Little Red Dumpling West End — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Update: 23 09 2019. Dining here right now for a Sunday afternoon lunch. Restaurant is not busy at all but we had waited for 20 mins and asked were our food was....the waitress forgot to put our order in, again!! Terrible. This is the second time this has happened and all we get is a lousy sorry. How can you not realise that you have 2 customers seating outside with no food when it's not busy. Not impressed. I'm all about giving restaurants second chances but I think I will give the restaurant a miss entirely from now on.

Second post: I gave this place another go and the service was much better this time around. Less busier (Sunday lunch) and the food came out at a good time. Tasty vegetarian dumplings.

Original post:

Our second visit to this location over the past year. Service both times had been a bit lacking. Our experience tonight has lead us to write a review due to unacceptable customer service.

We arrived at 7 pm for a quick bite, as "street food" is typically known to be fast. However, our meal arrived about 45 mins late. We had to grab the attention of our waitress 30 minutes after ordering, who was obviously working hard to cater to other customers. She apologised and said that our order must not have gone through. I asked if we can have complimentary drinks since we would have to wait an additional 15 minutes for our food to be placed in the queue. She spoke with her manager and he offered a 10% discount off our bill. Fair enough - so we waited a bit longer. 15 minutes or so later my meal came out. But my partners dumplings was obviously forgotten, because he waited for another 10 minutes as he watched me inhale my dinner (being very hungry). We again had to ask our waitress to see if our dumpling order was coming, it was clear that the cooks had forgotten about my partner's dumplings. This time we had to wait for another 5 minutes wait or so.

All in total, we were there for just over an hour - so much for a quick bite.

I understand that hiccups happens and that service isn't always going to be 5 stars. However, in an area such as West End where there is a lot of competition and plenty of restaurants to eat at, a simple apology from the manager would've been all we needed to feel "taken care of". Instead, there was no presence of the manager and he left his poor and overworked waitress to "deal" with our matter. This is not good service and this lack of attention will jeopardise your store...

We had a fab dinner here on a Sunday night in March.

Booking ahead is recommended because this is a popular place. And their popularity is well deserved, because, despite the small staff complement - as far as I could see, only two servers and two kitchen staff - the place hums like a well oiled machine, and everything runs smoothly.

We booked through Quandoo for 6.30pm, later changed to 7.00pm, but that presented no problem to the helpful and friendly maitre d’.

L.R.D.B. is situated amongst a cluster of Asian restaurants in a little dining strip on Hardgrave Rd, about 15 minutes walk from the West End ferry terminal. Plenty of easy street parking in the area, if you’re driving.

When we arrived, we were warmly greeted, and shown to a nice table near the back. L.R.D.B. is a slightly cramped, elongated space, with indoor and outdoor seating. We chose to sit indoors and were quite comfy at our high table with bar-style seats.

Service was efficient, fast and attentive. We ordered a pina colada and a bottle of Tsing Tao for the drinks, and followed that up with three dishes: the lamb and coriander dumplings, (10 dumplings for $14), the shallot pancake ($7) and cumin flavoured lamb ribs ($11). The ribs were well cooked and tender with a tangy cumin flavour. The dumplings were a generous serve, the outer coating was soft and smooth and the meat inside was flavoursome, fresh and tasty. A nice contrast to the crispy shallot pancakes.The perfect meal, and just enough for two of us.

Ambience is calm, casual and laid back and even though it was about 80% full, acoustics were fine and we were easily able to converse, mainly on account of tables being well spaced out and high ceilings absorbing some of the noise. The West End crowd were mature and well behaved, so that also helped to keep things relaxed and fairly quiet.

Toilets are out the back and you’ll need to grab a key off the front counter. There are a number of toilets there, each one belonging to a different restaurant although L.R.D.B.’s is clearly marked. It’s a large cubicle, reasonably clean and well stocked, although just one is a little thin on the ground.

Overall, we had a pleasant evening here. Prices are moderate and we paid $50 for two drinks and three menu items and that was sufficient for us....

EDIT - just had a nice phone call from the manager, who apologised for what happened. Thanks. This is not a rating of their food - it was never delivered so I don't know what it tastes like. Just a warning - if you are tossing up between pick up or delivery, choose pick up. They use Uber Eats to deliver (menu items are more expensive per item via Uber Eats too, then you get hit with service and delivery fees). Our order never arrived despite getting a message it had been delivered. I tried contacting Uber Eats but couldn't get through to anyone who could help. Then called the restaurant. Their first response was that they had fulfilled the order so we had to take it up with Uber Eats. No apology, no suggestions for a solution. Spoiled what was supposed to be a celebration. Won't be buying anything from here while they still use Uber Eats. Several neighbours have said they have had exactly the same issue with Uber Eats, so be warned. But don't worry, should this happen to you, too, you'll get a message from Uber Eats that "to make up for it" they will...