Me and my wife are visiting Taiwan for the first time since I left Taiwan 40 years ago for my 50th birthday. We joined a tour group that toured the entire island of Taiwan. One of the stops was this hot spring hotel nestled in the mountains. While the hotel was very nice, the dining options were attrocious.
We arrived in the hotel lobby around 6:30pm and there were 4 options. The buffet which the tour guide recommended to avoid and a Japanese and an Italian restaurant that seemed to be more upscale. The last option was the hotel bar/cafe where they served sandwiches.
We went to the entrance of the Italian restaurant called Da la la and the maitre d’ proceeded to tell us about the fixed price menu. When my wife asked if there was a more detailed or alternative menu he quickly put away the menu and showed us the one for the hotel bar. When we expressed interest for the restaurant in front of us, he suddenly told us that there was no food available. He proceeded to explain that the restaurant only makes limited servings of the fixed price menu and because the hotel was packed, all available servings were gone.
My wife and I had never heard of such a thing and went to the info desk clerk and then to the front desk to ask to see a manager. After some confusion and some help from our tour guide, they finally seated us near the window. The restaurant was very empty with only 4 other tables occupied. We then sat there for almost half an hour before a waitress asked us for our drink choices.
We thought our problems were over but they were just beginning. After seeing course after course served to the other dinners we asked the waitress what was going on. She told use that they were still preparing our meal and to wait. So we waited patiently and almost 1 hour after we were seated my wife was hopping mad and we asked the waitress (new one now) what is going on. The new waitress told us that we are actually in the 7:30pm session and the meal will not start til 7:30pm. When we complained to our tour guide he managed to get a manager to talk to us and explained that we sat here for an hour next to a cold air conditioner only to find our our meal will still be waiting. The hotel had a show that we did not want to miss. The manager decided then that the meal was on him and that they will try to speed up the meal so we wont miss the show.
I don’t know if the restaurant staff was just incompetent or resentful, because at first the food started coming out right away. But then it started coming slower and slower while they served the other tables. Which now there were 5 other tables with diners in this still half empty restaurant. We still had not received a drink at this point and we complained. Some how we ended up with some watermellon juice (We ordered grape juice). When we complained that the other diners received different drinks before the meal the maitre d’ was back and confronted us and told us we did not get a drink because we did not want an alchoholic beverage ( yet the british couple in the back ordered theirs non-alchoholic and received it right away).
At this point it was very late and we still did not see the main entree. We waited while some kids in costume came in and advertised the show we were about to miss. When the main entree arrived, it was not what was on the menu, all this waiting and not only did we miss the show, we did not even get the dinner we wanted. We waited patiently as they served dessert to all the othe diners before we got ours. Finally we had enough and left.
The worse dining experience in our lives. We have been to some of the best restaurants in the east coast USA and some of the worse. This one is the worse of all time. If you ever visit Taiwan, avoid this hotel like a plague.
