First Impressions are always important. Either Plano Chinese B.B.Q. is oblivious of this concept, or they’re just ignorant. Whatever the case might be, they probably cost themselves many future clients, including me.
The very first thing I noticed when I walked in was that the restaurant was packed, but nearly half of them were waiting for… for what? For service. Turns out Plano Chinese B.B.Q. had lacked the foresight to hire enough people to serve customers at their grand opening. A very bad move. Many of the people at these tables looked a bit irked to say the least. I would’ve turned around and left had it not been for some heavy persuasion from those who were there with me.
Luckily we got a table fairly quick, and after about 5 minutes our waiter showed up to take our orders. We went ahead and orderd a fish and vegetable stir-fry over rice, a barbequed pork and egg combo over rice, and per our waiter’s recommendation a fish with cream sauce served on fried rice and baked. Everything seemed okay so far, but that’s when it all started.
After about 30 minutes, the fish and vegetable stir-fry was served. Generous pieces of white fish was cooked with plenty of greens and mushrooms in a thick clear sauce. The rice was long grained and tasted loose, grainy, and dry. If there were no sauce it would’ve been hard to swallow. The dish would’ve been better if a shorter grain, more glutenous rice was used.
15 minutes later someone other than our waiter (he was frantically trying to tend to all the other customers at his tables) came to our table and told us that they were out of the barbequed pork for the barbequed pork and egg dish. She asked if it was okay to substitue roasted pork instead. This came after we had waited more than 45 minutes. At this point we didn’t care, we just wanted our food. So we agreed with the substitution.
Another couple of minutes passed, and the baked dish was served. Instead of the fish with white cream sauce, what they brought out was pork with red tomato sauce. The guy who brought us the dish wasn’t our waiter. He came somewhere from within the kitchen I think. At first I thought they only got the sauce wrong, and the guy who brought it tried to persuade me to take it. I was about to, but when I found out that they got the fish wrong too, I had to put my foot down.
Another 15 minutes passed, and the pork dish was served… but where were the eggs? Eventually we flagged down our waiter, and after apologizing profusely he brought out the eggs. Turned out when the lady asked if we wanted to substitue earlier, she actually meant to substitute dishes, not just the meat. It was a miscommunication, but after waiting for so long we felt we were entitled for the exchange to go in our favor. I took a bite of the roasted pork, and to my dismay found out that the signature crispy skin on this pork was literally inedible. The skin was crispy alright, but crispy to the point that trying to eat it was like trying to eat chicken bone. Rice again was the same rice as before, and the eggs were regular pan fried eggs. Nothing special.
Finally, after nearly a hour and 15 minutes of waiting, the baked fish dish was served. This time it was fish covered in a white cream sauce. I’ll just say that though it was an okay dish, it definitely didn’t warrant the hour and 15 minutes of wait. The fried pieces of fish were the same white fish from the dish earlier. On top of them was a thick creamy sauce that tasted very much like a thickened cream of mushroom soup. On the bottom was plain fried rice with a little bit of eggs. The rice tasted like it was pan fried in lard, not the healthiest of things.
All in all, we spent nearly 2 hours at that restaurant mostly just waiting for stuff. Seeing the faces at other tables in the restaurant, we weren’t the only ones. It amazes me how a restaurant can allow something like this to happen, especially at their grand opening. Ambiance was not that pleasant because I felt a general frustration in the air. Food ranged from okay to inedible. Our waiter was actually pretty helpful, apologizing repeatedly for the mistakes and bringing us the egg. When he asked how I thought of the baked fish dish that he had suggested, I told him it was good because I’d feel bad if I told him the truth. If not for our waiter, the service rating would’ve been much lower.
First impressions are important, and Plano Chinese B.B.Q. has impressed upon me to never go back and suffer the same ordeal again.
Plano Chinese B.B.Q.
930 W. Parker Rd., Suite 410
Plano, TX 75075
Phone: 972-943-1010Ambiance: 3
Food: 3
Service: 4
Cleaniness: 6
Value: 3
Overall: 3.7
Tags: Plano Chinese B.B.Q., grand opening