Dragon Way Restaurant

Even thinking about my «meal» at the Dragon Way restaurant (or Wawa Noodle Hut as it’s now called) in Portobello sends cold shivers up my spine. I do not exaggerate when I say it was possibly the worst meal I’ve ever had.
There are so many things that made my experience at this restaurant terrible I’m not really sure where to start. The amusing thing is that the food was average; it was the customer service straight from the bowels of hell that sends this place spiraling into down the toilet bowl and into the sewers of restaurant infamy.
I could spew forth my complaints about this place for a long time…
In a nutshell, my lad and I had purchased a deal voucher for this place (yes, the alarm bells are already ringing) for a ridiculously good price. Three courses and a glass of wine for £4.50 each. Bargain! We tried to book a table in advance of our journey out to Portobello, but despite its advertised opening times, the restaurant did not pick up the phone.
Undeterred by this slight setback, we made a de-​tour to the location on our visit in Porty and managed to grab someone from the kitchen. After a five minute conversation where both parties were confused, we agreed to come back at 5pm.
Upon returning to the place around 5.3pm we were initially refused entry to eat off the deal voucher. The woman claimed that the place was fully booked on a Saturday and there was no way we could eat, and could we come back tomorrow? We explained that we’d made a journey across town epecially to come there and as the restaurant was currently totally empty, we asked if we could come back and eat at 6pm.
After much humming and hawing and complaining that on Saturdays they were SO busy and we should have booked, the woman said we could eat before the restaurant opened «officially» at 6pm. We sat down (in the dark — she didn’t turn on the lights for 5 minutes or so) and ordered food.
We would have booked if the sodding place had picked up the phone according to their opening hours! However, the woman was not prepared to take this into account.
Anyway. For the entire time we were there (appoximately an hour) not ONE table was taken up by other paying customers. The restaurant was like a ghost town and was completely devoid of customers. I suspect everyone else in Portobello knows how crap it is, and the place survives by preying on suckers like me, ha.
The food was passable, but as the service was so shockingly bad I’d never recommend this place to my worst enemy. It wasn’t even worth £4.50 per person for three courses. What an utter disgrace. I can’t really articulate how badly we were treated by the staff at this establishment. It was just awful.
The idea of the deal vouchers is to get repeat business and encourage word of mouth reviews. Everyone’s been hearing about the shoddy customer service we received and now the internet knows too! So much for encouraging business. Yikes.
There’s a lot more I haven’t included in this review. Suffice to say we were made to feel like complete burdens for the restaurant staff.
Steer clear at all costs (even if it’s only £4.50!).