Working in Altrincham provides the opportunity to explore new restaurants and have lunch with Andy due to how close our work places are. A few weeks back we headed out on a lunchtime date. I’d had an difficult morning at work due to my anxiety and was genuinely contemplating whether qualifying was right for me. Andy is probably one of the few people who can help me work through my anxiety and rationalise things to help subside the attack.
We wanted somewhere quick and had been recommended Wow you chow, which is located a few shops down from the general hospital.
We decided to go for the £10 lunch menu and when we arrived we were the only two bar a small group of school girls. We thought that we would be served quite quickly as no-one was around and we asked the waitress how long food would be if we ordered the lunch menu as I only had around 30 minutes as I needed to travel back to work. We were told that was plenty of time and she’d make the chef aware.
We ordered the central lunch menu which consisted of crispy quack bao, a beef rice bowl and pork and Chinese leaf dumplings. I chose green tea to drink and Andy had a Buddha beer. 20 minutes later and we were still waiting for drinks despite no-one being in the restaurant as the girls had left just before we’d finished ordering and there were two members of staff serving, not including the kitchen team. When our drinks arrived, we asked how long food would be as I had 10 minutes left and would need to leave, we were told it would be about 5 minutes. Unfortunately, another 20 minutes passed and we hadn’t seen our waitress return. Our food arrived an hour after we’d ordered which was really disappointing considering when we ordered the restaurant was empty and only one other couple had come in to order.
The food itself wasn’t great. The dumplings were soggy and cool. The duck was overcooked and hard with little flavour and overpowered by the hoisin sauce. The only good thing was the rice dish.
For £10 I suppose we can’t really complain, but the service was awful. We could have easily popped to Toast for a sandwich or probably Greggs for better food and service. We won’t be returning and have not recommended to any of our friends who are looking for lunch time eats. The reviews on Trip Advisor for this place are quite mixed and I wonder if that depends upon the team they have working and what you order.
I feel a 2/5 sunflowers rating is far too generous, but I also feel a 1 sunflower rating is too low. The food wasn’t great and the service was just awful. We understand delays when a restaurant is busy or if we’re told there will be a delay, but when the restaurant is virtually empty and appears over staffed we don’t think there is any excuse for an hour wait for food and a 20-minute wait for a green tea and beer feels too long in my opinion. I understand needing to leave the tea to steep, but 20-minutes feels very excessive. We were also disappointed that no-one seemed sorry for the delay and we felt the staff were quite rude when we asked for an update on our food situation as I really did need to go back to work.
Unfortunately, we will not be returning for another visit. Have you ever been and what were your thoughts? If you have any recommendations for places to go in Altrincham please let me know.
Until Next Time
T
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Greeat reading your blog
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