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| - I read all the good reviews on here and decided I had to go and see for myself what all the hype was about. Firstly I found the staff to be quite friendly, and while somewhat difficult to understand their service was very fast, contrary to what I've heard.
Making a reservation was impossible, I finally ended up going down in person to do it. I was told they do not take reservations on Friday since it is booked for private function. If you want to book a reservation you must call between 3 & 5 PM.
The White Elephant opens at 5 except on Sundays, and are not open for lunch. When we arrived for our reservation at 5, they were not ready yet and were still preparing. Our hungry party could not enter until 5:15 and this was quite annoying. We waited there in the crowed hotel hallway, feeling very out of place in this seedy joint, there amongst the rent by night rooms. The restaurant was basically empty then but by 6:30 most of the larger tables had filled up. Smaller groups could still easily be seated without a reservation.
The restaurant was relatively clean but smells dank and moldy, like the hotel, and at (was it my imagination?) as little rose from possibly a nearby out of order public bathroom??? I think so and I wasn't the only one that thought that. Almost all the diners were ethnic.
The waiter immediately served up immediately a couple of carafes of fridge cooled water, and it was ice cold, making it a good start to the evening. The h'ordeurves that I chose were delicious and I thought we were going to be in for a real treat.
We asked the manager/waiter what he would recommend and he happily offered us 5 suggestions for their famous top dishes. They arrived quickly and our experience continued to go downhill.
I found almost every dish was sickingly rich, was all pretty mushy and all tasted like it was all cooked in the same pot of peanut oil. Not one of us felt compelled to finish their plate.
Our bill came to $140 for 5 dishes, 2 h'ordeurves and 6 beer.
Payment was a little awkward. The place is so small you practically have to stand in the kitchen to settle up. I am pretty sure I won't be back.
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