微醺花園Tipsy Garden

📍 Daan District, Taipei City
A restaurant and tavern in the Dadaocheng shopping district | The experience at checkout was very poor, and the service was not in sync with me at all 😢

Below I mainly write about my dissatisfaction with this store, especially the fourth point, concerning the food.

Background:

• On December 20, I booked a table for New Year's Eve at 7:30 PM via inline, where the online menu indicated a minimum spending of 400 on weekdays and 500 on holidays.
• On December 30, I received a confirmation message from inline, and I double-checked the inline's details, the Google Maps listing, and Instagram for any special minimum spending requirements for New Year's Eve.

After arriving on December 31:
From seating, ordering, to checkout, I interacted with the same waiter, and there were several dissatisfied moments.

1. On that day, only bar seating was available; the high stools were very uncomfortable, and the seat cushions were even detached from the stool legs.

2. When ordering, I showed a promotional blog article that stated I could redeem truffle fries for free. When I told the waiter I wanted to redeem this, she seemed surprised and said, "Oh! Do you want to order this?"
   (I thought, if I wasn’t redeeming, why would I show this page? 😂 I confirmed with her whether it was indeed a free redemption.)

3. The food and drinks arrived and were almost finished, and I realized over an hour had passed! The "truffle fries" had not yet arrived. I thought since it was a free redemption, it was fine to wait a little longer.
   But I really wanted to eat soon 🤣 I asked the same waiter twice and received no confirmation that it was being prepared immediately.

The first three points were somewhat acceptable; however, what really made my dissatisfaction explode was the fourth point.

4. At checkout, the waiter was shocked to discover, "Your spending did not reach the minimum!"
   I thought, I ordered a total of $1,914 for two people, how could it not meet the minimum?

The waiter responded, "Oh, our minimum today is $1,000 per person not including service charge, but I only noticed this during checkout, and the next group of guests is also about to arrive, so let’s leave it at that for today! Next time, please pay more attention to the minimum!”

After paying, I took a picture of the receipt, thinking it would be useful for writing a review 🤪 (The waiter didn’t offer me the receipt and was about to take it away.)

Fortunately, I took a picture, and upon reflection, I found out the truffle fries I waited over an hour for were actually charged 😤

I went back to the waiter and asked why they charged for the truffle fries. The waiter started giving me the runaround: "Today's minimum is $1,000, and since you were already below that, we can't refund you! We informed you over the phone and explained when you were seated; there’s nothing we can do!"

I repeated that I made the reservation and confirmed via SMS and had received no information about the $1,000 minimum at seating, where she was the one who seated us.

Throughout the conversation, the staff kept echoing, "Today's minimum is $1,000; you should pay more attention to this!"

What surprised me the most was her final handling of the situation; she kept asking me to pull up the invoice I had scanned earlier. I looked for a bit and told her it should not be amended from my end; you should cancel the LinePay payment.

In the end, she didn’t go to cancel the LinePay payment and said in a heavy tone: "Forget it! Just let it be!" Then, she forcefully shoved $230 cash into my hand, having held it for quite some time, and turned to leave😳😳😳

It was a very absurd way to handle it, and she didn’t even refund the 10% service charge for the fries 😢

🥘 Food
🥟 Mildly Tipsy Signature Fried Dumplings ($300):
Excluding the service aspect, honestly, I felt the food quality was below par, at most 2.5-3 stars.

The dumpling skins at the seam were not fully cooked; my boyfriend kept mentioning how hard and unpleasant the texture was while eating 🤪

🍚 Scallop Truffle Risotto ($430):
The waiter emphasized that the rice core was quite hard; be cautious if you haven’t had it before.
I took a bite and exchanged looks with my boyfriend, thinking, where is it hard? 🤨 Also, they heavily seasoned it with finely chopped garlic, which interfered with the risotto's texture.

🍟 Truffle Sauce Fries ($230 - includes service charge):
The fries were fried well, but I didn’t like the truffle sauce which also contained pickled cucumber seasoning.

🍑 Peach Blossom Source ($400):
Compared to the food, the drink was quite good, with a rare tea base.
The combination of oolong tea and white peach was thick and had a very alcoholic feel.

🍋 Honey Salty Lemonade ($380):
It was a large cup! It really had the taste of that beverage from Hong Kong.