Lotus (Closed)

The service here is never great but this evening was particularly bad.  I had to chase the waitress twice to get any attention.  When wee ordered, we were told they had no white wine.  When I asked about several items on the menu, I was told they were not available.  I then asked what was available, an incredible question to ask at a restaurant, and she told me she did not know.  She said her boss changed everything.  I felt very sorry for the waitress.  We left.…Read More

On the tab, it explicitly says service charge. For the service that you receive, am I right? This place outraged me. I had ordered a pint of beer from the tap. After approx 20 mins, I wondered where it was so I went up to the bar and asked where it was. The same guy (with a top knot) who took my order said that the beer that I was asking about had sold out. Couldn’t he just tell me that in the first place when he took my ordered instead of making me WAIT and then PERSONALLY come over the enquire where my lousy drink was?! Then, gave me attitude when I requested a glass of water. Wow! Considering that this is a place well known for its happy hour drinks, I would like to think they would be ‘happy’ to serve their customers. ESPECIALLY when they decide to charge me for their ‘service’. …Read More

椰汁芒果紫米飯每次食泰菜既必吃甜品，一般都係用普通既糯米飯，呢度用左相對健康既紫糯米，喜歡吃紫糯米，煙煙韌韌，芒果又甜又多，個芒果奶製品好大個，再加上少少椰汁就更加香…Read More

Lotus is an open air restaurant which attracts many types of customers at night ranging from tourist to expats and some occasional businessmen and women out for some chill atmosphere to drink but when its busy it gets quite hard to place an order as there was only one wait staff taking down the orders n only one bartender. I realized it had been some since my drink had yet to arrive and noticed the waitress was having a hard time (I mean i would too if the restaurant was packed and people are calling you're attention left and right ) and gave her a gentle reminder that she had forgotten my drink order in which she apologised n it arrived shortly after :) . I continued to stay n drank some more round Overall my experience was very pleasant and the service was accommodating …Read More

It was one of the worst restaurant I’ve been in central / Hong Kong ! I ordered a tom yum soup with prawns, I added noodles( extra 30, fair enough), I also ordered Viet spring rolls... ok so my spring rolls came, it came with ONE piece of lettuce, I asked if I could please get more lettuce... lady was like it’s extra 10dollars... like what?!?? The skin of the spring rolls were nice and crispy, the taste was good and I liked the texture, but the filling.... no meat, only vermicelli! This was about 70+ dollars which it’s definitely not worth this price, the Tom yum soup- only sour, sour and water like taste, so bad! Noodles had no flavour.. overall just a extremely bad experience! Place wasn’t even comfortable to sit, food and atmosphere only worth half the price. …Read More

因為這間餐廳就在半山行人電梯旁，平時放工經過總是人頭湧湧，今次lunch time經過見到只得一、兩枱客，與很久不見的朋友敍舊想坐得舒服一點就選了這裡。我點了香茅雞翼飯，味道普通，雖然整個午飯時段只得一個樓面同事，但上菜的速度尚算很快。午市set lunch 有免費餐飲，我點了泰式凍奶茶，我其實是接受這種很橙的茶色（因為記得去旅行時在曼谷飲過的奶茶也是如此），反而是覺得這裡的茶沖得很淡。總括而言，也許因為這裡其實是一間酒吧，食物的質素真的頗一般，但環境是好的。…Read More

I had a classic Thai green curry. The portion was very small, the taste was not really authentic and was quite bland and salty. Rice had to be ordered separately and the portion was small. The value for money was poor, especially considering the serving size.…Read More

Went here for lunch with a colleague. I ordered the pad Thai with chicken and was told there was no chicken version, i then asked for the vegetarian one (which was on the menu) and was told they didn't have that either. I then ordered the satay skewers which i was told again they did not have. Eventually they told me they could make vegetarian pad Thai so i had that. The food was tasty (despite not really being what i wanted) and my colleague liked it too. We then were given a small desert which i thought was free as i had not ordered a menu or a desert but when we got the bill my meal was 140HKD plus the diet coke i had ordered. I told the waitress i did not order a 'set' i only had the pad thai and the desert was not ordered so the desert was removed from the bill. However i was still charged as though I had a set (which should include a starter, a drink, a main and a desert) as well as being charged for my diet coke on top of that! A meal for 2 people ended up being 350HKD (plus service which was poor). …Read More

The Location: The restaurant under review is situated in the heart of Soho, right next to the Mid-Level-Escalators. Soho is part of Central in the Central & Western District of Hong Kong where most Westerners live - as the name might suggest :-) The Place: Lotus is a modern Thai restaurant situated in the corner of Shelley Street and Staunton Street offering outside and inside seating. The restaurant is fairly small yet still being able to accommodate around 60 people, I would guess. It does not feel cramped however it is still not possible to have a completely private conversation in there as others guests are just too near which is really a Hong Kong issue rather than Lotus’ fault.The Food & Beverage: I went to Lotus with a friend, we shared an appetizer – Vietnamese Spring Rolls, and each had a curry. My friend had a glass of sparkling water, whereas I decided to simply have a glass of iced tab water.The spring rolls were pretty good (I might be a little too subjective as I was about to starve when I arrived at Lotus) however they came fried and not in a soft dough as I am used to it. The rolls were not overly fried and did not taste of cooking oil, which was certainly a plus, so the inside stuffing of the rolls was still fresh – in terms of look and taste. Good Vietnamese Spring Rolls, but not overwhelmingly superb.I had Panaeng Curry with Chicken and Rice. The Curry was nicely seasoned and very tasty. The Chicken was mostly tender (some bits and pieces weren’t though) and there was sufficient of it in terms of quantity. The vegetables were cooked in the Curry and had absorbed the full flavor of it. I ordered a glass of iced tab water with lemon, the glass was small, there was hardly any ice, I did not get a lemon and my glass was not refilled.My friend had red Curry with Chicken and added Prawns to it. His food was equally nice when it comes to the taste, however I thought that an extra 48HK$ for prawns (3 pieces only) was rather exaggerated.The Price: Our bill came to 481HK$ having included Spring Rolls (78HK$), 2 Curries (108HK$ each), added prawns (48HK$), Jasmine rice (50HK$ each), sparkling water (45HK$) plus 10% service charge.My friend paid almost 220HK$ just for his curry (including the 3 extra pieces of prawn, jasmine rice and service charge), which I believe is fairly overpriced considering the service provided and the state the restaurant was in.Bottom Line:To summarize my experience at Lotus, I’d say that I had a good meal and a good time. The atmosphere is lively, the restaurant is airy, the crowd that hangs out in there is a mixture of both young and mature (but young at heart). The staff was friendly but they just did their job and could not really be bothered to provide more than that (no smile, no nice words, no extra drip of water, they did not even ask if we wanted to order anything else). Lotus is a great hangout but mainly because of its very convenient location and only when the weather is nice.…Read More

My boyfriend and I came for dinner here as part of a groupon deal. The deal included a thom ya soup to share, an appetizer platter to share, a thai chicken curry to share and dessert each. As we sat down the waitress brought out the soup which was delicious. The platter was then brought out before we asked for it and the soup taken away before we had finished it. While we were eating the appetizers the main came out. We started to feel like we were being rushed out. I told the waitress to please not bring our dessert until we asked for it as we needed a break. 5 minutes later she asked if she could bring it out. I said "Not yet. I will tell you when we are ready". A few minutes later the dessert arrived at our table. We were going to order another drink when the waitress came and asked us to please leave as our table was needed for other customers. The soup was tasty, the appetizers were ok but a bit greasy, the chicken curry was not very tasty and the dessert inedible as it was way too sweet and we were too full at this point to eat it. I will definately not go back even though I have always enjoyed the food, the cocktails and the location. I just can't understand how management sign up to groupon to get more customers to come to their restaurant but then staff treat people who have bought the groupon vouchers as second class citizens not worth their time. Horrible experience. Appalling treatment by staff and average food. …Read More

Grimbergen beer($68) is a Belgian beer. This draft is very light and smooth; a great choice if you were bored with the popular Hoegarden.Rose wine($80) is a pretty good choice for ladies, if you were bored by the normal house red and whites.I am writing becoz there is rarely a chill out bistro that you could enjoy an alfresco feeling and at the same time sitting down 'safely' when raining.The atmosphere was quite laid back on a Sunday evening. Service was slow when there came up to 6 tables of customers, with 1 male and 1 female floor staff. I noticed that Lotus is serving a Thai food menu, and their Happy Hour runs from 3-8pm. Hope I could return later for HH drink and try my favourite Phad Thai!…Read More

We had been here a few times before because the food is acceptable compared to other places in central and the location is nice and open.Their pad thai is quite nice and green curry is decent, which is why we chose to come here. Surprisingly the pad thai which was originally $98 for a set lunch had moved over to the $138 "signature" lunch set, so we didn't order it.Avoid the thai iced tea. Not even worth drinking if they give it to you, and they do not offer syrup like other places.But I will never come here again. The staff are completely incompetent. They took half of our groups orders and went away for several minutes and even brought back some appetizers before taking the rest of our groups orders.Mains started arriving even before most of the appetizers. While others had waited over 40 minutes for their mains to arrive. By then everyone was finished.Throughout the 90 minute meal (which should have been 45-60 minutes) the waitresses were giving us ugly looks. One even gave us a nasty look when she knocked over one of our chopsticks.The absolute worse part is they charged us for one extra set lunch. Unfortunately it only occurred to us that they had charged us for 14 set lunches when there were only 13 people. And then we realized this had happened in the past with a large group, except that we happened to have caught it. Clearly this is not a coincidence. They are purposely overcharging customers hoping they do not notice.We called later to tell them and they denied it saying that this was impossible.…Read More

Perched at the midlevels escalator's Staunton Street landing, Lotus affords the perfect place to see and be seen. I often come here with friends for happy hour or drinks on lazy Sunday afternoons. The service, unfortunately, has really gotten bad over the past two to three months. The man and woman who usually work behind the bar fixing and pouring drinks are doing an outstanding job; no complaints with them at all--I'd like to tell them to keep up the good work! The problem is with the wait staff. They take forever to bring drinks, they don't check to see if you're ready to order more drinks, and they don't bring ashtrays when it's clear that you're smoking (on the steps outside). In short, they're not very attentive. There have been several times when we've had to wait more than ten minutes for our drinks to be served. On two occasions the drinks we ordered had been prepared and were sitting on the bar waiting to be served, but the wait staff was just standing around staring into space. We had to get up and get the drinks ourselves, which is sad considering that a glass of wine is about $80-90 plus service charge. My friends don't want to go to Lotus anymore because of this, and are looking for new places to hang out. Lotus, if you're reading this, please, please, for the sake of your loyal customers, do something about the service problem. P.S., the washroom could be cleaned more frequently. …Read More

2011.4.20 天晴、清涼之前因工作關係常到Soho食飯，但未試過這間Lotus。今次是趁honey day off，便買了OpenRice團購coupon@$59 x2一起去試。4月3日我已致電book 4月20日2:00pm食lunch，但那位菲律賓女職員草草趕著收線，令人不安。出於擔心，4月19日我致電re-confirm 翌日booking，第1次是打不通，第2次是留voicemail但沒有回覆，第3次終於有人接聽，仍是那位菲律賓女職員。她果然表示: I don't have your booking record! 我堅持當初booking的情況有並表示coupon已是last 2 days，她才表示: Ok, see u tmr! 唉... :(把車泊在IFC後，沿著footbridge乘著陽光與涼風漫步而上，與匆匆上班人群形成對比，倍感寫意。:) 電梯左轉角正是開揚的Lotus了，那位菲律賓女職員沒有核對booking便很causal地(求其)"指"我們去坐sofa，之後又表示我們可坐bar table。她收去我的OP coupon，放下menu便走了。當時2:00pm只餘3台客人，卻教她忙過不停良久也不來take order，原來是因為全店只有她及另一位男廚師工作!:)泰式奶茶: 好淡，卻合我意，因為少甜，清淡解渴。與印度奶茶類似。檸檬茶: 一般，不太甜。:)冬陰功湯: 幾有趣的經驗。我本身很怕辣，也試了些，一邊說喉嚨很辣，一會兒失去辣味時，又教我心思思再飲，然後大叫"好辣呀＂以為不飲...又再飲了... 如是者，便飲了半碗。栗米餅: 好特別，好香口、又脆、好多栗米又夠甜，似中式點心花枝餅! 好像哄小朋友的菜式! 炒金邊粉:味道中規中矩，甜甜酸酸，撈砂糖食是不錯的，但金邊粉不似粉，被炒得很爛，断開成為一粒粒碎條，很難用叉來食，不太好啊。:)菠蘿炒飯:味道不錯啊，菠蘿夠甜。 芒果黑糯米小插曲: 我們揮手請waitor來上甜品，怎知她卻遞上bill埋單。我忍不住說: 甜品還未來啊！跟著她才去準備。隔了一陣，她跑來抱歉表示，我們早前order的椰汁西米露一客(coupon已包括)及我們另加$20要的芒果黑糯米一客之中，只剩下後者，因此會給我們兩客芒果黑糯米，但只需$20 at total，而非強迫我們再加多$20。於是，她上了兩大碗芒果黑糯米。黑糯米比平時食開的較鞋，但我很喜歡:)。芒果十分甜，椰奶足夠。只是，兩大碗芒果黑糯米真令人飽上加飽呢！埋單時，她只計作take away而沒有收加一，總共仍是$20。:)Lotus的食物水準不錯，賣相討好，是食飯傾計好地方；只是人手太不足了，服務未能正常，不能說他們服務無禮，只是可能太忙而太鳥龍了:(。…Read More

之前在團購網上推薦午市套餐的優惠券，原本是看到餐廳評論不錯，優惠券的價格又頗為吸引（一份小食、主食、甜品和飲料，加上服務費才59元），兩全其美，抱著不如一試的心態買來和友人同去。好不容易預定到了座位，已經是優惠的最後一天。小食點了冬陰功湯和素春捲，主食點了菠蘿炒飯和泰式金邊粉。沒想到，把小食和一份主食吃完了，連甜品都上來了，第二份主食還是毫無蹤影，催了好幾次，得知原來只有一個廚師！天哪！若是週末悠閒的中午或是放工後的晚飯也就算了，可這是工作日的中午啊！老闆高懸利劍，客戶電話緊逼下的一頓“工作午餐”，最後主食上來的時候，大快朵頤，風捲殘雲，草草了事，扔下優惠券倉惶截的士而去，還是從午飯時間一直吃到了下午茶時間。怪不得隔壁台的寧可放棄一道主食“奪路而逃”，而另一桌並不是拿優惠券來的客人，抱怨根本“無服務”，不願全價買單。食物方面，友人對冬陰功湯評價不錯，而我吃不了辣，覺得春捲質量可以接受；“泰式奶茶”口感奇怪，應該是放多了冰，非常淡；而甜品的椰汁黑糯米果然“甜”得發膩；金邊粉不夠幹身，而吃菠蘿炒飯的時候，已經等得毫無心情。總體而言，食物質量平平，若是能快半個小時，59元的午市套餐算是“物超所值”了。推出優惠，本想是招攬生意的好主意，可是偏偏遭遇人手不足，反倒是砸了招牌，真是“好心做壞事”。…Read More