I used to like ordering food here, more specifically the beef pho wraps. Needless to say I dont and wont ever come back.
Heres why, I walked into the store a little before six to order take away. The store was very quiet with maybe 2 tables with customers. I went to the front counter and ordered 2 trays of pho beef wraps, the person who served me spoke very minimal english but i thought he understood what I wanted. Some staff and the owner/manager (we will just call him the manager for now) was sitting at a table having a pre peak time dinner.
So standing there for a few minutes and out comes my two BOWLS of beef pho, ingriedients in one bowl and soup in another container ready for takeway. This though was completely not what I ordered.
Thinking this would was just a miscommunication, I wasnt too stressed or angry as in my mind it could be easily fixed So I politely explained to the waiter that this was not what I ordered and could I have some pho beef wraps instead. He went and talked to the manager who was eating on the table.
The following actions is why I gave a 1 star rating. The manager rudely kept eating as I stood there awkwardly while looking at him, he finally got off his seat after a minute or 2 and asked me in fluent english what was the problem.
I explained that the waiter had my order wrong and I would like to have it corrected. Now at this stage I was annoyed with the rudeness but I still wanted my food. Instead of correcting the order he asked me to take the pho bowls instead, to which I said no. When I asked for the pho beef wraps again he replied that they couldnt do it because THEY HAD RUN OUT OF BEEF.
Never has my intelligence been so insulted before, If he was going to spout BS at least make it believable. To tell me they had run out of beef before the busy dinner period, yeah right. I could tell he just couldn't be bothered to fix an error his OWN staff had made. In my mind it was an easy fix, no food would have been wasted as he could have served the pho to another customer because it was still in its containers and making my dish would have only taken a bit of time.
I left more than a little bit angry and upset. Needless to say I have never been back and neither have any of my friends and acquaintances who I have told the story to.
Poor handling and rudeness and just a lack of common courtesy.
Now as an non vietnamese asian person who has lived in St Albans most of my life I expect that some restaurants will have waiters whose English can be a bit iffy sometimes. This is less common nowdays as a lot of non asians eat asian food and restaurant owners have recognised this fact by hiring staff who can at least speak some english. I've had many a mistaken order delivered to my table over the years and when this has occurred 100% of the time it has been corrected with apologies delivered. Not at this place though, instead I was treated like an idiot and the issue was not corrected leaving me no other option but to leave. Poor business practice. ### TLDR Poor service
