We went to Hatsune in The Village last night and suffered a severe bout of invisible customer syndrome. Ok, we arrived at 9:30 and they close at 10:00 but ...
It was our first visit and because it's a landmark Beijing restaurant, we were expecting something stylish and elegant - it wasn't. The food was fine, when it finally arrived, but you couldn't complain about the service - there wasn't any! We waited 40 minutes for two sushi rolls and they weren't busy. The waitresses were either strolling out of the restaurant, bags on shoulders yapping on their phones and shouting farewells to colleagues, or studiously avoiding eye contact with the customers. The chefs were washing out the sushi station with soapy water, changing into street clothes (call me a prude but there's something unappetizing about a topless, overweight, sushi chef flashing his rolls to the customers) and disappearing while customers were still eating and we were starving. Elegant? - not even close. Except for the decor, it reminded me of a typically chaotic, cheap, noisy, Sichuan restaurant. (Don't get me wrong, I like chaotic, cheap, noisy, Sichuan restaurants but not for a classy night out.) I asked for the manager and was told the manager wasn't in - and didn't it show!