BAI NIAN JIANG GU SHA ZHU CAI

This dining experience was abysmal, from the food to the ambiance and service. It's arguably the only unpleasant part of this Lunar New Year holiday. Let me briefly recap the unpleasant details: 1. The ambiance was a mess of dishes and other items behind the table in the second-floor lobby. It was filthy and untidy. Most importantly, it was so cold upstairs that my sisters and aunts didn't dare take off their coats. 2. The worst part was that I ordered the dishes an hour in advance and reserved a time for them to be served. I told them to start serving dishes around 5:00, but people started arriving. By 5:30, only one purple sweet potato had arrived out of sixteen dishes. Nearly twenty people were staring at one dish. I was so anxious I kept asking them, but they told me they were busy serving dishes. A little later, a surprise came: a dish priced at 32 yuan turned out to contain two meatless spines and a few beans. The rest was just beans and pumpkin. It looked like someone else's leftovers, and the portions were incredibly small. Within an hour of everyone arriving, only seven dishes were served. They were practically gone. There wasn't enough for the children, and the adults were left with nothing. The soup came without a spoon, and I had to ask for it six times. I had to chase the waiter up and down the stairs for more. The waiter wrote down the order but didn't give it to the kitchen. The beef and radish stew was out of stock until I went to the kitchen to ask for it. They replaced it with a multi-grain bun. The steamed cornbread was hard and cold, as if it had been sitting out for ages. There was also a queue to get our food. Three tables of people were waiting outside the kitchen. 3. Regarding the service: it was practically nonexistent. There were three waiters, including the boss, serving eight tables. While we were waiting for our food, there was no hot water, and we almost had a fight upstairs over a kettle. You have to get your own dishes and utensils. If you're missing anything, you have to ask for it yourself. The restaurant has complete confidence in you and believes you can serve yourself well. To conclude, I'm writing this much because I was so pissed off about a meal. The day before this restaurant, I went to another restaurant—I won't mention the name, lest the owner criticize me. We also had sixteen dishes. Their portions were generous, the service was fast, and the whole family was stuffed, with plenty left over. We had the same amount of dishes, but the price difference was a hundred yuan, and the quality was worlds apart. We were all starving after dinner and had to find another place to eat. The meal infuriated my parents, and the elders in my family just sat there doing nothing the whole time, not even eating. The dishes were slow to arrive, the prices were small, the service was high, and the service was poor. In the end, we all agreed that my family will not be returning to this restaurant again. In short, if you want a bad New Year, Centennial Braised Pork Bone Restaurant welcomes you!