If you want to see an incredulous look when explaining your food allergies, go there

Joined: Jul 02, 2008
Posts: 1
Review of Cafe Alba
1

The atmosphere is fine. The chocolate pudding is tasty. The lasagna could use more sauce, but otherwise decent.

But:

1. One can get accustomed to perplexed looks, nervous laughs, or automatic "mei you"s in response to queries regarding ingredients due to allergies. It seems food allergies just aren't widely known in Beijing, and that is something someone who is allergic to foods just has to be aware of and deal with. Beijing told a drink only has three ingredients, after asking and re-confirming multiple times with the staff to be sure, only to find out upon sipping the drink that, based on the drink's taste, there is something else in it, is also common and something one has to adapt to (e.g. "vegetarian" dishes). When asked if there was something else in the drink, the waitstaff said yes and said what it was. When then asked again if anything else at all was in the drink and told that I had allergies, one staff person responded quite argumentatively, "how could you possibly be allergic to [xyz]?" while another laughed.

2. If the wifi is down and a customer is pulling out their laptop, it would be appreciated if you could please advise the customer that the wifi hasn't been working all day...preferably before the customer orders something. Thanks.