New Lotus: Still a Work in Progress, but the wine list is promissing

I found that having an MW visit them the night before...had a lot of advantages...not the least of which was a flight of 71s/75s/76s that happened to start arriving at my table...one by one....blind.

Love the place.

-mark
 
originally posted by .sasha:
originally posted by Brad Kane:
So, I went there Monday night with seven other folks, including a bunch of fans of the Las Vegas location and it was the single most disastrous dining experience any of us have ever encountered in a restaurant. I posted my thoughts on another board it's become a lengthy thread and Eater even picked up on it.

Everything is wrong with Lotus of Siam NYC.

Why so hostile, Brad ? Give the guys a break, I thought they just opened.

Because it was the single worst dining experience I've ever experienced.

Look, as you know I make my living selling to restaurants and am extremely understanding when it comes to all kinds of service and food mistakes. This is the first time I've ever posted anything negative about a restaurant. I mean, look how frequently I put up with the food at Minetta under the old regime. But my friends and I have never had a worse experience in a restaurant. We were ready to just grin and bear it until the manager came over, finally, and started yelling at us that it was all our fault because we were eight people. It was only then that we decided to leave.
 
originally posted by Brad Kane:
originally posted by .sasha:
originally posted by Brad Kane:
So, I went there Monday night with seven other folks, including a bunch of fans of the Las Vegas location and it was the single most disastrous dining experience any of us have ever encountered in a restaurant. I posted my thoughts on another board it's become a lengthy thread and Eater even picked up on it.

Everything is wrong with Lotus of Siam NYC.

Why so hostile, Brad ? Give the guys a break, I thought they just opened.

Because it was the single worst dining experience I've ever experienced.

Look, as you know I make my living selling to restaurants and am extremely understanding when it comes to all kinds of service and food mistakes. This is the first time I've ever posted anything negative about a restaurant. I mean, look how frequently I put up with the food at Minetta under the old regime. But my friends and I have never had a worse experience in a restaurant. We were ready to just grin and bear it until the manager came over, finally, and started yelling at us that it was all our fault because we were eight people. It was only then that we decided to leave.

I can't believe it but I agree with Brad.
 
I was going to ask why you would even bother reviewing a restaurant that had opened so recently, but if the management is that lousy by all means go ahead.
 
It is very surprising to me that no one from the restaurant has yet to contact Brad. Most top restaurants in NYC have people monitor the internet for things like this, especially at a new restaurant.

I read an article about someone who mentioned via Twitter he was eating at Burger King in a airport today and 11 Madison tomorrow (or something like that)...when he arrived they presented him with small lamb hamburgers and said they hoped he enjoyed them better.

"Man leaving Montreal to fly to New York puts an entry on Twitter about the hamburger he ate at the airport, an amuse-bouche for my dinner at Eleven Madison Park. Sifton writes: The next evening, at the restaurant, he and his guests were served an amuse-bouche of small lamb burgers on diminutive buns. We hope these are better than the one you had at the airport, the waiter said, according to Ms. Rich. Hosts had been scanning social networks that morning, looking for mentions of the restaurant. Spotting this one, they had notified the kitchen.
 
originally posted by Scott Kraft:
originally posted by Brad Kane:
originally posted by .sasha:
originally posted by Brad Kane:
So, I went there Monday night with seven other folks, including a bunch of fans of the Las Vegas location and it was the single most disastrous dining experience any of us have ever encountered in a restaurant. I posted my thoughts on another board it's become a lengthy thread and Eater even picked up on it.

Everything is wrong with Lotus of Siam NYC.

Why so hostile, Brad ? Give the guys a break, I thought they just opened.

Because it was the single worst dining experience I've ever experienced.

Look, as you know I make my living selling to restaurants and am extremely understanding when it comes to all kinds of service and food mistakes. This is the first time I've ever posted anything negative about a restaurant. I mean, look how frequently I put up with the food at Minetta under the old regime. But my friends and I have never had a worse experience in a restaurant. We were ready to just grin and bear it until the manager came over, finally, and started yelling at us that it was all our fault because we were eight people. It was only then that we decided to leave.

I can't believe it but I agree with Brad.

Same here. Both counts.
 
originally posted by Thor:
Danny Meyer

You know, a few of us thought they needed a Danny Meyer intervention.

Look, we were eight people who were all thrilled to hear Lotus of Siam was opening in NY, several of the people in the group are huge fans of the Vegas location, we all realized it was a soft opening and that there maybe a few kinks to work out, a few of us were itb and so were perhaps even more sympathetic to that fact, we all love that kind of cuisine and we all wanted to really explore the wine list. Yet, from the reservation process on it was simply one service disaster after another and as far as I can tell, based on the few reviews I've seen, the only people that have had a problem-free experience there know people in the restaurant. Other than that, the criticism of the place, off service, food perhaps not being up to snuff at this point, relatively small portions and high priced, seems pretty consistent.

No one has an axe to grind with this place. We'd all love to have a thriving Lotus of Siam here. However, they currently have their work cut out for them as aside from all the service issues, upscale Thai is going to be tough slog anywhere in the city and their current location is far from ideal.
 
I know it doesn't excuse a piss-poor experience, but am I crazy in thinking that they opened extraordinarily quick. It seemed as if within a week or two of announcing they were going in the CRU space, they were up and running. Doesn't leave a lot of time to work any kinks out before getting their ass handed to them because of a bad night. It's not like that space has a very good track record; a recipe for a rocky road. Isn't a soft-opening supposed to be for friends-and-family? Wouldn't you think they'd treat all tables as if they were that?
 
originally posted by lars makie:
I know it doesn't excuse a piss-poor experience, but am I crazy in thinking that they opened extraordinarily quick. It seemed as if within a week or two of announcing they were going in the CRU space, they were up and running. Doesn't leave a lot of time to work any kinks out before getting their ass handed to them because of a bad night. It's not like that space has a very good track record; a recipe for a rocky road. Isn't a soft-opening supposed to be for friends-and-family? Wouldn't you think they'd treat all tables as if they were that?

They did friends & family a week or 2 before the soft opening. Levi posted above re the F&F. Soft opening was for paying customers and a fixed menu with 6 courses (3 or 4 offered binary choice).
 
originally posted by Robert Dentice:
It is very surprising to me that no one from the restaurant has yet to contact Brad. Most top restaurants in NYC have people monitor the internet for things like this, especially at a new restaurant.

I read an article about someone who mentioned via Twitter he was eating at Burger King in a airport today and 11 Madison tomorrow (or something like that)...when he arrived they presented him with small lamb hamburgers and said they hoped he enjoyed them better.

"Man leaving Montreal to fly to New York puts an entry on Twitter about the hamburger he ate at the airport, an amuse-bouche for my dinner at Eleven Madison Park. Sifton writes: The next evening, at the restaurant, he and his guests were served an amuse-bouche of small lamb burgers on diminutive buns. We hope these are better than the one you had at the airport, the waiter said, according to Ms. Rich. Hosts had been scanning social networks that morning, looking for mentions of the restaurant. Spotting this one, they had notified the kitchen.
Of course in the end the customer pays for that type of thing (marketing).
 
originally posted by Tom Glasgow:
originally posted by Robert Dentice:
It is very surprising to me that no one from the restaurant has yet to contact Brad. Most top restaurants in NYC have people monitor the internet for things like this, especially at a new restaurant.

I read an article about someone who mentioned via Twitter he was eating at Burger King in a airport today and 11 Madison tomorrow (or something like that)...when he arrived they presented him with small lamb hamburgers and said they hoped he enjoyed them better.

"Man leaving Montreal to fly to New York puts an entry on Twitter about the hamburger he ate at the airport, an amuse-bouche for my dinner at Eleven Madison Park. Sifton writes: The next evening, at the restaurant, he and his guests were served an amuse-bouche of small lamb burgers on diminutive buns. We hope these are better than the one you had at the airport, the waiter said, according to Ms. Rich. Hosts had been scanning social networks that morning, looking for mentions of the restaurant. Spotting this one, they had notified the kitchen.
Of course in the end the customer pays for that type of thing (marketing).

In an era of twitter, yelp, google alerts, etc...it does not cost much to monitor customer feedback.
 
originally posted by Robert Dentice:
originally posted by Tom Glasgow:
originally posted by Robert Dentice:
It is very surprising to me that no one from the restaurant has yet to contact Brad. Most top restaurants in NYC have people monitor the internet for things like this, especially at a new restaurant.

I read an article about someone who mentioned via Twitter he was eating at Burger King in a airport today and 11 Madison tomorrow (or something like that)...when he arrived they presented him with small lamb hamburgers and said they hoped he enjoyed them better.

"Man leaving Montreal to fly to New York puts an entry on Twitter about the hamburger he ate at the airport, an amuse-bouche for my dinner at Eleven Madison Park. Sifton writes: The next evening, at the restaurant, he and his guests were served an amuse-bouche of small lamb burgers on diminutive buns. We hope these are better than the one you had at the airport, the waiter said, according to Ms. Rich. Hosts had been scanning social networks that morning, looking for mentions of the restaurant. Spotting this one, they had notified the kitchen.
Of course in the end the customer pays for that type of thing (marketing).

In an era of twitter, yelp, google alerts, etc...it does not cost much to monitor customer feedback.
There's value to monitoring, especially for situations like Brad's experience at LoS .

Part of my point is that 11 Mad was pumping up the publicity, subtle perhaps but marketing nonetheless. I don't see where it adds any value to the average patron's experience.

Whereas LoS apparently has a big problem to fix.
 
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