Legend Restaurant In Waikiki Rips People Off (2006-11-10)
We just found out Legend Seafood Restaurant has a branch in Waikiki and thought if it delivers the same quality, we wouldn't need to travel all the way to Chinatown to yumcha. And so we went to the one in Waikiki.
First, the food.
We ordered steamed shrimp rice rolls and deep fried taro thingies with shrimp. The rice rolls weren't in the trolley so they made-to-order for us, but they arrived at the table luke warm. Hmmmm. The rolls lacked the slippery smoothness and were slightly chewy. Chewy? Did the chef use the wrong kind of flour? The soy sauce under the rolls had a sour undertone. I've never tasted tangy soy sauce in dim sum before. Just so weird.
The taro thingies were horrible. The top part was alright, but
the bottom half was soaked with grease. You know if you make
mashed potato in a food processor, the potato will get all gummy and
hard because the starch has been worked on too much? The taro
inside the oily shell had that same gummy playdough texture. It
also tasted
strongly and strangely of VANILLA. Vanilla in bakery items.
Good. Vanilla in savory dim sum dishes. Not that
good. KL bravely finished his, I picked off the shrimp and left
the gummy taro and grease-soaked shells.
After that we lost faith in other dim sum dishes and went for a rice
noodle dish with beef and vegetables. We waited half an hour and
nothing materialized. I finally stopped a dim sum lady on her
track and enquired about our dish. She was very apologetic and
went inside the kitchen to check. Five minutes later we got our
dish. Someone forgot our order? But the restaurant wasn't
even half full!
The tender beef and vegies sauce over the noodles tasted okay (thank gosh) and the noodles themselves smooth. But the chef was too heavy-handed on the thickening agent and the sauce was thick as gel or some coagulated gloob. I soldiered on though and finished the noodles because I love rice noodles! It was quite a big serving and we were stuffed after that. We wouldn't have ordered anything else even if we weren't anyway. We decided their food ain't that nice.
Now, the rip-off part.
We got an Aloha card from the travel agent which enabled us a 10%
discount at participating restaurants including Legend In
Waikiki. There is a laminated card on every table informing
people (mainly tourists) that they don't add any service charges to the
bill. The restaurant relies on excellent service for their diners
blah blah blah and a 15% gratuity tip is appreciated. Sadly KL
was in the bathroom when I read the card so he missed this little piece
of announcement. When he paid at the counter (while I was waiting
outside), our bill was slapped with a 15% service charge. Is it their
way to offset the 10% discount they had to give us? That is
complete dishonest
dealing. Since KL didn't read the card, he didn't raise any
questions. But the extra service charge enabled KL to scrape
the usual 15% tip (he gave none) without feeling guilty about it,
hahaha. So at the end, they lost. Although our bill was
only small, it left a very bad impression. It isn't the amount,
but the way they try to scam off customers and their failure to honor a
business deal. Oh, and the food. Not worth our time and
money.
Legend Seafood Restaurant 2255 Kuhio Avenue Waikiki
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