Friday, April 16, 2010

Passionflower - A bit of a vent

I had a friend's birthday on the weekend with dinner at Encasa. I'm not going to bother blogging about Encasa since I've been there so many times and have had the same banquet countless times already. Lets just say, the food was fantastic and we had a wonderful time there.

Since dinner was at Encasa, most of us had parked around Central station. The plan was to find a place to sit down for drinks or dessert whilst a few of our designated drivers sobered up. There wasn't many places around that area that wasn't a pub. The best option we had was Passionflower at Capitol Theatre. We actually haven't been to Passionflower for 2 years. The last time we went, they insisted on charging us a Sunday surcharge......on a Saturday night! The incident basically left us boycotting the place. However, we're going to a different branch and we really didn't have many other options to choose from. Plus, I also believe in giving businesses a second chance.

Sitting down, we umm and ahh over the menu before deciding on what we want. A few of the sundaes looked fantastic, except we didn't really like the flavour of ice cream combos they had. As we placed the order, I asked to switch one of the scoops of ice cream for a different flavour. The answer was a flat out NO. Apparently, the the combinations are there "for our enjoyment and cannot be changed". This is also printed in tiny writing on the last page of the menu.

But excuse me? the flavour combinations offered is NOT going to contribute to my enjoyment. For my enjoyment, I would like the combinations changed. I'm not asking for a mish mash sundae. I just wanted to change one scoop of ice cream to a different flavour. I was told I'm not allowed to change the combination of ice cream, but I can ADD a scoop of the flavour I wanted.....at an additional price. Hello?? Did you not say that you can't change the combinations because its for "our enjoyment"? But for a PRICE, I CAN change the combination by adding a new flavour. Nice.

The only other option is I DIY my own sundae and order 2-3 scoops and pay for the flavours I want. Except this works out much more expensive than ordering what is off their menu and I don't get all the condiments I wanted. I decided to stuff the ice cream all together and just get a drink. I was quite turned off by this stage and decided that I'm not even going to bother taking photos.

I had ordered a Passionfruit and Strawberry drink whilst my friend ordered a Passionfruit, Strawberry and MANGO drink. My drink comes out first, it actually looks quite pretty. Chunks of fresh strawberries floating at the top and some dark orange puree is in the bottom of my glass. Then my friend's drink comes out. Her Passionfruit, strawberry and mango drink was almost clear in colour. Slightly tinged with yellow and flecked with fresh passionfruit seeds and chunks of fresh strawberry. I immediately see a problem with this. My passionfruit drink has no fresh passionfruit pulp and is a deep orange, whilst my friend's passionfruit and mango drink has the pulp, but is almost clear. There must've been a mix up with the drinks so we call the waitress over to clarify. We asked her what drink my friend had, and she said Mango. So I questioned her why her mango drink has passionfruit, and my passionfruit drink doesn't. She looks confused as anything and runs back to the kitchen. From our seat, we can see a lot of huddled discussion and arm waving.

She eventually comes back and just says that they have given us the right drinks and quickly runs off. The way I see it, they made the wrong drinks and gave them to the wrong people and couldn't be bothered fixing it. My one was most probably mango and strawberry only (which explains the deep orange colour), whilst my friend had my passionfruit and strawberry one (Which is why it wasn't orange!). And to make it worse, the waitress actually came back and confirmed our drink order with us before making it!!

It was such a disappointing experience for us, especially after such a wonderful night at Encasa. Honestly, with rules and customer service like that, it'll do nothing but drive business away. I think it'll be quite a while before I go back to Passionflower. They had their second chance and they blew it. Atleast they didn't try to charge us a Sunday surcharge on a Saturday this time....

Am I being unreasonable?

2 comments:

Two fit and fun gals said...

nah you're not being unreasonable at all.. they sound like they are popular now and dont need to have good customer service anymore. and really wow, they charged you a sunday surcharge on a saturday? hahaha thats hilarious!

SoRMuiJAi said...

yeh i know! We tried to explain that its a SATURDAY NIGHT and you can't charge us a "Sunday" surcharge on a saturday!!! *rollseyes*