| rev:text
| - I agree with the previous review. Based on my experience yesterday, this review is really a 1.5 star review in disguise. But when I went for dinner, it was their opening night, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that they will work out their issues and run more smoothly. Otherwise, I would not come back.
The decor has changed little from the previous Inka Heritage incarnation. We sat down with menus, decided to order a duck clay pot, Phnom Penh curry and a pho deluxe. It wasn't clear who our waitress is, and after a while when nobody checked in on us or even asked if we wanted to order drinks, I notified a staff member that we were ready to order and she then sent someone over to take our order. Not a good start, but I was already getting the distinct impression from the faces of the other patrons in the restaurant that service was going to be a real issue tonight. We put in our order around 6:15pm. At 6:30, I wondered to my dining partner whether we'd be able to get out of here before the Packers game started at 7:30pm. Spoiler alert: we did not.
Because of where we were seated, I could see right into the kitchen. While we waited for our food, I watched 6-7 staff members stand around in the kitchen while the chef held a bunch of tickets in their hand, all trying to figure out what had been ordered or what needed to be fired. I watched our "waitress" stand around in the kitchen, holding a bowl of fried rice, looking lost, deliver it to the wrong table, then went back into the kitchen and stood around some more until the chef came out and told her which table. I'm sorry, but front of the house staff should never require the chef in the back of the house to come out and tell them how to do their job. Maybe some training for the staff before they start? I then watched a woman show up halfway through the dinner service, take a menu and a piece of paper and proceeded to write things down. It was curious because it didn't look like she was taking somebody's order. I had an idea of what she was doing when the other hostess/waitress said in Chinese, "You can't write it like that. He won't understand it." Sure enough, at one point the chef came out of the kitchen with a ticket and asked, "what is this? show me on the menu." "Ohh," says the chef after the woman pointed it out. It was clear that there was no system of communication between front of house and back of house, and possibly even an language barrier. I watched a table next to us order two orders of spring rolls. When our "waitress" brought out two orders, but one saucer of dip, the patrons asked for another one. The "waitress" actually suggested that they just share the sauce before conceding and going back in the kitchen. The rest of their order came out before they had to ask yet again for that second saucer of dip from another "waitress".
So what about the food. At 6:55pm (40 minutes after we ordered), we finally got our bowl of pho. The rest of our order then trickled out one by one. It baffles me that it took 40 minutes for a bowl of pho. I mean, I get it, pho is a slow process, but presumably, the broth should've already been made. The curry came next, and was very under seasoned. Salt helped it out. The duck clay pot was tasty, and I liked it. It had a fried egg on top with a still runny yolk, and had a szechuan spice. We liked the pho too, though it wasn't quite your typical pho flavors.
Given how incompetent the wait staff was, I waved them down and asked for boxes and a check while my friend was polishing off the pho. Boxes came, but no check or even a "I'll be right back with your check." We decided to just go up to the register to pay. It then took 3 people standing around to figure out how we can pay our check. They lost our check because the waitress set it somewhere, never gave it to the person ringing up the check, and it got lost under a pile of menus. Time we finally got out of there was 7:35pm.
Here are some friendly suggestions for the business owner. Have an established system of communication between front of house and back of house. Your menu items are numbered, use that if necessary. Train your staff before you open so they learn the system of communication, where they should put a ticket after they've taken an order. Make sure your staff has specific tasks so they know who's responsible for what. Put less tables in the dining space. If your kitchen can't handle that many tables at once, don't seat that many tables. You'll lose customers and your business if anybody has to wait as long as we did for their food. Wait until your kitchen staff and wait staff is running smoothly before adding more tables. Plus, it may be worth your while to have fewer tables but turn them over faster.
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