| rev:text
| - Much different experience the second time around. The second time reveals a disturbing issue.
Well this is absolutely disappointing to write. Especially after writing a favorable review of Great Wall the first time around. But our experience here was not good during our last visit.
First, we were not acknowledged when we came in the door. We had to pardon an employee (who appeared to be doing nothing) to take us in. He then proceeded to take us to a booth after we requested a table and chairs. We asked again to be seated at a table and chairs and he finally obliged. We were given menus and that's when the real trouble began in terms of service.
First, we ordered a lot of food. 2 main dishes, 2 appetizers, 2 drinks, and an extra side dish to split. It was my last night in Phoenix so I wanted to go all out and sample some different things. Besides, we have the money so who cares right? Well, the drinks came and when we ordered the server let us know there were no BBQ pork ribs, but didn't offer an alternative. When I picked something else, he rolled his eyes and said "So you really want pork?". Yes. I do.
So we waited for our appetizers, only one of which came out before the main dishes. The others came out with the dinners. Now the food was good, I have no complaints there. But when the person bringing us the food came out, she would't even look at us. The feeling I was getting was that they were either disgusted with our presence or just didn't care to talk to their non-Asian customers.
I say that because the servers were "chatting up" the Chinese folks at their tables (it wasn't a busy night only a few small families), but they were literally ignoring us and a hispanic family sitting adjacent to us. I wouldn't normally write about that but it was so egregious I have to say how it appeared to look. I wish I could say it had something to do with language barriers and being comfortable with your native tongue maybe, but they spoke English fine from what I saw and it just didn't feel good to be ignored.
Anyway, no refills on tea, water, or our main drinks were given. When we were done, we were ignored for 20 minutes until I glared at another server who was having banter with an Asian couple near us. I guess he told our server to bring us a check. So we pull out the Amex and what do you know? For the first time all night our server immediately comes over and says in perfect English "we don't take American Express" (even though the tray the bill was on says "Amex Preferred", but that's neither here nor there.
Wow.
Once it was time to pay, he's on my shoulder like a parrot. Prior to that, he wanted nothing to do with us. Finally, the woman who came out to put the food in 'to-go' bags literally ignored us even after I smiled and tried to talk to her. She turned her head away when my date tried to thank her for putting everything in bags for us.
And our sending off? Waiting another 10 minutes for someone to come take the card before giving up and walking to front and giving the bill to someone who appeared to be a manager. No tip given. You've got to be kidding me.
In the end this experience wrecked what was supposed to be my new Chinese food place. The service ruined what was great food. The feeling I got while there was that they didn't particularly care if we (non-Chinese customers) were there. And that is really sad. Needless to say, we won't be coming back.
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