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| - Over promised. Under-delivered.
I'm not really sure why this place has such highly rated reviews.
My sisters and I stopped in for lunch. We were headed to Vintage 95, but it's closed down. We've already been to Original Chop Shop several times, so we wanted to try something new.
We walked by and perused the lunch menu. All the lunch dishes were about $10, and I thought that was a pretty good deal given that they had items like pork belly lollipops and salmon on the lunch menu. I was a little unsure since there were no other customers in there.
A young gentlemen sitting in the front (I'm assuming he was an owner or manager), but said they had the best food and was very insistent we come try out the place. We found him endearing (probably because he reminded us a little of our brother who owns 5 restaurants in Utah, so we understand how nerve racking and difficult getting your new restaurant established can be), so we gave it a shot despite our better judgment.
The red flags for us were there were no other customers and it looks like they spent way too much on the decor, (the guy mentioned everything was Italian leather, and I'm like, who cares it's Chandler), which usually means budget wise, they spent too much on decor and have to cheap out on the food quality or they've hired a cook instead of a chef.
I ordered the pork belly lollipops with the house salad, my sister ordered the chicken lollipops and house salad.
Pork belly was decent. House salad had too many carrots in it and the dressing was pure lemon juice. Side note- why would you have a chopped salad as your house salad when that is what your direct competition next door does? And they do it much better. So people naturally will make a direct comparison.
We never saw our server after the food came out, which is another thing I took issue with. We didn't like the house dressing that came with the salad, so I asked if they offered different salad dressings. The response was - we might have some ranch in the back. Really? This supposedly higher end establishment and you don't even have a simple balsamic vinaigrette? Furthermore, there should have been a follow up - did you not like the dressing? What can we do to substitute? Nothing. It was almost as if I offended the guy asking for different dressing. And to add insult to injury, I found a piece of plastic wrap in my salad about halfway through eating it. Done.
We didn't bother giving feedback in person. I don't think it would have been well received. We just wanted to leave. Not inclined to go back.
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