Me Con Bistro — Restaurant in Austin

Not sure its particularly fair to review a place where we didn't actually eat; however, the service was so poor, it rather deserved a record of its own.*

No printed menus at the tables, of course, so when my party of 6 sit down my wife asks for one (easier on her eyes - mine too). I go to the front, waiting in line to talk to the woman behind the counter.

"Sir? SIR?? Can I HELP you?" says a different, masked waiter, with an attitude as if I was rummaging through the pantry looking for the Sichuan sauce on my own.

"Can we have a printed menu please?" I ask, to which I get his snarky reply, "Well, you can use your smartphone. Do you know how to use a QR code?"

"Can I get a printed menu, please?" I repeat. To which he replies, "well, we have some but the prices are out of date."

Then a few moments later he comes over to the table, holding a few menus. "How many of there are you?" he asks, with what I can only think is some bitterness about his situation in life about having to work on MLK day. "We just need a few menus," I say at the same time my son answers, "Six."

"No, I said How MANY are you?" Clearly he had plans for that day. And he puts down two menus and walks away.

We just looked at each other. I looked at my wife, "am I missing something?" Nope, it wasn't us. We all unanimously agreed we didn't need to be there, so got up and left.

So there you go. 3 Stars as a statistical mean - a guess about food we didn't eat. 0 stars aren't available for service, so it gets one. Presumably not everyone's experience is this poor, or they'd be closed. Atmosphere was meh, probably a 3 but tainted by Mr I Have A Dream of Not Working Today.

*OK, a diatribe on printed menus. I understand restaurants trying to save costs by having customers go online. But they should realize it really is a much poorer experience (in some ways) trying to get a feel for the food than having a printed menus. Going back and forth, comparing dishes and options can be hard on a PDF. But who cares? If a customer wants a printed menu, just have a small stack ready to hand out. They don't have to be nice or expensive - just something easy. The answer to the request for one should simply be, "of course, let me get that for you." It's a silly thing to try to save money by risking customer's experience, much less being snarky about their...

If you want two meals and an appetizer it’s gonna cost you upwards of $40-$50. But it’s worth it because the food is amazing especially the pho, sesame chicken, and appetizers like edamame that is delish! Highly recommend pick up times are extremely short and they do not deliver after 5 PM now. That is unless you order through another service which is just more expensive so I would go in and pick it up although I asked them since I had an infant sleeping in the car if they could bring it out to me and they did say no… so after paying $70 on a meal and a $20 tip I felt the least she could do was open the door for me since the place was completely empty when I came in. Then when I left she didn’t offer any help while I was carrying all the food plus my baby and his stroller. The fact that there was no one in the restaurant really bugged me that they wouldn’t do that at all or check their customers in anyway like they would go out of their way to make their experience the best possible but it doesn’t seem like they are prioritizing their customers and instead are prioritizing more business areas.

However, this could be why there was no one in the restaurant at a peak time. I will still go there but I probably won’t as much anymore just because getting my son out of the car as an infant is difficult enough. Having to open the door for myself and carry the food out and open the door for myself again would have been fine but it would’ve been really nice to have someone offer to help at...

My mom received a gift card through UberEats for Mother's Day and told me she was craving Egg Foo Young. This is one of the restaurants that happens to be fairly close to where we live, so I selected this location despite the mixed reviews. When I arrived it wasn't busy at all, but it still took an extended amount of time before someone came from the back. The man acted like I was bothering him when I mentioned having a pick up order. He surveyed the few orders sitting there and didn't ask what I ordered or my name. I had to offer that information. He then began making the Thai tea I had ordered with the meal and gruffly asked me whether or not the meal was for myself or if I was picking it up for someone else. I found the question very random, but I answered that it was mine. He finished making my drink, came around the counter with everything and extended it out to me. When I tried to take the bag from him, he held onto it and proceeded to lecture me about using UberEats. He told me in the future to order directly off of their website or over the phone because UberEats takes 30% from them. I was stunned by his rudeness, and in the moment I couldn't think to do anything other than laugh in embarrassment and leave. That was my first time there and could easily be my last. The food we selected was tasty, but the prickly atmosphere was a huge turn-off. In this case, the hard work being put into the food by the kitchen staff could easily be ruined by awful customer service....