Mr. Stonebowl 石鍋先生 Chatswood — Restaurant in Sydney

DON’T EXPECT ANY CUSTOMER SERVICE OR HYGIENIC FOOD QUALITY.

We received our food an hour after we ordered and were given our meals in intervals of up to half an hour. By the time the last plate had come our group of 6 were all full and had already asked to cancel the plate after waiting for 30 minutes. We were screamed at from a lady who was obviously having a breakdown and was not capable in any way to have a productive conversation with a customer who doesn’t speak Chinese without her getting angry and leaving half way through the conversation.

After reluctantly taking the last plate, the chicken dish HAD HAIR IN IT! The hair could not be ours since it was black and not the blonde hair my friend who it was served to. We understand these mistakes can happen, so we called the same waiter and politely offered to show her and let her know of what had happened. She awkwardly mumbled some things and to our surprise she left and never returned. By this point we were late for our movie and had to leave. We spoke to another staff member about the hair and were ignored once again and not treated seriously and told to pay.

We could not afford wasting anymore time about payment, so as we reluctantly paid for our food, we tried to once again ask politely to speak to someone who spoke fluent English and I was told to speak to the ‘manager’. One of my friends and I explained to the lady we think there might of been a language barrier and we had hair in our food, but she made it very clear that in fact all the staff knew well of our situation and yet openly made it clear that know one cared or took us seriously in the slightest. She then continued to scream at us in front of the customers and denied any legitimacy to our complaint, even though we had previously asked a staff member to look at the hair in the chicken!!! She didn’t offer any compensation or have the decency to apologise at least. She embarrassed us in front of the whole store and the lady was RUDE and CONDESCENDING in every way imaginable.

The way in which the staff interact with us is disgusting. All 3 of the staff members we spoke to had no respect evidently because of our young age. It was shameful to think these heartless people have it in them to exploit and speak to us the way they did today.

My first time in writing a bad review for any business. Feel ashamed in not being able to do more to defend myself and my friends from being treated this way. Shameless people with no professionalism. Completely ruined our day.

DO...

I've been here twice and ordered different dishes to check whether they deserve the popular attention by customers queuing very long especially at weekend. I've tried some of their popular recommended dishes like the Singaporean barramundi, the scallop and veggies, the pork mew soup with bean-sprouts, the wagyu beef with lemongrass sauce and the truffle-infused fried rice with eels. By the name and appearance of the dishes you'd guess this is a modern Chinese restaurant which tried to create fancy and pretty looking dishes with modern / fusion twists.

First, their foods are modern and come with with new angle / twist than regular offering of Chinese restaurants in Sydney. Taste wise they're OK but not great. They tried to look fancy but due to capped price level, you can't help to taste the produces / ingredients used are not always top quality. They got the creative idea and good value of money, but the result are just OK, nothing to really praise about. Rating 4/5.

Services from staff are inconsistent depending on your luck the day you visited the place. If the place is super busy then you'll probably see minimal level of services, otherwise you may get decent services. Ordered foods sometimes come with significant time-gap between them and you could wait long for your first dish to come to your table. Minimum bill of $50 is required if you want to pay by credit card which is one of the most draconian payment policy I've ever seen in Sydney. Rating 3/5.

Ambience is bad. The place is small and feel squeezy and you may get to sit outside at the food-court area. The place is always full, busy and noisy with loud talking of the guests. You'd feel dizzy after a while. Rating 2/5.

Average Rating: 3/5 - only recommended if you feel brave to take long queue and don't mind bad service / ambience to have fancy meals with...

The minimum star that one can give is 1 star, otherwise I don't think they even deserve the 1 star.

I don't normally give a negative review. But given the fact that we are in May, More than 2 months into restaurant restriction - Take outs only. I must say the service was awful.

In the beginning of March, We ordered over the phone for takeouts. Want to pick up the food at the restaurant. It was chaos in the restaurant.

Firstly, there were no system in place what so ever. The customers had no idea which line to order, which line to pay and which line to pick up the food.

Secondly, they were clearly under staffed. 2 staffs were there, one at the register and one dispatching the food. Both not communicating to each other and both have no clue as to which order was paid and which order was ready to go. Saw delivery people such as Uber eats and Deliveroo waiting with frustration for their orders too.

Thirdly, there were no social distancing due to the disorganisation. Waited for more than 30 min to pick up the food (and the order was placed over 30 min ago).

Thought it might be the case where COVID restrictions just applied, they probably haven't figured out an SOP to manage the sudden influx of takeout orders. So gave them a benefit of doubt.

Decided to give them another go in the beginning of May. As it turns out, exact the same thing happened this time. Now this is just a disorganised restaurant that are fortunate to survive due to the food taste decent and the customers are too nice about their frustrations.

I wouldn't recommend anyone to go there during COVID restrictions for takeouts unless frustration is on the...