One Day at a Time: 2010

I wonder what is the point of choosing such an unoriginal slogan as ‘the best pub in town’ when you are actually one of the worst!

But let me start with the beginning: I wanted to take one of my guests to Casa Eliad Folk Club and found out it had closed down quite a while ago. However, someone on a forum was recommending Gyuri’s Pub as an alternative. It took me very long to find it (considering its website bears no connection with its name, nor an explanation for the connection with the Nautilus Restaurant??!!).

I booked a table for a Saturday evening when the Percution Band had a gig. We all regretted it for several reasons.

Music: too loud. However, I don’t think that can serve as an excuse for the waitress who forgot to bring half the order!!

Service: We were 4 people seated at the table and we ordered 4 dishes. Very simple math, it would seem. Not for this lady! She brought 2 dishes and vanished. 10 or 15 minutes afterwards, we dared to ask her what had happened with the rest of the order. She simply announced us she had forgotten to order it in the kitchen, but that she would remedy that immediately. It took another 15 minutes for 2 tasteless salads to arrive. Another thumbs down for the service: the incompetent waitress took the bill and the money and never came back with the change!! Last time I checked, it was the client’s decision to tip or not and how much to tip someone, especially someone who forgets your order or merely shrugs her shoulders every time you ask for something on the menu…

Food: the quality of the food is mediocre, IF they have it. And that’s a really big IF. In addition to the fact that there are very few items on the menu, some of them are unavailable. The same waitress candidly informed us that they simply did not have meatballs and mash (as advertised on the menu), nor the apple-pie or the other cake, but if we were still there in about 2 hours, the apple-pie and cake would be ready. Thanks to her forgetting about our order, we were indeed still there almost 2 hours later, but by that time we were just eager to get the bill and get the hell out of there.

Drink: IF they have what you want to drink (common soft drinks like Coca Cola Zero/Light or Green Ice Tea) – another big IF! – consider yourself lucky. Otherwise, just be prepared to accept the 3 drinks they actually have: Regular Coke, Peach Ice Tea and Lemonade. Good luck if you are diabetic, by the way! Also, don’t let yourself be fooled by the question if you want your lemonade with sugar or with honey. She will bring you an almost empty honey bottle and then shrug her shoulders and offer sugar when it’s finished.

Decorations: I like the posters and paintings, however, I think whoever had the idea of covering the Pub’s logo with the air conditioning unit did it on purpose, after discovering none of it was true. Gyuri’s Pub: Common Beer, Some Mediocre Food, Loud Music – Not the Best Pub in Town at All!!

On their website, Nan Jing Chinese Restaurant advertise themselves as the first Chinese Restaurant ever opened in Romania. I can’t contradict them on that, but I can contradict them on pretty much everything else they say about themselves on that website.

The food was a poor imitation of Chinese cuisine (the duck and bamboo shoots was especially disappointing, as was the fact that they brought us pork instead of beef in another dish). The noodles were overcooked and rather resembled porridge rather than rice noodles. Even the soy sauce on the tables tasted funny (I suspect they mixed it with vinegar, for some strange reason!).

I had to ask for chopsticks especially, but soon gave up using them, as there weren’t any bowls to eat from, but only flat plates.

The waiter behaved as if we were disturbing his evening (but then again, most waiters and waitresses normally act that way in Romania!), he spoke no English and seemed extremely reluctant to bring us a couple of deserts from listed in the menu, claiming that the strawberries were not ‘Romanian strawberries’ and therefore ‘yuk!’ – and he made a face to demonstrate his disgust! When we insisted and he finally brought the ice-cream with whipped cream and strawberries, it turned out there was no whipped cream and no strawberries on it, just a red strawberry sauce from a tube!

Oh! And the funnies part was that, according to the website, the ‘modern Chinese atmosphere’ is created by the Chinese pop music softly playing in the background. I never knew Elvis, The Everly Brothers and Simon and Garfunkel were all Chinese! Haha!

I could go on and on about this, but what’s the point? I’ll never go back there and that settles the matter. Some of the food actually looked good, so see below a few photos of the soups, the caramel bananas and the lychees: