Friday is brunch day!
This Friday we decided to check out a new brunch on the block- WeBrunchDXB at Dubai Intercontinental at the Marina.
Reading the website it sounded fab. However, upon arriving we soon realised it wasn’t what it cracked up to be.
Here’s five reasons I do not recommend this brunch…
1. It was busy, very busy. This is fine when the service is on point. But it wasn’t (more about that later). We were initially seated at a tiny table more suitable for four (despite there being six of us) in a dingy corner next to a booming speaker!
After complaining three times we were eventually moved to a table where the seats were much lower than the tables making it difficult to eat and we had to squeeze past the group next to us every time we wanted to get food…
2. Ridiculously loud music. Although the music selection was great (the one saving grace of the brunch), it was extremely loud to the point that you had to shout to the person next to you if you had any chance of being heard. And this was after being moved away from the speaker…we all came away with hoarse voices from screaming to be heard.
3. Poor food selection. Don’t expect to see the usual colourful arrays of food. Here it is mainly live stations where you put in your order to be cooked. That sounds great in theory, but in practice when you have a lot of people it results in LONG queues for each dish.
Being a vegetarian there was barely anything suitable for me. Plus the food ordered didn’t always arrive…(more on that in number five).
4. Lack of drinks. This was the biggest bugbear. So, usually at a brunch you never worry about getting your drinks topped up- usually you worry about getting it topped up too often!
Erm not at this brunch. 45 minutes in and nobody had managed to get me a single drink. Not one. By this point I’d asked THREE different waiters. All said “yes ma’am” and ran off never to be seen again!
Eventually a drink arrived for me…it wasn’t the margherita I’d asked for but some other vile concoction. I was advised by others to avoid the wine. After this I stuck to G&Ts and again constantly had to flag waiters down to ask for drinks.
5. Terrible service. At the live stations I spotted the pasta station. Yay finally a veggie option! I put in my order for spinach tortellini, and the guy said he’d bring it over to me.
Twenty minutes later it hadn’t arrived so I chased him up. He claimed he’d tried to find me but couldn’t. Annoying. I gave him the table number and reordered the dish. Twenty minutes later it still hadn’t arrived.
I could see him running around like a headless chicken with dishes in each arm going from table to table, going up to people and asking them if they’d ordered various dishes. People were shaking their heads and looking confused. Clearly he had no system in place to ensure people got the food they asked for- bizarre.
So again I complained and had to reorder it a third time! He was quite rude to me and told me I had not given him the table number (which I definitely had!). Great customer service- when you make a mistake blame the customer!
By this time I was ready to give up but couldn’t as that was the only vegetarian option for me other than salad. So I reordered a third time and when it did come it was the smallest portion I’ve ever seen in my life! Literally three or four bits of tortellini. I shouldn’t have bothered.
The service in general was TERRIBLE. I’ve never experienced worse service at a brunch than here. The staff are CLUELESS and don’t care about you having a good experience. They forget drinks orders, ignore you when you’re trying to get their attention, don’t collect old plates and make the whole experience a chore. Brunch should be easy- the drinks come to you and the food is accessible. It’s a tried and tested formula. People come to brunch to relax. This was not a relaxing or a fun experience.
They also didn’t make any special effort. It was one of the girl in our groups birthdays. They couldn’t even get us a candle in a cake or sparklers or anything.
I will be writing an official complaint. It was not a cheap brunch and I really would like my money back as all I had was a few G&Ts, a stressful experience and a tiny plate of pasta that took a lot of effort to get.
With the location it has the potential to be so much better. But a lot of improvements are to be made. As it’s a new brunch hopefully they will listen to feedback and make the required improvements. But until then I certainly won’t be returning.
My suggestions to improve WeBrunchDXB:
1. Get a higher staff to customer ratio. Either increase the amount of staff, reduce the number of customers allowed in or both. As it stands there are not enough staff to give the customers a positive experience. We shouldn’t have to flag staff down for a drink at a brunch!
2. Lower the volume of the music so that conversations can take place without shouting.
3. Have more vegetarian food options.
4. Have more food choices available on the buffet
5. Ensure all food and drinks orders arrive promptly and that they are correct. It’s very frustrating to constantly battle to get what you ordered.
The post A scathing review of We Brunch DXB. Why I do not recommend this brunch. appeared first on gettingthedreamlife.com.