Ginseng @ Hellenic — Restaurant in District of Woden Valley

I honestly cannot believe how awful the service is here. We’ve been many times, the food is always okay/ good depending on what you order, but the menu is extensive so there’s something for everyone. The service is never good (insisting we have entrees first when we specifically request for everything to come once it’s ready, not answering direct questions about meals and then not returning with the answers after they’ve ‘checked, taking menus when we ask to keep one to order more, and just general unfriendliness), but with minimal interactions most visits, we’ve continued to go for the convenience.

The last time was absolutely shocking, and I feel so sorry for the other diners who were there on Wednesday 28/05 at 6:30pm.

When ordering from the GF menu (literally pointing the items out on the menu), at the last second my friend clarified that they should be GF as she’s coeliac, the waitress snapped ‘you need to mention that’. The rest of us ordered what we wanted and all was well, 2 main meals came out (after we asked for them) and a different waitress announced them as GF chicken (relevant for later) and special fried rice. My friend being GF said yep I ordered GF and took the meal, I was not sure what she ordered because I was still looking at my menu and she pointed her selection out on the menu.

About 15 minutes later, the waitress who took our order returned with another GF crunchy noodle something or another, again, my friend said yep I ordered GF, we then checked that there was another meal still to come as my daughter hadn’t eaten much, the waitress replied yes the GF chicken and cashew, we were confused as I had not ordered anything with cashew considering my daughter is allergic. We explained that the GF chicken meal was brought out first, and I hadn’t ordered cashew due to allergies, the waitress apologised and said ‘oh she must have given you the wrong meal’. I asked if we could cancel the cashew meal and get the chicken and veg chow mein, considering the waitress who delivered it had specified it was GF and we were told we needed to mention that, and she snapped. No, the GF chicken and cashew has already been made, I can add another one for you, but you’ll need to pay. There was some back and forth for a few minutes with the waitress refusing to swap the meals, instead, for whatever reason she decided to swap it with the crunchy noodle one that she’d just brought out. She then returned without the crunchy noodle meal and started again about how we needed to take the chicken and cashew meal but they can leave the cashews out, I asked if it had even been made yet as this whole thing took about 10 minutes, surely they had added cashews by now? Apparently not! She was getting very aggressive towards us and just couldn’t understand how it was their fault despite apologising and saying ‘sorry, she must have given you the wrong meal’ to begin with, so we asked to speak with someone else because of her attitude.

Expecting a manger to come and deescalate the situation like any other restaurant would have done, by simply apologising for the waitress announcing the meal wrong to begin with and simply swapping the meals considering we hadn’t received the chicken and cashew yet. Instead, this lady did the exact opposite and wouldn’t even hear us out, just blindly backed her rude staff despite them causing the problem.

Eventually, she did agree to just swap the Chicken and cashew for the Chicken chow mein, but she reached over and snatched the one from in front of my friend who was still eating the meal.

At this point, I just asked for the bill and said we don’t want any more food. We paid for the food we had eaten and left to get the kids food from the bistro downstairs.

This whole ordeal was extremely stressful and incredibly disappointing, I’ve never ever experienced service like this before in my life. We will obviously never return here and will never recommend to anyone again, do yourself a favour and avoid it like the plague, I wish I took the advice given to me but unfortunately I learned...

We decided to have a belated family feast on Boxing Day which comprised of two mud crabs, steamed coral trout and five other main dishes. We were enjoying the food until about 8:15pm when the wait staff began constantly tracking to see if we were finished, despite the fact that the restaurant wasn’t closing until 9pm and that we were going to have to pay a 10% public holiday surcharge for their troubles anyway. To add to this, no one came to refill our empty rice container or our teapot. After being made to feel so unwelcome, we were then shocked to be confronted with a bill of $830! Our estimation was more like $550. We later discovered that they were charging $188 per mud crab and $168 for coral trout. To be honest we were slightly traumatised by the size of the bill and were disappointed in Ginseng Restaurant for their over-pricing of seafood and the poor service which left a very bad taste in our mouths. Word of warning: ensure you ask what is the market price of their seafood as it is an absolute rip-off compared to other reputable Chinese seafood restaurants...

Food was adequate, although portion sizes leave something to be desired.

But the real dealbreaker was the staff; most of them were nice enough. But you can see their general demeanor, the way that they walk and talk that they're worn down and apathetic.

One lady in particular was abhorrent and vile and disgusting. She was an East Asian lady with a high ponytail and long bleached hair. Was condescending when taking our order, correcting our pronunciation of the Chinese noodles. And we asked her for chili oil and she simply responded "which one" without explaining the options even though it was our first time there.

We then caught her gossiping to her coworker at the cash register while looking at our direction. I work in hospitality so usually I have a soft spot for others working in the same demanding industry, but this is horrendous.

Another indicator of their lack of concern for the quality of service to their customers is the absence of any replies to these Google reviews, positive...