QUOTE(sat @ Jul 15 2006, 08:03 AM)
Has anyone else tried this restaurant? My sisters and I are planning on going Wednesday, but will skip it and go to Melting Pot if the reviews aren't great.
Here is our experience, since hearing ours others have written with similar experiences.
"La Dip Fon-DON'T"
Our monthly group of women heads out to nearby restaurants to savor wonderful food, enjoy each others company, and relax. When our group leader heard about La Dip Fondue opening up in Folsom, it seemed like a perfect event. Unfortunately, this group who never sends back food, rarely critiques, and tips generously experienced an evening that went slowly downhill. This lengthy review illustrates our evening to save you from having one like it yourself.
It all began when the restaurant called the leader two times to see if she wanted a reservation (she had one already with the manager). We should have known that the situation did not bode well when they were not even able to find that reservation when several of us arrived. Being the laid back group that we are, we did not let it bother us and found each other. When seated we were asked how many in the reservation (shouldn't they know that?) and were seated at a table with extra seats. When we finally sat down, we had to share 2 menus among the 7 of us and they came to "borrow" one back. (They said they were short some menus --the place was not even full!). We figure they need to work out the kinks of the new place. About 30+ minutes later, we finally got some water. After we placed our order, it took quite awhile to get our cheese fondue appetizer. When it finally arrived and made at the table, it was cold, lumpy, and tasted off. Something was amiss.(We tried not to compare with the Melting Pot fondue restaurant some of us had visited in downtown Sacramento but it was difficult not to.) We told our server that it was still cold and she had another wait-staff person step in to try to get the cheese going. Still with no success, we asked them to start over. They sent in yet another waiter with fresh cheese (about an hour and a half had gone by and we still have not even started eating our appetizer!) The other half of the table, who were not getting an appetizer sat drinking water and wine but with nothing to nibble on for double the time, due to this delay in our courses. Again since the appetizer failed to cook, we gave up on the cheese. Luckily, some had salad by this point but over half the table still nothing. The main entree arrived shortly after and it was average, but not wonderful. Not the "oohs and aahs" you'd expect from a high end restaurant. Even though we paid an extra $40 to add another person to the 4 course meal, it did not appear like they added any more food. We say this because the ladies on the other half of the table ordered the same main entree. We were not told which sauces paired well, etc. When we expressed our concerns about the lack of upgrade for the extra person and other events through out the night, we were given insincere apologizes, invalid excuses, and deflection of our comments, continuously followed by, "but the rest is good right?" We were told it would be taken care of. Despite letting the staff know there were problems they continued to ask if everything was ok . There really seemed to be no communication amongst the wait-staff or amongst management because every time someone came in to check on us, they asked us the same question: “how are things going?” Same story was told over and over again—THINGS WERE NOT GOING SO WELL! After they sent out the business manager (the regular manager was on the phone with credit card vendors they said), he admits that they are using a burner that was bad, THEY KNEW IT, and La Dip had placed an order in to arrive in 2 days (why they allowed the table to be sat and did not tell their wait-staff a burner was defective, we will never know. He said he could only "comp the appetizer if it was mostly uneaten (it was) and sent back." (It was). There was nothing else he could do. He said that was the policy. Again, lack of communication, judgement, and poor business sense. We really did not seem to get much response from anyone, except for insincere apologizes, so we finally asked to speak to the restaurant manager that was previously unseen. When she arrived she apologized for not getting there sooner but that she was on the phone with the credit card people. She offered us $10 off VIP passes for future purchases. By this time we knew that we were not going to be back to this place. A restaurant where (by the way, we had been there for about 3 hours now, ready to go home, and the desert course had not even arrived yet!) Another problem was the table was never fully bussed between courses which violates standards for high end establishments. When the bill finally arrived (which we had to ask 3 separate times to finally get), we were appalled that they had only taken off $16 for the cheese appetizer and failed to take off the proportion from the extra person's tab.(The total bill was close to $300). We thought this was completely unacceptable considering how badly the evening went. We asked to speak with a manager or the owner again. This time the restaurant owner came out. This is where the evening went sharply from bad to worse. As we tried to explain all the things that could have gone better with the evening (and we were very polite), she started attacking us by yelling at us! We had never seen a restaurant manager, an owner none the less, yell at her customers! We were all shocked. She interrupted several of us, told us we "were the problem, and said she did not care if we came back." When we told her how long it had taken to even get any food (we were there for over 3 hours), she condescendingly asked us if we had ever even been to a fondue restaurant before! Yes we have, and very good ones at that. We tried to explain to her that we were actually trying to give her constructive criticism because we wanted Folsom businesses to do well, but she continued to holler at us. At this point we were getting very upset, as you could imagine. She was extremely rude, unprofessional, and disrespectful as she goes on to tell us that we were the ones causing all the problems and insinuated we were trying to rip her off. We could not believe how she was talking to us! It was so bad that some of us just had to get up and leave. The whole thing was so bizarre and a so very horrible dining experience and it did not have to be.
All, in all, had the owner or any manager just came out, accepted responsibility for the disastrous dinner and apologized sincerely, and stated they are still working things out , we would have been less upset but because they did not acknowledge the problems we had and handled the whole situation with such un- professionalism, LA DIP FONDUE is a place WE CANNOT RECOMMEND. Please save your money, time and sanity and go to the Melting Pot if you want a true fondue place experience. Happy Dining!
