Old Hong Kong: Old is NOT Gold

While i should be finishing up bits and pieces of my assignments that's due pretty soon, i thought that taking some time (perhaps a couple of minutes) to pen this down wouldn't hurt. How long has it been since i raged about bad food? Well, not so often because to me - experiences with bad food just isn't worthy of my time to be penned and shared. But then you have bad service, which really is pretty much worse than bad food, in my opinion.

Old Hong Kong - a restaurant at Square 2, just right above Novena MRT. We (my friends and i) decided to pop by for some dim sum on a weekday, only to have our lunch and appetite spoilt by not-so-delicious food and horrendous service. You know how dim sum places always have a paper for you to tick and order what you want? To me, it's perfect - because the waiters have almost a 0% chance of getting your order wrong. So we ordered, and our food came one by one (a bit slow but i'll pass on this because i'm not that demanding). And then halfway through the meal, we started to realise that they mixed up not one, two but THREE of our orders.

The pink sheet (double-sided) were what we personally filled in and ordered. Looking about it, i even made the effort to circle the items i ordered so that it would be more visible for their old and probably half-blind staff, with cataracts in both eyes maybe. Whatever happened to my Pan-Fried Shrimp Rolls which was never entered in their system? Maybe i did forget to circle it after putting a "1" down, but as a waiter isn't it your job to come up to me to confirm again if i did order it?

And then there was the Steamed Flour Rolls with Barbecued Pork which i ordered 2 portions. Instead, they keyed in Steamed Flour Rolls with Shrimp. And when it was served and i told them to rectify the mistake, the waiter shrugged me off and rolled her eyes. Remind me again, why am i paying for service charge?

That's not all because there was also the Steamed Egg Yolk Custard Buns which i marked as "2". Guess what? I'm not sure if the number "2" looks like a "1" because they decided to key in just 1. Pretty sure 1 is their favourite number, even though their service and food is no where near being number 1. The irony is that we saw a huge signage outside the restaurant which read that they are the "top 5" best in Singapore. Erm, perhaps this is the time to add a "1", so that it becomes top 51?

And then there was this. What is this you ask? A dissected spring roll, of which it was stated as "Deep-Fried Shredded Smoked Duck Breast Spring Rolls" on their menu. The first time it was served to us (made a mistake by not taking a picture of it the first time round), the spring rolls were filled with nothing but cabbage and turnips. So we asked to speak to the manager, and she shrugged us off by taking our plate away without a word of apology. When we asked if we could cancel the order (because trust me, we were expecting the same shit to be served and yes, we were right), she firmly said no, and insisted that we had to have a new portion since we ordered it.

Fine by me, but when it came the second time round, all i saw was pittance of what looked like leftover duck meat from their peking duck that may have came from the chute. And of course, again, 90% lettuce, turnips and maybe a bit more mushrooms. Are you kidding me?

And here's the best part. When i called for the bill, i told the manager how dissatisfied we were with the service (mix-up of orders) and that specific spring roll dish (by the way, the Sweet Red Bean Cream tasted like diluted crap as well), she replied me sarcastically with two words - "hao, hao". Which by the way means, "good, good" when translated from Chinese. No joke. And while we were on our way out, the waitress that was responsible for all the mistakes gave us a 'tsk'. Well done, i applaud her for her bravery.

We left the place swearing to never come back again. I would hesitantly put up with sucky attitude from places with good food, but when your food is barely near the mediocre benchmark and your service is shit - it just spells disaster. And if you are reading this while sitting in the restaurant hoping this "review" will help you decide what to order - may all the luck be with you.



Old Hong Kong
10 Sinaran Drive
Square 2, #02-80
Singapore 307506
www.oldhongkong.com.sg

This was deliberately posted as a negative review.