amici coffee shop, Thursday, 12 April 2007
There are in fact 3 Amici coffee shops in Dalian. Michelle has mentioned one in Victory Square (across the square from KFC which has a large ornament of a coffee cup over the door). I am reviewing the second shop which is located on the intersection between Huanghe Lu and Xi'an Lu; in the block containing the Mykal store (opposite the Carrefour Supermarket).
The coffee is good with several varieties. This month there is a coffee promotion with certain cups at 10 RMB. This week (9-14 April) is Americano week; next week is Latte week; and th last week in April is House Brew week. You can order a pot of Colombian at 28 RMB or coffee and cake for 24 RMB (cakes are nice!).
The food is Italian style; smallish portions but not too expensive: with the peppered steak at 28 RMB and most pizzas 19-28 RMB.
Ambiance is OK; some of the seating is basic banquettes but there are several "tables for two". Music is background (Carpenters' tape on at the moment)
The let-down is the service. The permanent staff are VERY good, but there is a heavy reliance on casuals in the evenings and some of these are untrained. Hence my 4 for service (otherwise it would have been an 8). There is a breakfast menu (not tried it yet) and the place closes at 9 pm.
The other attraction for some is that there is wireless Internet for free at the Cafe.
There is also a link with DalianXpat on Fridays at 7 pm, when they hope to attract the foreigners to the place. This also "coincides" with an informal English Corner -not very busy.
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A second visit and a second review:
As the original reviewer of this place, I feel somewhat obligated to any interested readers to keep them up-to-date with any changes in my review.
I went there on Thursday evening and ordered my usual meal: espresso macchiatto, pepperone pizza and glass of water. The restaurant upstairs was about half full. There were three or four waiter/waitresses on duty upstairs, and three of them have been there some time. As I caught their eye on entering my order was taken quickly. Another couple who came in a bit later and sat next to me, waited about 20 minutes before the man, being egged on by his partner, went and fetched one of the waitresses to come and take his order, and he had to search and find her! My pizza came within about four minutes of ordering it! When I began to eat it, I found that the crust was luke warm, the mozzarella cheese had congealed and was almost cold and the pepperone slices were dried and curled up. As I could see into the kitchen area, I noticed only one cook was on duty and was doing both hot and cold dishes. The pizza oven was not used all the time I was there. I concluded that either I was served a returned order of warmed up pizza, or more probably: a batch of pizza had been made and the one cook on duty was just warming them again in the microwave oven. My coffee arrived half way through the meal and that was not as hot as usual. Needless to say, the supervisor was not on duty upstairs. In a restaurant the final arbiter of food and drink served to a customer is the waiter/waitress. Mine should not have served me this dish, nor kept me waiting for my cofee
The music is still The Carpenters. Now there are many jumps in the CD!
I was not happy and I will not be returning there again; which is a shame as they do have a good product if they can maintain their original standard.
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I have been to the Xi'an Lu coffee shop several times. My overall impression from these visits:
The main problem with the operation is that it lacks consistency in all areas.
For example: the coffee is lovely - some of the best to be found in Dalian in a commerical coffee shop; BUT getting it to the table can take a long time, so it may not be hot when you begin to drink it. (Refer to note on service below).
The food is standard pizzas and pasta, plus sandwiches and other salads, ice cream and cakes. The hot dishes can be good, but occasionally are very disappointing: cold or badly prepared (batch cooked and reheated in the microwave?).
The music: the same Carpenters CD has been played now for a month and is "jumping" in the tracks!
The environment is variable from standard to very comfortable, as it depends on where you are sitting (and who you are with!). One drawback is that smoking is allowed in all areas; whereas in the sister shop in Victory Square, ther is a very small non-smoking area.
The big let-down is the service. It can be very poor particularly when the supervisory staff are not around. Many of the part-time evening staff do not have much motivation and little training in customer service techniques. I have now seen people walk out after waiting more than 15 minutes to have their order taken. Can such a business survive?
Last updated: Friday, 11 May 2007
aileen
jim
