Today, I decided to order lunch from the Golden Bowl. Golden Bowl Asian Cuisine is a relatively new restaurant in Enugu. They’ve been putting quite some effort into promoting their business on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, so I decided to give their food delivery services a shot.
I went on their website goldenbowlng.com to place my order. After perusing their takeout menu, I decide to place an order for Schezuan beef with white rice. Total was N1400, no extra charge for delivery, pleasant surprise. I placed my order and waited. The time was 3:15pm
Based on my previous ordering experiences with the other Enugu businesses, I knew not to order food while in the clutches of hunger, so when the food had not arrived after an hour, I was chilling like “You think you’re doing me, you’re doing yourself.”
Two hours later, the food still had not arrived. I started to wonder whether their online ordering portal even worked at all. I waited an extra thirty minutes, then I called them.
A guy answered. I explained to him that I’d been waiting two and half hours for an order I placed on their website. He apologised.
“Maybe the person in charge of the website is not around.”
The excuse didn’t seem very valid, but okay. I decided to reorder, since I was already on the phone with them. After I’d told him what I wanted, he said
“I’m sorry but we don’t deliver on orders less than N3000.”
“Really? You should have at least put that on your website.”
He apologised and promised to talk to the management about it. I hung up. I’d waited two and half hours to end up with no food. What an experience.
I’ve been to the Golden Bowl restaurant. It’s a pretty little place with delicious food and very friendly staff. I was reluctant to end this review on a total bad note, so I decided to see it through and place an order of N3000.
I went back to their website once again and perused the menu, then called back.
I wanted:
Shrimp in garlic sauce: N2000
French fries: N500
Special House Soup: N750
It turned out that French fries and Special House soup were unavailable, and the shrimp in garlic sauce was actually N2500.
I decided to go for:
Chili Pepper Prawn Sauce: N2500
Chicken soup: N500
It turned out that the chicken soup was actually N1000.
I told the attendant I wasn’t willing to spend that much, so he suggested that I order two portions of vegetable springrolls for N500. I don’t like vegetable springrolls. I wasn’t going to order something I wouldn’t enjoy just to meet the price minimum, so I gave up and asked him to cancel the order.
“I’m sorry ma, but we can’t do that. We’ve already started preparing the prawn sauce.”
At this point, I was hungry and tired of the entire process.
“What are we going to do then? I don’t want to order anything else and your minimum order for delivery is N3000.”
“It’s N2000 ma.”
So the young man waited through my struggle to build up my order to N3000 and didn’t bother pointing this out till I threatened to cancel. Okay.
“Okay then.” I said.
“Ma, we also charge a delivery fee of N400.”
“Why didn’t you say this at the start?”
And why wasn’t it on their website?
Anyway, I finished placing my order by 7:15pm. Four hours since the first order. I was starving and officially an unhappy customer.
Chili Pepper prawn sauce (with white rice): N2500
Delivery: N400
3% VAT charge: N75
Total: N2975
He said I would receive my order in 40 minutes.
By 7:37pm, he called to say he was at my location. This means it took the Golden Bowl 22 minutes to deliver (if you discount the initial four hours). Best delivery time yet in this series. I paid and didn’t bother waiting for my change because it was raining. The food came in cute, paper packaging with Chinese inscriptions.
Now the food: I ordered chili pepper prawn, I got chili PEPPER prawn. I had to turn on the generator so I could eat this meal under the fan. No kidding.
IN SUMMARY: Ordering food from the Golden Bowl was not a good experience for me. Most of the confusion and wasted time would have been avoided if their website functioned and had the right information.
So if you plan to order food from the Golden Bowl, use the menu on their website as a guide, but call to confirm price and availability. Place an order of at least N2000 and budget N400 for delivery. Good luck.
