Thursday's attempt at an enjoyable evening meal was not successful. Yes, we did have some amusement, but not as a result of good food, good service or good value for money. Despite the name of the establishment being 'Hopewell Chinese Restaurant', a good experience was alas too much to hope for. I am toying with writing to the management with a suggestion of a name change - from 'Hopewell' to 'Hopeless'.
The first major obstacle was ordering the food. There were seven of us in the group, and we opted for 5 on the set £12.99 deal, and two on a normal menu. The deal meant a 4-course approach, although this was less than clear when we commenced operations. The initial complication was the soup; it turned out that soup is not a 'starter' as such, but a course wholly separate. So, the three soup requests were noted by the tiny woman who could only ever pronounce 63% of any word.
With two orders being of the non-soup variety, she enquired as to whether these were starters or main courses, instantly confusing us because of
course they were fucking starters! We exchanged vowels with the woman taking notes, and threw in a couple of consonants to make ourselves understood, while under my breathe some expletives were lurking. After a nightmare exchange lasting two minutes, we were able to add two non-soup pre-starters to the starters and move on to the ordering of starters. This became a challenge for all concerned. Unfortunately the complete dysfunctionality was swamping the table because the fucked-up process of ordering fucking food was grating severely on my patience. The kind way to describe things would be that all was rather less than satisfactory. The accurate way would be to say that if there was a pig's ear on the menu, we were fucking getting it FOC, up front! The little smiling woman was no more than a little smiling woman, and alas devoid of the ability to express herself. This was the chink in her armour, and it was scuppering all efforts to order food.
I was on the verge of lobbing a tenner on to the table for the drinks, and walking out. We could all have left then and there, heading for the Indian round the corner where a fucking Jalfrezzi was no doubt begging to be eaten. The Indian's loss was the Hopethisfuckingworksout's gain. We ordered various starters and had them recorded as such by Ho Pwell, who scribbled on her pad, glowed red and said something like: "whaaar, i, yoo, ike or chi aw ice".
Me moved on to the main course, which involved six requests for Chinese food (five on the 'deal' plus one stand alone request for a Vulcan/Veggie requirement [Thai Green
something-or-other that immediately made me think of Mild Green Fairy Liquid], and one for 'roast chicken and chips', surely the most straightforward order in the universe. Eventually, two dynasties later, we felt we stood a fighting chance of eating before starvation set in. Ho Pwell shuffled off, and we continued drinking.
The soups appeared in due course [forgive the pun] and I ate/drank my chicken and sweetcorn. Mrs MWSC was able to consume the Wonton with wanton determination. Elsewhere, liquid chicken with yellow bits was also consumed. The ribs and something unpronouncable (by us but not Ho Pwell) was consumed whilst two of the party were left to watch and remain hungry.
What confused everyone was the large plate that appeared centre table, full of stuff we had not ordered. This communal starter provided the ribs and chicken satay and roasted who-knows-what, plus astroturf that was perhaps seaweed, or Christmas decoration material. This was a distinct possibility considering the background music included not only the DIRE "I Just Called To Say I Loved You" but the equally inappropriate (for May 2nd) "Last Christmas" by Wham!
Ho Pwell hopped around as another table filled and she scattered vowels to her heart's content. Six of our group of seven took in some calories, while the Vulcan observed, still awaiting some Mild Green stuff. I must say that the duck was not too bad, even if it wasn't crispy. The pancakes were awful, but I managed quite well with the spring onions and cucumber that went with it - and left well alone the plum tarmac that was serving [forgive yet another pun] as the sauce/goo for the Chinese 'fajita'. Other started to consume their food as well. Finally we got to a stage whereby the unexpected/un-ordered mixed starters had been eaten along with the starters that had been ordered. So far, so mediocre and slightly delayed.
We'd been in the place for at least an hour. The Vulcan/Veggie was seriously at risk of eating Ho Pwell, such was her appetite by this stage. Little Ho [short - indeed so - for Little Hope of Being Satisfied] arrived with a menu and announced that there was no roast chicken. Yes, folks, after a ludicrous and deceitful delay, the chicken was not available. Strangely there were, by way of replacement, many chicken wings that had to be ordered instead.
After all meat-eaters had received their main courses, Ho arrived with the Thai Green Fairy Liquid, and the Vulcan/Vegan/Veggie was able to at last eat. Hallelujah !! Or, as I actually said, "Halle-fuckin-Bhudda" which was completely inaccurate/ inappropriate, but fucking funny at the time.
My own choice was Singapore Noodles, and I was presently (but not pleasantly - and I don't mean that as Ho would have said it) inspecting my bale of hay which had within it no needles but a few scraps of meat. No one finished his or her food. There was simply far too much; some was nice and some was of dubious quality. Ho begrudgingly allowed one of the party to take away the 80% of her uneaten main course, and showed displeasure with her facial expression as she took it away to put it in a bag.
The drawn out process was finally rounded off with the presentation of the £107.95 bill which was not itemised. With £108 left on the saucer, we exited with every intention of not repeating the experience in this lifetime. We could have spent £50 at home, which would have got us 15 cans of lager, and £41 worth of takeaway. Ordering would have been a 2 minute process, and the delivery man would have arrived so much more quickly than Ho.
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