試食活動

We all know how it pains when we eat too many sweets without properly brushing our teeth, but you could have never thought that I would encounter a similar kind of awful experience after I paid a visit to this dessert place called “Sweet Tooth”.

Being a dessert lover, I have been longing to try every dessert shop in Hong Kong, “Sweet Tooth” in particular, but never had a chance due to its slightly inconvenient locations. Until recently, I received a cash coupon from its PR and decided to finally get a taste of it, with high expectations.

There are altogether 3 branches and this one is situated at Kwong Wa Street, Mong Kok. It is not at all close to the MTR station, and took a little time for a resident like me from the other side of the sea to figure out the directions.

My family and I arrived at around 7 p.m. and the shop was rather bleak and empty with only a few customers. Nevertheless, we were all too interested in the desserts at that moment to pay any extra attention to the surroundings and decorations.

After flipping through the menu, we decided to order a Valrhona chocolate Serradura, chocolate waffle with strawberry sauce and banana pancake. To conclude our meal, we also picked an all-day noodle set to neutralize the overwhelming sweetness. Unluckily, it turned out that the quality of the dessert was very mediocre and has surely failed to conquer our appetite.

Valrhona chocolate Serradura ($38): Probably the best of the worst, in terms of desserts. I expected much richer chocolate then it actually tasted, and the texture was a little too soft for a serradura. The tiny crispy Maltesers look-alikes on top were nice though.

Chocolate waffle with strawberry sauce ($50): Despite its chocolate color, the waffle tasted absolutely plain just like an original one with no special flavor, and not even the little bottle of honey seemed to do any help. The ice cream was good, but if I were to just eat an ice cream, do I really need to come to a dessert place? You figure.

Banana pancake with caramel sauce ($42): Subpar. My comment would be to warm up the pancake a bit as it was rather cool when served and the texture was way too soft for us to believe it was anywhere fresh.

To be fair though, the outlook and presentation of all the dishes were pretty good in spite of its lackluster taste.

Noodles with pork and luncheon meat ($36): Ironically, it certainly felt like the best thing I have tasted among all the other desserts in the evening. The set also came with a free lemonade taste-alike which matched well with the noodles.

The food alone contributes a part to the reputation and success (or demise in this case) of a store, but most of the time the true culprit of not getting happy repeat customers is the unpleasant service of its insensible staff. It was very unfortunate that the poor standard of its desserts has extended to the customer service of “Sweet Tooth”. It all started from the very moment we ordered as we sensed the rushing tone from the waitress, coupled with the fact that she rudely snatched the menu away from me the second we finished ordering. We found out soon enough that it was actually near the end of her shift and she was probably trying to take the day off early.

But what really made me mad and annoyed was what happened towards the end when we were leaving. As mentioned at the beginning, we were using the cash coupon and not supposed to be using any penny in the evening. Apparently, it was all sorted out in the first place as the bill clearly showed the payable amount is $0. We did re-confirm with other waitress who looked like daydreaming, but since she fetched our bill and nodded, we thought it was okay to head out. Then, there came an irritating guy at the cashier shouting out that we did not pay, which we think is a very serious accusation and should not be used lightly unless one is absolutely sure of it. Yet, it once again showed that bad things will happen if you too often speak before you think. We did go back and explain to the staff since he obviously was confused why the amount shown would be 0 and strongly suspected that the bill was misprinted. As a normal customer, shall we suggest that the more appropriate way of voicing your doubt would be to start the sentence with “Please hold on…” or “Sorry for disturbing”, but none of those offensive expressions?

Perhaps every boss is obsessed with improving the quality of their food, and rightfully so, but what matters most at the end of day may be the services of your staff. Bear this in mind and hopefully you will stop hearing from unhappy one-off customers like me in this case.

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感謝 mjqueen7e 提供以上資料

mjqueen7e 的網誌: http://www.openrice.com/zh/gourmet/reviews.htm?userid=66478&city=hongkong

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