Eddie’s Tong Fuk – Doomed to fail?

Review

I don’t like to be mean about restaurants that are so obviously struggling to stay afloat  – but Eddie’s is a lesson in eateries doomed to fail.

The litany of mistakes/complaints in no particular order.

1) Not opening when you say you are going to be open.  We have tried to frequent your restaurant for dinner on at least 3 occasions (not Mondays)  but you were closed

2) Naming your restaurant Eddie’s and then there not being a patron/Eddie in sight.  There is a western chef here, we have glimpsed him the couple of times we have been able to enter, but as soon as we come in, he disappears into the darkness beyond.  Is he Eddie we wonder, and why won’t he come and say hi?

3) Staff don’t engage with you.  Both times we have been the wait staff hardly dared say a word and waited silently, table side, with pencil poised until we ordered. It adds to the British-rest-home-in-Worthing-day-room feeling about the whole place.

4) Menu is confused.  Its part fine dining, part gastropub, part seafood.

5) Soho prices and Soho quality food – which frankly is not value for money in Lantau.

6) Never, never start wiping the table around me when I am reading a newspaper and I am the only person in the whole restaurant.  Why the f**k are you bothering me?  Speak up boy?!

7) If you are open at the weekend from breakfast through lunchtime, why do you stop serving breakfast at midday? And even refuse to cook it up for the 1 set of customers in your restaurant at 12:45, who are locals of Lantau and might therefore become regulars?  Are you trying to go bankrupt?  SERVE AN ALL DAY BREAKFAST!!!!

8) If you open at 6pm but there are some people standing outside your restaurant at 5:40 who want to come in after a long day at the beach, don’t leave them standing outside whilst you blithely finish putting the bloody forks out, let them in to order a nice cool beer.  Don’t be rude, and more importantly don’t turn your nose up at custom.

9) Don’t open a restaurant in a village of about 250 people, with a similar cuisine to another restaurant 20yards down the road.  Why split the market when you could have opened a different style of restaurant?

As almost local Lantausters, we feel a responsibility to support a new business in our little community and we have tried, but if you are going to continually get it wrong and not learn from your mistakes then what do you expect but to be regularly empty?

Change or die.

What does work:

1) Your breakfasts at the weekend are very good value for money.  Why not make them available all day but just charge more for them from 12pm?

Not a lot else…

UPDATE:

Just received a mailer from Eddies and now we know who Eddie is and what their concept is which is actually quite interesting not just organic but also sustainable – seems that other people fancied an all-day-breakfast too.  Have to go back and try again!

Welcome to Eddie’s!

Introducing our new menu……

Due to popular demand we now serve all day breakfasts so you no longer
have to wait for the weekends to scare away that hangover!!! In the
twilight zone thanks to jet-lag? No problem – we will serve your Full
English whenever you want. No need to set the alarm!
(This is sounding somewhat as if we are open weekday mornings, which we
aren’t but watch this space…)
Our a la carte menu has been designed to offer a wide variety of choice in
keeping with our ethics, using organic meats and sustainable seafood. For
further information on how we choose our products and why, please check
out our website www.eddies.com.hk or speak to any member of staff.

We trust that you will enjoy your dining experience at Eddie’s.

Many have been wondering whether Eddie is the chef, the owner, or an
imaginary friend…
He is our namesake – our companion and would be our doorman cum maitre d,
if he wasn’t a hairy Jack Russell dog. He is however pleased to be
relieved of this duty, in the interests of hygiene. This enables him to
languish at home with his concubines while we cook.

~ by Caustic Candy on June 19, 2009.