The Cotton House — Restaurant in Scotland

The letter below was sent to the owner of the Cotton House Mr K L Lee on 13th March 2024 and has yet I have not not received a reply. Mr Lee has received this letter, it was sent by recorded delivery and he signed for it on receipt. I am not looking for any kind of compensation, all I'm asking is for Mr Lee to at least acknowledge my complaint and provide an apology for ruining my wedding anniversary night out.

Dear Mr Lee,

FORMAL COMPLAINT – REF: THE COTTON HOUSE RESTAURANT, LONGCROFT, BONNYBRIDGE

I attended the above restaurant with my wife on Saturday 3rd February 2024, it was the occasion of our wedding anniversary, I am afraid the whole evening was very disappointing, to say the least. Let me outline the chain of events.

We arrived at the restaurant at the pre booked time of 8.30pm, it was busy, as it usually is on Saturday night, we were promptly directed to our table and ordered drinks and about five minutes later the drinks arrived, plus prawn crackers, and about five minutes after that we placed our order. I can’t remember exactly what we ordered for the main course, but we both ordered Dim Sum Soup for the starter.

So far so good, after 20 mins no sign of our order, no explanation volunteered from the table staff regarding the delay. I personally got off my seat and asked the waiter, what had happened to our order, he said there had been a mix up in the kitchen, so I said could we please have our soup at least, he said he would do this.

After a further 15 mins, still no soup, we are both getting very annoyed and hungry and once again I had to get off my seat and asked the same waiter what is going on and by the way where’s our soup, he said he would get out

After waiting another 5 Mins, and noting that the people on the next table who arrived well after us were having their main course, we decided we had waited long enough for our food and left, having first offered to pay for the drinks, the waiter looked flustered and said it was not necessary.

The fact we waited 40 minutes and received no food is bad enough, although I accept that sometimes things don’t go smoothly, however, I probably would not be writing this letter of complaint if someone had apologized for the wait, explained to us, unprompted, exactly what had gone wrong and, in the meantime, made some effort to serve the soup, or offer more prawn crackers, more drinks maybe, etc, etc… The waiter who served us was hopeless, whether he was incompetent or had not received sufficient training, only you can answer that. I am not putting all the blame on the hapless waiter, because there was a member of staff who looked as if she was supervising the table service and she walked past our table on several occasions and must have noticed that we were waiting for our food, she just ignored us.

I should explain that my wife and I have dined at the Cotton House on several occasions and, before the latest visit, we have always enjoyed excellent food and excellent table service, so it is quite an achievement to go from a 5-star rating to a no star rating, how else could we rate your restaurant when we get no food and poor table service, especially on our wedding anniversary.

I look forward to hearing from you

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Hallows

PS: I would have made this complaint much sooner, but I have been out of the country for the...

Review of The Cotton House, Longcroft, Dennyloanhead.

So this is my favourite Chinese in the area and we went for a sit-down meal - I normally get takeaway on the way home from school.

Asian duck salad and chicken noodle soup to start, with a duck roll starter to share, too. My salad was the star - flavours of hoisin duck pancakes. Beautifully cooked duck - not a micro-gram of fat in sight and falling apart - with red onion (too much red onion), tomatoes (why?), lovely cucumber, fresh leaves, hoisin dressing and a beautiful topping of toasted almonds, golden sultanas and pomegranate. Never seen this dish anywhere else - I’ll be honest, i was expecting a noodle and peanuts affair - and I’d have it again in a heartbeat. It was fantastic. Ian very pleased with noodle soup. It was a Cantonese dish and he ate it regardless so it must have been good! Duck rolls not as expected - we thought they’d be wee spring rolls. Instead they had a crunchy breadcrumb shell and inside was duck, gravy and bean sprouts. Nice. A mysterious pink dip on the side was enjoyed although I still have no idea what was in it.

Seafood ‘fusion’ and chicken fried rice to follow. The seafood was the star of the show. 3 fresh scallops with beautifully fresh orange rows still attached, plump slices of seabass, beautiful squid and plump mussels, accompanied by aubergine, bamboo, carrots and green beans in a beautifully green coconut curry sauce rich with lime leaves. Jeezo. It’s a real triump they managed this for under the £20 mark. I was blown away. Ian’s fried rice was generously portioned and came with gravy. My egg fried rice was fluffy and had a braw texture.

Two cocktails, four colas and a cider were procured. A wee word for the espresso martini - a large and great one of those. Don’t miss.

Honestly I was blown away. I’ve had Chinese all over the place - New York, London, Newcastle, Michelin starred restaurants, AA rosetted restaurants. But this braw wee place in Denny with the Van Gogh wallpaper is up there with the very best. A solid 9/10. As a bonus, atmosphere not stuffy and service quick. Enormous portions and prices very reasonable. A fantastic choice if you like Thai, Malaysian or cantonese. Not much of a dim sum place - just the standards (go to opium in Glasgow if that’s your bag). At the mildly britishified Asian dishes that they do, they’re the finest. For people with big appetites who appreciate the difference between a takeaway and the ‘oriental fine dining’ experience the Cotton House offer. A damn...

According to the very good reviews, some said it's the best Asian restaurant in Scotland we decided to celebrate our wedding anniversary with them. Because we have 3 months old baby, visiting the restaurant is not a good idea, too much crying and feeding her to really enjoy the ambient... So we decided to celebrate at home, inviting our friends and ordering food from the best. I placed the order at 12.00 on their app, where it is clearly explained to ignore app delivery times, and food will be delivered within 1.5h. I got confirmation via email with the reservation number and delivery charge including. Everything was fine. I'm a patient person, and also, we had a nice chat with friends, so I didn't bother till 2pm when I finally called them for an update on delivery... The person on the other side simply told me that they don't deliver during the day like something I should probably know and gave me two options. Wait till after 5pm when the kitchen reopens or refund. He explained me that it is app fault. No apologies whatsoever or invitation to their restaurant in the future with some sort of discount or free snack in good spirit to keep the customer. Any decent restaurant would do this, but here seems they don't care much.... Unfortunately, they lost me before I even tried...