Azabusabo @ Marina Sq (bad experience!)

This is about a bad dining experience I had that made me determined to boycott this place and tell everyone to boycott it. Just like Sakae Sushi, which is on my boycott list too!

Ok, I visited this newly opened Japanese restaurant called “Azabusabo” at Marina Square one weekend. I was attracted by the samples of food on their display windows with lots of colourful desserts. That I say is a good marketing gimmick. However it is all fluff and no stuff – if you are looking for a good meal, I would say skip this. Desserts, you may try if you want to take the risks.

Basically, we ordered a sukiyaki bento and a shabu ramen. The ramen was average with two miserable pieces of pork! Also I think the sukiyaki bento was below average (I am trying to use objective words here). First of all the miso soup was cold and the rice/ beef in the bento container were only lukewarm. The beef was a tad too sweet and minuscule in portion. It certainly did not live up to our expectations based on the menu pictures.

Initially I thought that the service was good as they kept refilling our drinks and the food came pretty fast – I probably waited only 5 minutes. Perhaps the reason the food was cold was due to the fact that the bento was already prepared in advance? Whatever.

The conclusion is that the customer service sucks as I feedback to them that the bento was cold and all they could say was sorry. I felt bad to tell the poor waiter boy about it so I spoke to the manager but she made me infuriated. Not only did she try to pacify me, she implied that it was my fault for not sending the food back to the kitchen when we discovered it was cold. If I sent it back to the kitchen, can she guarantee that the chefs will not spit on it? Moreover, the onus is not on whether I sent the food back but on the effort put into preparation. I highlighted that to the manager but she could only say sorry.

Sigh. Customer service in Singapore, especially in retail and restaurants, is really horrible! The manager did not offer any discounts (not that I was looking for one), but she should at least given a free dessert or some voucher or something as service recovery. What’s worse was I spoke to her as I asked for the bill and she did not come back to me with the bill but instead went to take another customer’s order. Later another waitress came to with the bill. What’s this? Too afraid to come back to me and apologize? Where’s the ownership of handling a complaint case here? You mean just an apology can erase the bad experience I had there? And the manager had the guts to shout behind me when I left: “Thank you, see you again!” If there was more sincerity, she would have taken charge of everything and say “thank you” in front of me.

Azabusabo is located beside Billy Bombers on 2nd level of Marina Square. Let's see if it will survive for more than a year.

http://www.azabusabo.com.sg/index.htm