Saturday, January 30, 2010

Higher prices, lower quality food to just appease the crowds

Having built up a reputation, it appears that restaurants don't work hard to please. They only need to appease and satisfy the minimum requirements of their regular customers and some new homesick ones who don't know better. The T restaurant is one that has thrived on past glories.

The Hokkien prawn noodles at this well known restaurant in NSW's second largest city proved a little disappointing. Though the taste was full flavoured with prawn stock seasoning and generous king prawns, it was lacking in some of the traditional ingredients such as boiled pork belly slices, chives (and or fresh mustard green or choy sum), garlic crisps. The (calamari) tastes a little diluted probably from a tenderizing agent. They could improve by adding more bean sprouts. Also, it's not visually appealing - you could tell it's colourless and looks deceptively bland. At A$13 plus a serve, one should expect more.


Could it be the transition to a younger generation of cooks or cost saving measures? Customers don't normally question and could only guess or just let it go. There are not many alternatives in the vicinity that offer authentic and exotic Southeast Asian cuisine at reasonable prices.
Overall, the service seem to have improved a little but you still get an occasional snub from the experienced staff. Other former staff have left and regrouped to start another restaurant in an affluent suburb. If you think that T restaurant is expensive considering the prices are doubled what it used to be 10 years ago, you should check out the off shoot restaurant.

The standard of the pork rolls in soy skin has declined considerably compared to the previous occasions we dined here. The bulk of the filling was heavily spiced pork. It tastes dry and does not have any prawn and vegetables that is normally included in the recipe.

(We had vegetable bean crepe rolls at a dim sum yum cha restaurant today and I must say that they are excellent and much better than the meat rolls.)
Nasi lemak and Laksa noodles at T restaurant, however, are still good and keeping up to its previous high standards. If you know which are their specialities and what to order, it's fine. However, the choices of delicious dishes on the menu seem to be shrinking with each successive visit.

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