Lulu Bang Bang — Restaurant in Durham

The night started out promising. It was our first time here and the atmosphere when walking in was great. We arrived at 7pm on a Thursday evening. A nice host greeted us and prepared a table for our party of 6, even though we didn't have a reservation.

The first clue that things weren't great from a service standpoint was the waitress didn't ask if we wanted to order any drinks. Like didn't even bother, didn't mention the drink menu, nothin. Weird but whatever, I was having water tonight.

We ordered appetizers and talked. The apps came, and they were great!

The staff clearing plates tried to take my appetizer plate as I was taking the last of the food from it. "Can I take this out of your way?" "Can I have a second to finish it?"

Small plates cleared, some silverware cleared but not all. So when the main entrees came, some of us had to get the attention of our waitress and ask for more. Forks but no knives were brought. Staff was reaching across the table, over us and our food, to place things and take things rather than walking around to the other side of the table. They touched the top of my glass when they set it in the table.

Several of us had finished our glass of water, but there was no carafe for refilling brought to our table. One of our party managed to finally get our waitress's attention and asked for water, which she brought in two carafes, and placed on the table opposite of him and walked away.

The meal was ending and the waitress asked one member at the table if she wanted any dessert. Two members of our party ordered the one they remembered from the menu over an hour ago. I didn't remember the dessert options, but she didn't ask me anyway if I'd like dessert or even if I'd like to see a menu, so I didn't have any.

Would I come back? Sadly probably not, because the menu choices and aesthetics were really exciting.

The appetizers were great, the main was just okay - I had the spicy noodle dish recommended in another couple reviews, and it was good but nothing to remember. The service was bad. They could learn a thing or two from Chick-fil-A about...

Struggling to even give this restaurant 1 star. My husband and I went for dinner this evening (January 2023) after seeing great reviews and beautiful photos on Instagram. We sat inside at a table by the bar and the meal started fine with a very nice waitress; unfortunately, though, in our first sushi appetizer we found a hair in the vegetables on the side. We did not say anything as we can empathize with how easily this can happen and had already eaten the sushi. 30 minutes later as we were starting our dinners, a cockroach crawled down the wall behind us, moved across the rug towards us, before then scurrying behind the bar through a crack. We immediately alerted a waiter and his response was “so sorry, we have many roaches outside on our patio so it must have come inside.” From there, we saw all of the waitstaff discussing what had happened next to the kitchen, yet our main waitress never acknowledged it nor mentioned anything to us when she came back over despite how grossed out we clearly were. The other waiter we had initially notified told us he would “take care of us” for the inconvenience, but yet then the check came out for the full price of the meal. When we inquired about it, he told us we had misunderstood. The waiters got the manager who then proceeded to say “sorry but it must have come inside from outdoors, we do get repellant sprayed twice a month” before walking away. They ended up discounting our drinks after we shared how disgusted we were, but barely even acknowledged what had happened. The lack of customer-first mentality was unbelievable and inexcusable -- not to mention the restaurant is open concept with the kitchen right next to the bar. If we saw one, then you know there are roaches everywhere. We will definitely not be back nor will we visit any of the other CHRG affiliated restaurants (which is shame because we used...

Great service, but food was not worth the price paid. We were surprised by the chicken satay appetizer which was bland and very dry. Don't know why you would cook chicken breast at such a high temperature -- breast is always going to be that dry at that temperature given the burn marks on the skewer; need to try chicken thigh. This portion of the meal was very tough to eat. I couldn't even finish my stick of five uneven cuts of breast. The main courses were just ok. I think my eggplant basil fried rice was better than the barbequed local chicken that my partner received. His meal states there are pineapple, but we didn't see any; thus it shouldn't be called out with the other items that were visible in the item. If it is pineapple juice only call it out in the title. Again we were both expecting to see pineapple pieces.

After the ok food we were presented with the bill that didn't tie to the prices on the menu we were given. A price of $11.00 for the chicken satay appetizer (menu showed $8.50) was exorbitant given the taste and amount of chicken -- I wish the $11 had been the price on our menus since I would not have ordered it and saved $11+tax+tip. My eggplant basil fried rice was listed at $17 and we were charged $18. A fairer price given the quality of this dish, but it is still fried rice. The manager did correct the mistake but he did tell us that the prices on the receipt were the correct ones, but they made the adjustment to the prices on the menu. We won't be headed back - even if the prices were half what we were charged the taste just wasn't to the level that we are used to.

Thus, it is these type of meals that my partner and I are reminded that we cook well at home and rather than having a carefree night out it is worthwhile to cook a nice Asian, Italian or other type ethnic meal at home where we have only ourselves to blame for...