The Holy Tree Kitchen, Coffee & Surfshop — Restaurant in Bali

I have eaten at this restaurant several times and the view and overall atmosphere are really great. Whenever you eat a place more than once, things start to strike you. With minor tweaks, however, I think this place would really live up to its full potential. Like in many Indonesian restaurants, the focus is not on serving food simultaneously. This is not a problem when the intervals between servings are short, but with this place, I found that the average waiting time is around 30-60 minutes. This is not to say that the people do not work hard: it seems like they are working all of the time, though food still takes a long time to serve. It seems that this comes from a few operational tweaks that have not yet been made. The menu is elaborate, with several items permanently not being available.

The first thing I would do is to simplify this menu by reducing the number of dishes on there. This allows for faster preparation and will scrap off any things that are not available anyway. Secondly, I would change the way orders are taken. There now is one girl behind the counter both taking orders and handling payments from customers, which created an unnecessary bottleneck at the counter at peak times, such as during lunch time. I would separate this process, which also allows for waiters to execute different tasks (they are now often just brooming the place because the food is not ready yet). Service at the table is not necessary, but the current system just seems overly complicated and could allow for more flow. I think that by implementing these strategies, serving food simultaneously and in the right order (so not dessert before a warm meal), this place will...

Mixed feelings about this place. The food is really tasty and the location/views are great but the service is not that great. The ladies that bring the food are very smiley which is lovely, nothing wrong there! But on one of our 3 visits the food was cold (fried eggs and mushrooms), the extra mushrooms were non existent, and the extra egg had been forgotten about. When I brought this up with the lady behind the till, with a smile on my face of course and I am English/polite she barely offered a response, let alone an apology. They brought out the missing egg and a more generous portion of mushrooms, this time the egg was hot. I later ordered a coffee and mentioned that yesterday's was not warm, not extra hot as I had ordered, and again she doesn't say anything. My next coffee did come hot. Our next visit with exactly the same order was hot (on request) but again the extra mushrooms are not there, so I wonder what i'm being charged for exactly? The lady behind the till doesn't give off a particularly friendly vibe so I feel less enthusiastic about returning, even though the food is worth it...

I stand by my theory. The greater the view the worse the food. I had 4 meals at this place to give it a chance and have a bit of variety. The gado gado on the 1st day was good, but I've had better. 2nd time I had Avocado on toast (meh it was so boring). 3rd time I had gado gado again and it was missing some of the ingredients. When I asked for it, the staff said they forgot to add so they brought it out in a separate dish. 4th time I had the pancakes. The texture of the pancakes were very doughy, flavourless and dry. I'm glad it came with a bit of fruit to help digest the pancakes. All in all, I only ate here because it has a great surf spot in front of the restaurant and I was killing time and using the chairs so I could watch my boyfriend surf. If you want good pancakes, try the "celebrity pancakes" at Avocado restaurant. You pay a bit more but trust me it will blow...