FoodPassions.co.uk

Now this is a place worth visiting for a light bite to eat and a drink in a courtyard setting. This side of the road has captured a more intimate atmosphere without all the glitz and razzmatazz of the fountains surrounding the Burj.

The service is friendly and the food very acceptable in an intimate courtyard that comes alive in the evening with the Arabian shisha filling the air. We have eaten in this place on a number of occasions and thoroughly enjoyed every time we have been back.

Points to note wireless internet access is available for free as in many places in Dubai and that alcohol is not served between 4 and 6 in the afternoon due to some licensing law and the shisha pipes.

There are a few suggestions to improve upon but none that would stop us from going back if things don’t change.

Improvements

1. Try serving the drinks all at once rather than a beer first then five minutes later the wine arrives
2. Get reception hooked up to the internet so they can assist customers with local questions
3. Menus are looking a bit tatty

Conclusion

Very happy with this place, making it reasonably priced in Dubai terms

This is becoming all too familiar, realy nice happy people waiting on tables that nod and say yes to everything but understand very little. This was the second time we had been to the hive as our first experience was very casual and pleasant. This second time was unfortunately nothing like the first which just shouts we are inconsistent. If you are looking to take advantage of happy hour and get lashed in the two hours from 5-7 in the evening then this place is as good as any. The staff are happy smiley nodders that understand little but always seem to want to please.

Anyway back to our experience. We decided to take advantage of the happy hour as this brings drinks down to about £4 per glass (half price) for wine or a bottle of beer. So, we asked the waiter for a drinks menu to which he replied “Sorry we don’t have a drinks menu.” Now forgive me asking but is it not the most basic thing a restaurant has is a menu? Obviously not. So we then ask what wines do you have and with that this happy smiley face reaches into his pocket like a naughty school boy looking for his conkers, conjours up this pathetic screwed up piece of paper from his pocket and carefully unfolds it in front of us. He then starts to read out the wines that he has on the list. Now forgive me for being observant but here we are sitting in a ‘wannabee’ restaurant supposedly part owned by the Irish rugby star Brian O’Driscoll and we have some fourth rate tin pot menu. Recognising that there is now an opportunity to investigate an opportunity for some improvement I ask the waiter to read out the whole wine menu. Once he had finished we then asked what the house wine was. The answer is not important as he took away the order for a beer and house wine. In no time at all he returned, why? Because of the 10 or so wines he listed the house wine had run out! Yes run out and the time was only a quarter past six in the evening. Now its play time, for me. “OK so if you have run out of house wine does that mean that anything else we order is the same price?” I should have said it in Russian as this was now expecting the waiter to step outside of his tick box world and now he was expected to make an executive decision. I gave up before him and ordered another wine which cost another 30% extra.

With the drinks now on the table we are ready to order some food. Be warned that starters are 10-15 pounds and that this is really a finger food place – it is not a fine dining experience. So we stick to the mains and both order rib eye steak with pepper sauce. What could be simpler with a restaurant half full with only drinkers and no one else eating. Hmm theres a clue there! Not to worry we continue anyway as ever the optimists. Well the food arrives or at least most of it does and once again its delivered by enthusiastic happy smiley faces that always keen to say yes. Just as the waiter tries to rush off we ask “what about the sauce for the steak?” “What sauce?” the waiter asks “The sauce that we asked for with the steak.” With that he runs off and in no time returns asking “What sauce?” Now this is all very amusing except we have two small £26 steaks cooling nicely in the evening air. So now I see this as a point to make a process improvement and tell the waiter “the same sauce that we asked for and the waiter very kindly repeated to us before he took our order away.” With that he ran away again. By this time we thought we had waited long enough so carried on with our dinner. After consuming three quarters of our meal the elusive pepper sauce arrives with buckets of apologies and sorreys and more apologies blah blah! “Is there anything else we can get you sir?” I’ll leave the managers of the establishment to work out what should have happened at this point, but for the rest of you the waiter never stepped outside his yse sir no sir comfort zone.

Having eaten our meal the manager decided to walk by a very nice Philipino man and he asked me if everything was OK. I told him to take a seat as this could take some time. This he did and to be fare he listened and seemed to take on board our comments with regard to the wine and food order. At this point we also said that as we were local we had come back to the restaurant because of a previous pleasant first experience. However we also pointed out to him that customers like consistency and that from our experience the hive was failing in that. Also we advised him that he should be aware that when waiting on tables to Europeans then the waiters should not clear any of the plates before the whole table had finished at which point I pointed out to him that my wifes plate had been cleared her chips were left on the table and I had not finished. Now this may be a cultural issue but it is for managers to understand this and train the staff accordingly.

So a very disappointing meal came to a close and we thought that was that. Oh no we then had oodles more apologies from waiting staff and were offered the dessert menu and told that we could have some chocolate dessert as a complimentary gesture of good will. Now why would you give someone a menu show them a list of desserts and then go tell them that they can only have one type of dessert as a means of recompense. We declined, which lead to more apologies.

Conclusion
Would we go back? We probably will because it is right on our door step and as useless as the staff are it is not their fault as they are trained to be compliant and not to understand the customer. It seems to be a common theme out here that because labour is so cheap then the answer seems to always be “lets get lots of staff!” Wake up establishments and start listening to your customers as they will help you to improve.

Improvement opportunities

• Get the wine list printed on a sensible piece of paper
• If you have waiters that struggle to write then get them a tick list
• If you are going to offer a complimentary dessert don’t tell the customer which one they have to choose
• Learn the cultural etiquettes when clearing a table
• Having lots of staff does not mean great staff
• Management, stand back and watch how customers interact, you will learn something

Rivington Grill

This is my first blog in the Middle East and what better way to kick off with a visit to a ‘British Theme’ restaurant.

Rivington Grill is set in the Old Town district overlooking the lakes, soon to be and under the awesome sight of The Burj. There is an incredible amount of construction going on all around the restaurant which is totally out of the control of Rivington Grill, but boy is it noisy!

We went to this restaurant because we were on a walk about around the Old Town the day before looking for apartments to rent as we are going to be living out here for a few years. We stumbled across what we understand was a manager outside the restaurant who was an Iraqi and a charming chap. After some discussion he persuaded that we should try out the place as a lot of work and effort had been put in to opening up this new restaurant. We did just that the following day, Oh dear!

The place as you would expect being brand new is spotlessly clean with chefs working behind counters that are in full view of the customers. Good start. Going through to the restaurant we were amazed at how many staff there were and not many of them British – which is not a criticism.
Despite the noise outside from the building works we thought we would enjoy some alfresco dining as this is the only time of year you can do this without the weather being too hot.

As a table was not ready outside we were asked to sit at the bar whilst the table was made ready, right move. At the bar we ordered a drink and in no time at all the table was ready. Making our way to the table the waiter took the drinks to the table which again you don’t get very often in the UK, right move again. Taking our seats my wife was given the wine menu as she was drinking and I could not as I was driving and there is zero alcohol tolerance when driving out here with a straight to jail policy if caught! Wow the price of quite ordinary wines are £40 – £120 a bottle or for the cheapest wine by the glass is £6ish.

Then came the menu well this is not British food as you would know it. Its British named food that has a twist that from what we ordered failed to impress. Because we were unsure about the place in terms of culinary excellence we thought we would play safe and start off slowly, that turned out to be a good move. My wife ordered a ‘Welsh rarebit’ which had flaked smoked haddock in it on what looked like a piece of Mothers Pride – the latter I suppose was British! This was a single slice of bread served on an awful off white/brown 1960’s chunky style crockery and this was about £9ish – it looked very sad indeed. As for the taste well it was pastey, thick and heavy, it was not good.

As for me well I ordered fish pie and this came out in the same awful style crockery and looked like it had been left under the grill too long. The sauce was tastey and there were some healthy chunks of fish. As for the size well for a fish pie that cost £20ish you would have thought you would get a small garnish of vegetables and something more than a small breakfast bowl of pie – you don’t and its mean!

We didn’t have any desert as the main meal took an age to arrive despite it only being a slice of fancy cheese on toast and tiny fish pie.

Now for the staff. You know a place is new when all the staff are super super super friendly and this is over bearing. From an outsider looking in there is considerable overlap with regard to duties and this manifests it self into a muddle. It is so obvious that everyone is trying really hard and there now needs to be a rethink about how in your face this needs to be. When we first walked in on the first day just to see what the place had to offer all the staff were lined up along the service counter and it was like everyone had come out to say hello – not very British thats more American! So to prove how silly this was I walked down the line and saluted everybody – you have to break it up somehow!

Conclusion

Would we go back? Not at those prices as the quality is not sufficient to raise the value (Value is proportional to the quality divided by the cost). The staff are willing and eager but need shaping and training to understand how to be proficient and not so over bearing. As for the food portions they are mean, slow to come to the table, and presented on some pretty awful lack luster china.

Improvements

• White china all the time – painters don’t start with a dirty canvas
• Give the staff some boundaries to curb their eagerness
• Provide some vegetables with the main meals – they are the cheapest things to provide
• Sort the wine list out – even for Dubai its not right
• Its difficult to make cheese on toast look good but a garnish would not be a bad start
• Don’t charge top prices when world war three is taking place at the end of your terrace

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This is one blog I have wanted to publish for a very long time. That said if you know that it has changed since my visit then please do say so but you need to be qualified!

I had two very good friends over from Switzerland back in February 2008 and they stayed with us for a long weekend. Its a standing joke that we cannot take these people to places local to us because nothing compares to that of Switzerland (German part).

It was a crazy warm, yes warm February day and I wanted to show John how incredible Pitch Hill is for the views on beatifully clear crisp winter mornings. This went perfectly to plan with me managing to show someone who is used to Swiss mountain views, how wonderful the Surrey Hills are. After the relatively short walk we got back in the car and made our way down the hill and I suggested we stop at the Windmill pub/restaurant. I really wanted to try this place as on several other attempts I had been abused in terms of wallet, pallet and service. I knew it had been taken over since my last abuse and as always I will give new blood every opportunity to show how much it has changed for the good. Oh dear!

We turned up and neither of us were hungry but we thought lets just have two swift halfs and share something light. We ordered our drinks at the bar and because it was so unusually warm that day we took our drinks outside with a menu. We were not the only ones to do this as several others were eating outside too. 

For those of you who do not know about the Windmill the new owners have spent a lot of money installing a terraced hard wood deck as the pub is perched in the middle of the Surrey Hills in pole position over looking a wonderful country valley scene. What could be more perfect!

Having looked through the menu my friend and I decided to share a ploughmans lunch as we were not too hungry. It is perhaps important to note that this ploughmans was £12.95, yes I’ll repeat that’s £12.95. We waited for a waitress to pass and then ordered.

“No problem Sir” came the waitress “but you you will need to move table to the lower deck.”

I then explained that we were quite happy where we were.

“Sorry Sir we cannot serve you here.”

“Why?” I asked

“Its because we are only serving on the lower deck.”

“No” I said “as we do not want to move as we are comfortable here.” and especially as there were so few people so what is the problem. She did not know what to say and agreed we could eat where we were were sitting.

Now you would think that would have been the end of it. Oh no, as the manageress came over and said “Sorry sir you will have to move table and eat on the lower deck.” I again explained that we did not want to move but she was having none of it.

Perhaps it is worth pointing out at this stage there were probably as many tables with people eating as there were waiting staff so the restaurant was not rushed off their feet and neither were they likely to be as the time was approximately 13:30. At this moment I had had enough, here I was trying to order a plouhgmans lunch for ONE for £12.95 and the staff could not be bothered to bring the dish up two very short flights of stairs when the place is virtually empty. I cancelled my order and the waitress looked very upset.

It is perhaps worth pointing out that with virtually the same ingredients AND cooked I could have gone home, ordered a pizza and had it delivered to my house for £8.

When oh when will businesses ever learn!

We left and have never been back since.

Improvement Opportunities

1. It is not enough to renovate a restaurant and expect to be a successful business. This place needs to completely rethink how it interfaces with its customers. I have spoken with local people who have had similar experiences.

Conclusion

Would we go back? Certainly not as the prices were as outrageous as the staff.

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What a difference a day makes! Today was the third attempt to get a table at the Farriers and this time we managed it. The previous times we had only got to the doorway, taken one look at the dirty tables, saw that there were far too few staff and that was enough for us, we walked straight out. Today we were greeted at the door and offered a clean table down stairs by a lady who seemed very much to care.

We sat down and were asked if we would like to order drinks and given a couple of menus, although from the condition of these they were showing signs of a chequered history!

Because the experience to this point was so different from our previous efforts I was interested to see if this was a fluke. I am sorry to report that being shown a table and it being clean it was a fluke. The table next to us had a young baby that was still in nappies and mother and father loved sitting the baby on the table and doing what doting parents do when they are oblivious to mature environments. They came to leave and because nobody was managing the tables it was left a mess and a couple of drinkers moved in. The drinkers decided to do their own waiting on their table and just cleared the debris from their table to a clean table next to them.

Our meals arrived, two salads one nicoise and one goat cheese. They were pretty good with the tuna cooked perfectly pink, well done chef.

During the meal the drinkers vacated their table and to be fair in very quick succession another couple sauntered over and sat down. They too did their own waiting on tables and just pushed the empty glasses to one end. This was finally spotted by the waiter and he cleared the glasses but he did not wipe down the table. So now this was the second party to sit at a table that a baby had squelched about on in its nappy.

Went to the gents and please excuse the pun but there was a leak and a puddle on the floor.

I had seen enough so we got the bill and left.

Improvement Opportunities:

1. Fix the leak in the gents
2. Teach the staff how to clean tables
3. Teach the staff how to clear plates after a meal. From what we saw staff adopt the ’scoop and cradle’, which means pick up as many plates as you can, hold them close to your body as if you are cuddling them and then carefully slouch off to the kitchen, not clever. If you want to know how its done go into almost any indian restaurant or to most main land Europe restaurants and you can see it done properly.
4. If there is supposed to be a meet and greet at the door then make it consistent not just a one off. We were lucky as only one other couple had this treatment.
5. Make a decision about what the pub is i.e. is it for drinkers downstairs or for patrons who want to eat. We saw two couples walk in wanting a table and left because possible tables had been taken up by those who were only drinking.
6. There seemed to be a manageress but she kept getting sucked in to being a waitress hence things got missed.
7. Lose that horrible gratuity begging request on the credit card payment machine.

Conclusion

Would we go back? Probably not as the waiting on tables was sloppy and nothing else we experienced would warrant a trip back. That said the pub has a lot of character but clearly is not in control of the waiting environment.