InDemand-Asian Street Food & Burger Bar — Restaurant in Winston-Salem

A surreal experience!

I was in town for the holidays and decided to take my parents to dinner and they recommended this place. We got there early, just before 5 pm, and sat down in an empty dining room. The hostess took our drink and dinner orders and we chatted pleasantly for a while while we waited.

Our appetizer came, a plate of cheese fries, and they were lovely. We ate them and waited some more and chatted. And waited. We watched as two other tables were seated and greeted. We waited some more.

My stepfather's sandwich arrived first. It looked great! "Yours is coming in just a second," said our Friendly Waitress. "OK, great!" said we, and glanced over our shoulders for the coming orders. Our waitress disappeared into the kitchen and emerged a few minutes later with orders for the two other tables. We sat, eagerly at first, but becoming more crestfallen with each passing moment.

10 minutes later, my mother's burger arrived. Lovely, perky, and ready to be eaten. But I sat, dejected and hungry, like Tiny Tim on Christmas Eve. My mother at this point decided to speak up, and mentioned to the waitress that we had been here for 40 minutes, and our food had come out piecemeal, and that I was still waiting.

Then things took a turn I did not expect! For you see, I am savvy, having eaten at a restaurant before. In fact,, I have worked in food service before. I understand that things can't go perfectly all the time. Bringing everyone's food out at different intervals is usually not looked at as great service. But still, there is a right way to handle it such as stopping by the table and saying, "hey guys, your order is taking a little longer than we expected, give it just a few minutes," or, when asked about it, simply saying, "You're right, it's been a little chaotic, I'm so sorry."

But sometimes there's the option I hadn't considered, which is where I admire our waitress. She went with,

"I'm sorry, but the restaurant is completely full and I'm here by myself tonight and I'm doing the best I can."

Food service can be stressful. And working by yourself can be very nerve-wracking, no doubt. But what I loved was her assertion that the restaurant was "completely full." It stayed with me for several minutes, as I looked around the restaurant. Yes, indeed, we were one of three tables. Not three gigantic tables: a 4-seater, a 2-top, and us. There were many empty tables. I don't mean 1 or 2, I mean between 6 and 8 empty tables. She made her getaway while I sat there, confused, trying to sort it all out. Aha! I thought, perhaps she means the front room, where the bar is! No indeed. A lone patron is sitting there, quietly.

Well done, Friendly Waitress. This was a fascinating tactic. One of us is not perceiving humans correctly, and I can't prove it's not me. What else am I wrong about? Perhaps I have received my food already and don't realize it. What if I never even ordered? What if it's already tomorrow and I'm somewhere else entirely?

I sat there gasping in the crushing grip of uncertainty when a burger was placed in front of me. (Or at least, I'm under the impression that it was.) It was delicious-looking! Smothered in swiss cheese, with four tiny pieces of jalapeno that cost $1.25, and no bacon jam (although how can I be sure I really ordered that?). Nonetheless it was delectable and I savored every bite, as I pondered whether or not my entire life has been a simulation.

Ultimately, when the check came, I saw that my burger and soda had been removed from the bill without any further discussion, which I considered a satisfactory resolution, customer service-wise. (Although the deletion of any written record only raised further questions in my mind as to whether my meal had actually happened at all). In the end, I left happy.

On the way out the door, my mom said, "let's drive through the neighborhoods a little and look at the Christmas lights!" I replied, "Sounds good! Or if you like, we can stay here and enjoy...

The customer service was poor. incredibly unprofessional employees. i wouldn’t recommend this place unless they go under new management. the presentation of the food was great. looked beautiful but didn’t taste well. Here i will be giving an in depth explanation of my experience and hopefully the owner will read this and change things. this is not by any means me trying to demolish this establishments reputation i am just sharing my experience. Me and 2 friends who are both under the age of 21 went to this establishment and the first thing we noticed was the hosts vape in his hand. Of course people are into their own things and are able to do whatever they want in their free time but id honestly prefer the person preparing my food or handing it to me to not be under the influence or crossfaded in any way. Immediately put off by the vape in hand but decided to give the place the benefit of the doubt since we’ve heard nothing but great things. We were seated and our waiter was obviously under the influence. But we decided to ignore that because it hadn’t affected us at the moment. There was a point after we were seated where the host, who was also our server, was seen pouring a Truly brand hard seltzer into a white styrofoam cup. immediately after he was seen drinking it then walking away. Once again at that specific time it hasn’t affected us. We ordered and our server was kind but made off putting inappropriate jokes. This is where it had affected us although the jokes were nothing incriminating, us being young ladies had every right to be as uncomfortable as we were considering that by this point all the inappropriate and unprofessional actions had affect us to the point where we no longer wanted to eat at this establishment. After we ordered there was a very brief period where we considered leaving and even considered just paying for the appetizer we ate, and leaving since the overall environment was just not what we wanted to spend out time or money in. A random waitress which we were told was named Allison, Said she over heard our conversation and offered to get her manager for us. The manager stated that us asking if we can pay for our appetizer and not the food and just leave was a red flag. He then stated that we looked like we were just trying to “not have to pay for it” We had the funds to pay for the meal and then some. We took that as disrespect. The waitress Alison then made a disgusting comment about restaurant etiquette saying that we don’t have any. i after going back and fourth the manager came back and brought up how he checked the cameras and said the reason we didn’t like our food was because “it was brown” and “ didn’t taste good” That is somewhat true but nonetheless as the customer if we do not enjoy our experience we have every right not not have to pay for it especially considering that there was only 1 bite taken from each plate. later the manager settled with us allowing us to pay for the appetizer and leave. Overall the customer service was poor. I feel this does not e mean the owners of this restaurant are bad people they just may have hired the...

This review is strictly base off my experience i encouter last night. I have been to this establishment twice during the day. The manager on duty was so attentive and quickly responded to any issues we may had. He explain to me that they were open until 2am. Well me a few friends decided to try the place out. We arrive at 1:27am. I saw employee outside and ask was it ok to order he told me oh yes you guys got time. I think he was a cook there. He was also very kind i would like to add. However the night manager was a different story. You could clearly tell he was not happy to see additional customers and we heard him say to the cook you keep inviting people in here.which immediately made me and my friends feel uncomfortable. Their was a lady server their that apologize for her manager behavior. He kept making comments about how he was under staff and basically saying that why they ask for the staff to cut the burners off. I definitely understood but how he approach the situation was not professional. Another concern was when I visited the establishment during the day they had this drink called a lavender margarita it was very good and I distinctly remember it was on their menu. However when I ask the young lady to make it she did explain that that was out of her wheelhouse which I respected. She then opted to get the gentleman that was rude upon Us arriving at first I decline because his demeanor clearly show that he didn't want us to be there. However after I purchase one drink and I seen him come out make other guests cocktails. I then asked him could he make the lavender Margarita that was on the menu. I was just at this establishment on May 31st. He then proceeded to tell me we don't have a lavender anything here. The the daytime manager makes up his own drinks I then proceeded to explain this was not a made-up drink this was something that I saw on the menu the first two times that I've been at the establishment. he kind of just dismissed me and walked back in the kitchen he did say something under his breath because my friend became agitated by his behavior. The situation was so uncomfortable that one of my friends this was her first time visiting the restaurant and I ranted and raved about how good the food was she just declined to get food because she can tell that our service was not wanted. Honestly if it wasn't for my first two experiences I had there I would have done the same thing. It's unfortunate because there were guests who never been inside the establishment before and never got to experience what I initially experienced during the day basically they told me that they wouldn't be coming back. I just wanted to leave a review to make sure that people understand the daytime experience is just completely different than the night time experienced. So if I do go back to this establishment again it would only be during the day because how me and my friends were treated just wasn't customer...