We Go, We Eat!
Bangkok Golden 01/18/2012
 
Eater One:         2.5 out of 5
The Other Half: 2.5 out of 5
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Overall Rating:  5 out of 10 

Oh, bother. I really hate writing reviews like this, where I'm forced to talk about bad service rather than delicious food. But my experience was just too weird to not recount. 

I came with three other friends tonight, all of us starving and fully ready to enjoy this restaurant that we'd heard such good things about. We had heard such good things about their tasty lunch buffets and how nice and chatty the owner lady was.  
We were seated promptly, and a rather ho-hum server came to take our order. I started by ordering a Thai curry puff appetizer. The server started to write down my order when he suddenly remembered that they were "sold out." Bummer, right? Nope, he quickly pointed me to an alternate menu where the same item cost $1 more. And THAT one was available. Hm. Ok, I'll play your game. I went ahead and ordered the more expensive one, and then promptly skipped ordering a second appetizer and a beer--which I was about to order before he started the shenanigan of trying to eek out another dollar out of me. 

Well, the puff was delicious. Not surprising, given this place has good reviews.  It's too bad that we were only at appetizers and the service has already turned me off from returning. 

For my entree, I ordered drunken noodle with chicken. It was good. Greasy, but tasty. Honestly, I was starving so really without thinking much, I went ahead and wolfed down my food. That was that. 

And then...came dessert time. Time to show them our Yelp check in offer for a free dessert! Or so we thought. 

As the server came to clean our table, he saw our Yelp app open on our smartphones and whisked away and avoided us like the plague. He did not bother to ask us about ordering dessert the way he made sure to ask all other tables. 

We finally flagged him down, and we show him the Yelp check-in special. He stares at it and acts confused for a bit. As it starts to get awkward, you could see in his eyes that he was deciding whether or not to honor this very straight forward special or make things awkward. Finally, he asks, "...You want dessert?" ... Um....yes? And there we have it. He chose to make things awkward.

Our server decides he's put in enough effort with us, apparently. He walks away and sends over the other server to deal with us. You know, because ordering dessert was really unreasonable at a restaurant.

This other server walks up and stumbles on her words a bit, not sure how to go about giving us a hard time. She finally goes with, "Um, what would you like?" I gave my order (sticky rice with custard), and she promptly announced to the rest of our table that we only get one dessert per table. 

Sigh. 

"Really? The deal does not say that," I ask. I hold up my phone to show her. "It's a new rule," she replies. 

"So, only one of us gets to eat dessert?" I ask incredulously. "Um...um............It's a new rule. I don't know," was the reply.

I reiterate my order again, point to the app that's still displayed on my smartphone screen, and she reaches over and manually pushes the "Redeem Now" button in my Yelp app. Yes I was physically holding my phone in my hand, and she reached over and pressed the button on my phone. Really? Are you afraid I'm going to sneak back in an hour later with a fake mustache and plastic glasses to try to eek out an order of sticky rice?

My friend then gave her dessert order and blatantly pushed her "Redeem Now" button and held it up to show the server. This part was rather comical, actually. 

Anyway, seeing as how the server had now run out of ideas on ways to deny us dessert, she headed back into the kitchen. 

The fact that the dessert was ok (the custard was over cooked, but the rice was good) is sadly besides the point. The fact that I spent most of this review having to complain about the service means something is really wrong here. Can't businesses see that?

Sigh. Oh small businesses, when will you realize that nitpicking about small things, not honoring your own deals, and being stingy just puts you on a one way street to losing your customers. If you offer a deal, honor it. If you don't want to honor deals, don't offer it. Isn't that a simple concept?

Honestly, had the service been even average, I probably would have returned at some point. But, with tonight's experience, I will never return. There's just too many other places that serve food without an attitude. 


Bangkok Golden
6395 7 Corners Ctr, Falls Church, VA 22044 - (703) 533-9480 
Bangkok Golden Thai Restaurant on Urbanspoon
 


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