Restaurant Review: Favela Chic

Monday 4th October 2010

Restaurant: Favela Chic, Great Eastern Street
Price per Person: £35 inc wine and service
Rating: 0 out of 5

Currently Munching: Dry roasted peanuts

So, here is my first ever negative review; and boy is it negative! On entering Favela Chic, on the off chance of an early dinner after fantastic (yet snobbily served) cocktails at Lounge Lover, my two friends and I were in awe at the space. The ceilings are so high, the decor super kitsch, the staff smiling and warm, we were looking forward to a great dinner. We were taken to a table in a cosy corner and given menus. The food is themed around Brazilian cuisine. We were not given a 'leave by' time, remember that point. We shared a bottle of house white wine which was fine. We shared a vegetarian tapas style starter. It was pedestrian but inoffensive. Then came the mains...Sarah had a salmon dish which she enjoyed. I went for black beans with slow cooked belly pork which was ok but essentially was just beans and a big piece of bone, no meat. Jen had ordered kingclip with mixed seafood rice but when her dish can it was just prawns - apparently they had run out of Kingclip, even though it was about 7pm when we ordered. The waitress stated "if you want to order something else just don't touch it and I will take it away." As me and Sarah had our food already, Jen said she would eat it. She later revealed she was so shocked that the waitress had said that she didn't know what else to say other than yes. It was again not particularly exciting, and baring in mind all our mains were between £12 and £15 each, we were understandably under whelmed. We were drinking our wine, relaxing, when the waitress came over and demanded the table back as it was rebooked at 8.30pm and we must have taken off the label on the table that stated that. When we replied that we clearly hadn't she just stomped away. We decided to leave as it was slowly becoming less and less fun to be there. We asked for the bill minus service as we decided the 12.5% they were adding was too high, and were more comfortable leaving some cash. The bill arrived with service and Jen's dish on the bill too which seemed a bit ridiculous considering she had prawns and rice which was not what she wanted, and certainly didn't warrant a £14 price tag. We called over the waitress and asked for the amendments. Another waitress this time came with the same bill, so we asked for the changes again. Our original waitress then returned with a menu, slapped it onto the table and exclaimed while pointing at the dish "you ate this, you ate this, you could have ordered something else!" Jen politely stated that she did not want to order something else while we were eating, that she had been to shocked that no one had informed her that her food was going to be different from that ordered until it had arrived, and that she wasn't going to pay for kingclip when she didn't eat kingclip. The waitress stormed off, leaving us slack jawed. Then a third person came to the table, this time the male manager. He sat down at 'our level' and asked what the problem was - again we explained, by now getting rather annoyed. He became very aggressive and rude, stating we had to pay for the dish, and the service. We corrected him that service is always optional, that we were not paying for food that was not as described and he could either accept what we were willing to pay or we would pay nothing. He got very heated, was very angry but took our payment begrudgingly. We left utterly appalled, worst service ever and worst ever dealing with a complaint I have experienced. I will never dine there again.

Another place we went back to recently was the Viet Grill and again really disappointed. Jen and I had such a lovely time last visit. This time, our mains were brought while we were still eating our starters, the waiter just saying 'aren't you finished' even as we are mid chew. I had the same as I had last time and it was literally half the portion size from before, and basically under seasoned, over cooked mushy noodles. Jen also had the same as last time too, and had hardly any seafood in her rice (boy it’s becoming a theme for Jen...lack of seafood...), and flavourless. We were cleared and brought the bill before we even swallowed! Awful: turning a table for a future customer should never been more important than the customer presently there! I will not rush to go back there.