I assume but it is nice nonetheless. We are excited by the idea to be eating here. To be fair and to understand I am following Mario on twitter and he spend so much time answering many of his followers which makes me appreciate him a bit more and certainly respect him more. However here in Hong Kong it seems that he has mix reviews, I personally have friends that have been there and loved it and some swear they will never come back. But in many case, it is good to go and experience it personally.
So here we are hoping for great Italian food, and I am starving actually so is my girlfriend.
We received our menu and we looked at it, few dishes already catch our eyes, and you dont need to have all dish you like in a restaurant as long as there are couple or few that makes you hesitate the battle is half won for the chef. And italian should do just this, making you want to try many.. (although your wallet or your appetite will restrain you) we are exactly at that point. As usual we like sharing the food to have a taste of few things. so we choose two different appetizer, and two different main dish, and hoping we can order desserts after, while we wait for the waiter to come we look at the drink list, but not long enough to make our choice as the waitress came to take our order.
First disappointment happen there as it was out of order of one of the item we wanted, and while I asked why, as it is saturday night, and it is early, I am told the restaurant was busy last night.... Sorry did I hear that correctly!!! did the waitress made this up? how can you tell me that the restaurant was busy the night before therefore it is out of stock today? Don't you have cooks working today? were they off until the service starts? did Mario's Chefs do not know that in Hong Kong most suppliers will be happy to assist you and deliver on saturday? Seriously "we were busy last night..." is it something any costumer wants to hear ?
So of course we choose another dish, we ask the waitress to bring the two appetizer at the same times as we will share it so not to worry about it.
while I am choosing drinks/wine, my girlfriend goes our for a cigarette, and surprisingly enough the first appetizer arrived!!! but not at all what you would expect as only one came and it seems that she got it wrong as she brings two side plate to share and put the cold cut on the middle of the table. I am thinking, it is ok she will bring the ravioli we order and then we will use the side plate to share, not a big deal. At this point the table is small and this is why we did not requested plate to share but i understand her trying to do well and I can appreciate it. Only to discover few minutes later that she did not try to do well but only did not listen properly as the ravioli never came at the same time. so we are serve the cold cut first and most likely when we finish it they will serve us the ravioli. Again I know that in Italy they will serve the pasta between the appetizer and the main course but this is not what i requested...
Anyway, we went on with our dinner and while I was surprise they do not serve wine by the glass they have a selection of quarter bottle. Yes at first I thought the same as you might, if I only want a glass why would I buy a quarter but on the other hand I can of understand a bit, I might not agree but I respect it. anyway after over 20 mn waiting for anyone to take my wine order although we wave at waiters few times nobody came I then simply throw the wine menu on a service table beside us and actually the menu stayed there for most of the evening. In short they don't up sale nor care at all. As we ate our cold cut we were surprised that an italian restaurant do not offer a better bread basket, but not just the quality that was poor the variety was a shame for any italian chef or restaurant. no ciabatta, no focaccia, bread stick so hard it could injure someone if it was thrown by mistake or fall on you... sad sad.... really sad.
I requested from the waiter if that was the only bread available and was told yes it was. I took the opportunity to tell him that they might want to rethink their bread selection, but i am pretty sure that neither the chef of the restaurant manager would have that feedback.
the ravioli came and nicely they separated it into two plates... well I am being sarcastic, we never requested to have it separated into two plates. it looks ridiculous, dry and not appetizing at all. Maybe the kitchen decided on their own to separated it or maybe the waitress asked for it, I don't know, but definitely not what I asked for. The pasta was too thick and the filling too little in comparison. the sauce was almost inexistent which makes the whole dish dry while I believe it could have been a good dish initially. it is just a poor execution.
at that point while I was asking the waiter passing by for some drinks, and actually that specific guy was pretty good as it end up serving us while passing by couple of time i found him professional and nice. So I asked him a bit about what happen tonight that we had such a bad experience. First the appetizer out of order, the wine order that never been consider (although we told the waitress we will order but to give us few minutes) the bread that is disastrous, the order not coming as we requested, etc.. etc... he apologized and went on with his work. he really seem genuine and I appreciated his apology as well as his concerns for our experience.
So we went on and continue our dinner, decided that this will not ruin our evening after all... sometimes we might have bad experience not because it is that bad but because we build up expectations. honestly it was not the case here but we do not want ruin our time. So we continue our dinner.
Then the General Manager of the restaurant came to see us, either because he heard us as he told us or because the waiter told him we were unhappy, whatever the case he did came and see us to understand what happened. As we explain to him we still have our ravioli that we are eating in front of us. we explain to him everything and he nicely apologize and offer to make it up. Well I never complain to have freebies, I hate that... so I declined his offer not to be rude but just not to seem that I might complain for having something free. my point is never for that. I go somewhere i don't mind paying whatever you assume it is worth, but give me what you pretend it is worth. do not sale me a hkd 500 dinner and serve me a tea house menu, with tea house service...
anyway, after much insisting in his part we accept to have a glass of wine offered by him. the guy is nice and very professional. Interestingly enough just to illustrate what we were talking about and while our ravioli still on the table the waitress came with our main dish... he send them away as not only we are still talking but mainly we are not finish with our pasta. He looked at us.... smile.... and apologize again as he can experience that something is going badly wrong with our table. he left us after a while only for me to realize that actually the food that was coming was not even for us... it was deliver to a wrong table... what is going on!!!! Are we not the only ones getting terrible service tonight? Meanwhile my tweet to Mario are still unanswered probably due to hours difference between hong kong and America.
After a long... long wait our main dish finally came and it was nice, the general manager came by again to see if it was ok. then we decided to order dessert and followed the recommendation of their general manager who surprised us with some more wine to match our choice of desserts. that now is impressive, transforming a bad experience into a positive one takes some people skills and he has it.
we enjoy the desserts but even more the combination with the wine was spot on. to the point that I think that dessert should be serve with it only. We can always comment on the presentation of a dish, but I feel it is usually an intimate relation between a chef and his plate, we can appreciate or not, we can understand it or not, but it doesn't make it right to decide if it is good or bad. I avoid in general to go down that line but some facts remain. First wether your overall experience match your expectations, based on the restaurant/chef reputation or because of the price they are charging, either way it has to be a balanced which we did not experience with my girlfriend. Sadly because both of the situation, I was expecting a lot and their prices is not on the lower range of the market therefore they set themselves in the upper part but fail to deliver, on the service for sure but also on the quality of the food we have experience.
Then there is always a bad day and it can happen to all of us whichever industry we are working on, and if it is the case then it was a bad day for the chefs, the servers, everyone...still hard to believe.
But despite this, I still want to trust we can have better food and better experience in Lupa and I want to go back to see if it is as I hope... a bad day or simply one more place that do not care for their costumers only because they fail to understand which industry they are in...
So if you go there let me know how was your experience...
Enjoy,
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