Gold Leaf - Deteriorating service?

Lvl 1, Shop 10-11 Star Circus, Harbour Town, Docklands 3008

Visited: 2nd December 2012

I wanted to add in update on Gold Leaf and my review about their Lao Sa Bao, but my first post was almost a year back - I didn't like how messy it looked having an entry from 2nd Dec 2012 under a post that read it was written in 2011, so hell, I'll just do an add-on post.  Yes, I'm OCD that way.

MerlinFan and my family frequent Gold Leaf quite often for the yumcha, however, the last couple of times we left feeling less satisfied than usual.  The quality of food is still excellent as always, but it's more the service that had really bummed us out.  Why?

For example, today.  We booked for the 11.30am session on Sunday and were seated promptly.  We sat somewhere in the middle of the room, which already made us groan internally.  For anyone who's ever yumcha-ed, it's all about location, location, location.  Stuck in the corner, you're likely to be left there without any food as carts pass you buy.  Stuck in the middle, and you're likely to be left there without any food either as the carts take the path of least resistance and go around the perimeter of the restaurant where the aisle is wider so once the food gets to you (if it even makes it to you) they are lukewarm leftovers.

The last time we were here, we waited ages for our favourite things and we thought it was just where we were seated.  But today, we sat elsewhere and it was even worse than it was last month!  The only things that kept coming around was the bloody pai quat and calamari that I don't even like >:(  We were sitting there for over one hour and all we got were three plates.  That's like 1 plate per 20 mins!  WTF.  How damned tragic is that?  It didn't help that all the new food kept going to three tables of 8 people EACH who practically took all the food as they were always the first to be served.  At one point, I was sooo ready to run after the cart with the egg custards waving my yumcha order card madly in the air.  I mean, she came down our aisle but when she saw another cart still parked in front of her, she turned around and went back to the kitchen with her half full cart and never came back!  What's up with that!!!  And no, we never got our egg custards btw <bitter>.

The only other things we had to order, which were the Lotus Seed Bao (blogged about in previous post) and Golden Sand or Lao Sa Bao which MerlinFan and I had never tried.

Lao Sa Bao

The Golden Sand bun was pretty good.  Like sugar and butter melted together in a nice thin-skinned bao.  It was smoother and didn't have the gritty texture or the more distinct salted egg taste of the ones at Nam Loong that I liked, but I suppose it's up to each person's taste.

Hey, Gold Leaf, I love your yumcha food - I come to eat the food, not sit around and watch other people eat!  How about more carts going around?  How about the waitresses coming around alternating paths so that patrons in less strategic spots don't get forgotten?  So unfair watching those huge tables grabbing stacks of baskets and shovelling food into their mouths, eagerly turning around and grabbing more food from new carts that are just coming out when they haven't even finished the food on their table, whilst the rest of us are waiting around for almost half an hour with no food!  Makes me want to stand up and scream "What about me?  It isn't fair!  I've had enough now I want my share!" like Shannon Noll.

I remember coming to Gold Leaf a few times around this time last year, and every time we would get a variety of dishes/baskets within 5-10 minutes of us sitting down!  What happened???  Inconsistent service, or deteriorating standards?  

Oh well.  The last few times my family ended up consuming at least $20 less than what we usually would because the food didn't come and we were just too tired of waiting.  Their loss.