"Dreadful"

A review of Palace Chine by Alan, Hither Green written on Thursday 15th of February 2007

I went to Palace Chine last night, 14 February 2007, with my partner in the hope of having a meal for Valentines' Day. I hadn't been there in seven years and we'd talked about going there whenever we passed the place. And so we did.

We arrived at 9.30pm, there were free tables, so we were promptly seated, and napkins placed on us with a flourish by a waitress. Not a bad start.

The menus arrived, we opted for the vegetarian set menu for two people, plus wine.

I asked a waitress if we could place our order, she said yes. She then left the table.

About 10 minutes later she returned and asked if we would like to place an order, which we did. She returned to the table a second time to clarify the wine we wanted. Five minutes after that she returned a third time to again check which wine we wanted, and my partner wrote the name of the wine on her order slip because she didn't seem to be able to either remember or write down the name of the wine herself.

She then returned a fourth time, to advise that this wine wasn't available except by the glass. We opted for a different wine. By now we were wondering when we might get our starters.

The waitress returned to the table a fifth time to query that we wanted the "vegetarian set menu for two people" for the two of us, one lot of food each, at £10 per person, we confirmed this.

At this stage we were watching all the other clients sitting around without food and we were wondering if this was going to become some kind of comedy of errors.

The waitress returned to our table a sixth time to deposit a small dish of some kind of sauce, nothing more.

While this was going on a couple behind us received some food which they weren't happy about, there was some to'ing and fro'ing at that table, finally a single plate of food arrived at the table but there seemed to be some issue with it.

At 10:05pm we decided that if we didn't receive our starters in 5 minutes we were going to depart. When that time came, 40 minutes after we'd arrived, after several visits by the waitress and still nothing to eat, we got up, put on our coats, and walked out.

We went to the noodle house in Rushey Green, Catford, had starters presented within 5 minutes, the main dishes in 10 minutes, were leaving the premises fully fed and very satisfied within 40 minutes, the time we'd waited in Palace Chine for the sum total of nothing.

If that's their level of service it may well be another seven years before I'd even consider setting foot inside their door again!

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