Fat Kid Adventure #70: Tamarine (Palo Alto)

(Originally posted on March 14, 2008)

Tonight was Elise's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELISE! - and we all hit up Tamarine in Palo Alto for a nice, classy Vietnamese fusion dinner. I have been here a couple of times, and I have not been disappointed. The food is pretty damn good, but being fusion it is not gratuitously portioned but kind of expensive - 5-10 for starters and 20-25 for entrees. Pretty much everything is a hit, that is except for tonight's SERVICE. Now in terms of food, in the past we've gotten Shakin Beef (100% glorious), calamari (always great), banh mi roti, cumin spiced duck, and tamarine prawns. Tonight Rachel and I shared the Imperial Rolls (has crab, shrimp and pork), crab & garlic glass noodles (soft crab meat!), and the Sambal Loup De Mer (whole bass) - all excellent!

So what was wrong with the service? Well, how about "accidentally" not bringing our orders - all three orders?? We cannot figure out how this happened because we were not the first or last to order, which means she should have our orders in the middle of her notepad page - how do you just skip over that, PLUS it is a starter, a salad, AND an entree?? We had to ask her, 15 minutes after everyone else's dinner arrived, what happened to our dishes. She didn't even come around to check whether everyone had gotten their food. What the hell kind of service is that? When she realized her mistake, she made our orders a priority - a good move - but decided that she could redeem herself by taking off the cake-slicing charge. First of all, what the hell is this cake slicing charge? They want to charge $2.50 per plate for slicing? Seriously? Second of all, how does that address her mistake? The birthday cake has nothing to do with the entree. When the final bill came, an 18% gratuity was added into the final balance. We had to ask the manager to take that off because we were not served right - the waitress had simply not performed her primary duty. She came back and said, "I thought I had resolved the delayed meals by taking off the cake slicing charge." Lady, if you sat down at a restaurant and the waitress brought your food 20 minutes late as you waited with an empty plate while the rest of the party ate, do you think anything is going to be resolved?? Anyway. Gratuity was taken off, but slicing fee was added back on. Bad service - no apology from manager - end of story.

Main competitors for this place are Three Seasons in Palo Alto and Xanh is downtown Mountain View. Both have very comparable dishes, and the services definitely OWN Tamarine.

http://www.tamarinerestaurant.com/main.htm
http://www.yelp.com/biz/tamarine-palo-alto