家宴 JIA YAN — Restaurant in Autonomous City of Buenos Aires

Add 10% to use credit card. I arrived around 10 p.m. and, knowing what I wanted to order, I informed the waiter immediately. After a while, he returned and informed me that the item I desired was unavailable. He then provided me with the menu so I could reconsider my order. Unfortunately, I couldn’t flag him down to come to me when I was ready to order. The wait staff were seated at the large table, seemingly engaged in their own activities and ignoring me until a few new customers arrived. The waiter then came to attend to them. I requested the waiter to take my order, but he went to the kitchen and returned with the same news that the item I wanted was not available. However, he then informed me that the items I had initially requested were now available. This confusion left me perplexed.

I approached the counter to speak with a potential owner or manager in Chinese. He explained that there had been a miscommunication. The item I had wanted was indeed available, but the wait time had exceeded 40 or 50 minutes. Considering the relatively low number of customers in the restaurant, with the large tables being empty, I found this wait time unacceptable. I know about upstairs too. I couldn’t wait another hour for my food, so I decided to leave.

Does this sound familiar based on other reviews?

The food is indeed quite good, as mentioned in other reviews.

I am proficient enough in Spanish to give my order in Spanish. However, he attempted to respond in limited English, which was significantly worse...

We walked in right when the place opened and it was fairly empty. We were able to place our order immediately. However, multiple groups came in after us and received their food (and even finished it) before we even received a bowl of plain white rice. We had to ask the wait staff about our food multiple times. After waiting for 1 hour, half of our food order finally came out cold and unappetizing (beef was very dry and rice was cold). We never received the other half of our order (soup). We were really looking forward to eating here given the good reviews, but were very disappointed. Overall, do not recommend. You will be coerced into paying for food you did not receive...

Pro tip. If you want to know how clean a restaurant's kitchen is, use the restroom provided for the guests. If it's clean, you're good to go. This restaurant's restroom was immaculate! I had the pork with vegetables and a side of white rice. Both were excellent. You'd be surprised at how many Chinese restaurants fumble on something as basic as rice. Service was wonderful. On a side note, I find that if I go to a Chinese restaurant and the majority of the guests are Asian, I know that the food is...