A few weeks I had to work late, so after leaving the office, I was looking for a place to eat, as I walked down Lucky Street, I thought lets give Chez Julien a try. Around 9.15pm I entered the restaurant. It was late so I asked if they still serve food, the guy said no problem and I sat down. The restaurant was more or less empty, two guys were drinking coffee and were ready to leave. I orderd the soup of the day (carrot) a rib-eye steak with pepper sauce and a Ginger Ale. Within moments the soup arrived and was okay, would give it 4 stars, a few moments later my steak arrived. The waitress realized that I was still eating the soup and she waited a with the plate in hands in a corner for me to finish. Then she put the plate on the table. The same moment I was thinking, how can the cook this steak, the fries and make a small salad within like 7 minutes or so, but as this is a Bistrot and it means something like fast in Russian and it was not business I thought whatever I am hungry lets see. So then I saw the "steak" and the "peper sauce" and the "salad". I was thinking of Gordon Ramsey visting bad restaurants trying to help them out, I felt quite the same at that moment. The meat was grey and the person who cut it either never cut meat before or used a old pair of sicssors to cut it, The so called sauce was - I guess - made of milk, half a bag of ground pepper, a few pepper corns, and a lot of thickener, dont think I need to explain how it tasted. The meat was - a few weeks later I still can not find words to discribe it in a public forum - disgusting, something you would not serve as food on the worst airline on the planet or something. It was a joke. While I was eating the cold fries the chef looked through the door and the look on face was funny. Something like - this guy is really eating it - I was just to upset to say anything. I paid RMB 120 for the so called meat and left. I was downstairs at around 9.35pm, this was the shortest restaurant visit in Beijing ever, maybe worldwide ever. It was late and maybe I was an idiot to order a rib-eye at RMB 120 but this was the most disgusting rip-off I ever encountered anywhere anytime. I dont get them they just opened some weeks ago, and serving this kind of rubbish will not help. The funniest thing was; there was a western guy sitting at the bar typing into his laptop and discussing which fonts he should use for the specials menu or something, maybe it was the owner or the guy in charge of something, maybe they should care about the quality of their food. Very sad. Very very sad. While I am writing this I can just laugh, in Beijing you can get away with a lot of nonsense selling as western food but this was really the craziest so far. Even if I would try I could not cook that bad myself. At least the waitress was embarrased. Just sad.
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Comments
thecakedoctor Submitted by Guest on Thu, 12/06/2012 - 17:44 Permalink
Re: Cant explain it, just crazy
I had a very similar experience at this place a week or so ago. I wasn't going to write a review, as I knew they had recently opened. However after reading about your encounter I want to add that this attitude wasn't a one off at Chez Julien.
We went in one evening to give them a try, had some extremely average starters and mains and then ordered a dessert to share.
Things got crazy when they brought out the 'profiteroles' which were so far from choux pastry as to be unrecognizable. They were flat, hard, and resembled cardboard. We paid up and left them on the table, thinking that they were in soft opening, hadn't gotten it quite right yet etc etc.
However, as we were walking down the stairs we happened to glance up and saw all three floor staff, manager included, examining the profiteroles and laughing uproariously. They obviously thought it was hilarious that we had paid them for the inedible dessert. So yes, in short; they do not care about the food quality and are probably just hoping to serve some semblance of French food to Chinese people who don't know any better. Unfortunately for them, Chinese people have no tolerance for bad food and also tend to dislike being treated like idiots, so my guess is they'll soon be out of business.
jimu Submitted by Guest on Fri, 12/07/2012 - 16:21 Permalink
Re: Cant explain it, just crazy
Looks like the kind of font is the least of their problems.
Friends and me were curious about the place.
Not anymore.
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