if only the service of this place was half asgoodas the captivating views outside and the chic interiors, i would have given aja panchkula a full give stars!
allured by the visual stunning pics of this place, i decided to celebrate my birthday with my family. the weather was perfect with afternoon sun playing hide n seek behind overcast clouds, and we were anticipating a memorable birthday lunch.
but as we settled in to order, we had to call for the service staff twice before someone came up to help us with our order.
i understood that the special dietary preferences of my parents would mean limited options, and hence discussed with our server to recommend something that could be prepared without onion and garlic.
he confirmed that falafel and hummus will not have onion-garlic. but i still insisted that he double-check with the chef as my parents are very strict about it. he took orders from the others, but returned after 10 mins saying that falafel would have garlic.
though i couldn't understand what took him so long to get back, but i asked for any other options that would work for us, and he said that he would check and let me know.
he was gone again, and while he was serving other tables, he did not update me despite passing our table couple of times. after another 10 mins when i called over someone to let us know what we could order, the person mentioned that only salad could be served without onion and garlic.
i was almost in disbelief that a fine dine place as aja couldn't conjure a single dish without onion and garlic. at any other place like this, chefs would have gone out of their way to accommodate such a request.
and to top it all, i had to repeatedly call when i had requested that we be updated about the options. the indifferent service staff did the same thing when it took us couple of requests to receive some plates for my birthday cake.
the rest of the food that we ordered would have tasted better had we had a decent service quality so i wouldn't even get to reviewing our food.
but suffice to say that it was quite a dampener to have chosen aja panchkula for my birthday celebration.
i do hope that this was a one-off case with regard to sub standard service, and that they find some way to accommodate customer choices and dietary preferences (they mustn't forget that they still operate in india, where even kfc and mcd had to tweak their international menus for indians).