ROCA — Restaurant in Berlin

First, the good: The surf and turf Benedict was wonderful. The steak was wonderfully cooked and tender. The shrimp fresh and delicious. The hollandaise sauce was also very nicely done. It was served on a filo dough biscuit that suited the dish nicely. The champagne being served was also quite nice. Sweet and floral, but not cloying.

Now the bad: Unfortunately where they fell down, and judging from the other tables I saw around me I was not alone, was the pancakes were nearly hockey puck dense and firm. At 18€ for three very small pancakes they had better be great pancakes. Instead it seemed as though the chef had forgotten baking powder, and as a result it had no fluffiness. It is a huge quality control issue when every table you see leaves and the pancakes are left nearly untouched. (We saw one table with 10 guests leave 5 pancake plates with only a bite or two taken from each plate.) I would expect a higher quality standard in a place like this.

The waitress attempted to make up for it with a couple macarons. Expensive macarons since I still ended up paying for the pancakes. Quite good though despite essentially being 9 euros each.

The interior of the restaurant was clean, stylish, and a bit too warm temperature wise.

The staff was friendly, but somewhat inattentive.

Overall I would return for their Eegs Benedict; but would steer clear of their...

We were hungry when we were checking into the hotel. It was raining outside, so we opted to stay in to eat at the restaurant. The restaurant seemed like a cute little bakery place when we entered through the doors. We were greeted right away and everyone was very pleasant. Ordered the lobster bisque and the beef tagliata. The lobster bisque was a deconstructed version of it. The broth was dark like a French onion soup, diced tomatoes, and three pieces of lobster. The soup was warm to taste. The lobster was not fishy and bite sized. Overall the soup was just ok. Maybe I'm opinionated and just used to have a tomato based broth. The beef tagliata was not what I was expecting. The food was warm again and definitely sitting out until other tables got their food at the same time. We waited at least 30-40 minutes for the food after our soup came out. I was so hungry at that point that I ate the food right away. The food had some decent flavor, but it's definitely not what I was expecting. There was a mention of truffle for this item as well, but there was no truffle flavor/oil or truffles on the dish. I was hoping the food would be too notch considering it is attached to the Waldorf Astoria. This place was quite the disappointment. At least the staff was...

When we entered the cafe the staff at the seat guidance greeted us. She sent eye contact to staff like manager. Then he shook his head saying that the sofa seat is not available now and said that there was only an entrance side seat. Even though several sofa seat in front of us were empty! ! !

I thought that sofa seats are reserved seats. However, the couple who came later the same walk-in as us, without confirming the reservation, but they were guided to the sofa seat smoothly. When I looked over the sofa seat, only white people sit. It felt like we were experiencing racial discrimination.

Why can not we relax at the sofa seat, because we are Asians? Did we seem to have no money? Either way, I had a very unpleasant feeling. It was a beautiful cafe attached to the hotel, but please be careful who goes from now.

The cake was delicious. When I asked about the type of cake, the other staff gently...