I usually stay quiet, however, I am a tad annoyed at some people, this place is one of the best I have been to in town for a variety of reasons
Staff--- bloody good, service is always very good, even with 25 drunken Rugby fans during 6 nations games, they still managed to bring what was ordered and with separate bills, correctly assigned... how many places in town do you know where that happens? I know of none Location -- well pretty good location Premises -- yes it is minimalistic, so what, he has stated he is doing more as he goes along, it is comfortable, that is important Food -- let's compare apples for apples shall we, the food he serves is, in my humble opinion, very good, fresh and tasty, I have tried most things on the menu Price -- if your peanuts are feeding the monkeys, dine with them, come on, it is not that bad there, in fact with the 10% discount card it is fairly priced Smoke -- this is Russia, he is trying his best, I know he is looking into a better extraction system, but OK, for non-smokers the occasional waft of smoke is uncomfortable, I reckon this is an easy fixable issue Customer care -- guys, again, how many places in town really give a dam about what you think, a hand full maybe, here's a novel idea, if you have a complaint... complain.. but at the time, to a manager, then see what happens, they don't get it right all the time, there are always problems in any business, but at least they are prepared to fix the problem, I reckon the management and staff here are really focused on customer satisfaction I could go on, some of you people have been in Russia way too long and need to get out from behind your virtual computer world and maybe just see what the real World is, I know I am going to get flack on this but to be honest, if you haven't got the bollocks to say it to my face, you can place your comments in the box named up your arse :) So there ya go, my humble opinion Len -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 12:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [!! SPAM] Expat Digest, Vol 53, Issue 14 Send Expat mailing list submissions to [email protected] To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [email protected] You can reach the person managing the list at [email protected] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Expat digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Buddies Cafe (Sarah Watterson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:17:32 -0700 (PDT) From: Sarah Watterson <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Expat List Buddies Cafe To: "[email protected], The Moscow Expat List" <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" And who can complain about 70 Rubles for a Heineken? Not me! On Mar 11, 2009, at 3:55 PM, Kelvin Pang <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Stan and Gio, thank you for your comments and feedback about Buddies CafC), clearly the most important thing for us in improving our offer is to know what people really think about us. Certainly it is no secret the decor in Buddies is not lavish and we make no apologies on this issue, our original idea was to keep our presentation simple and not load the cost of an expensive renovation onto our customers through excessive food and drink prices. Food is always a very subjective topic, not everything we offer is precisely the way Asians or even Europeans would like it, I'm sorry if it has not been totally to your satisfaction but then again how many restaurants have you been to where everything was exactly to your taste? Most of our regular customers have a very positive experience with our food and they keep coming back so we can only assume they like it. If there was something specific you did not like about our food you could easily have explained this to us, and we would have been delighted to offer you something else. Price is another area where not everyone will agree. If you have any experience in running a business you will know there is always a trade off between cost and quality. Quality is very important to us and we try to keep our prices as close to our costs as possible, we have priced our dishes in a range which we feel is an honest and fair reflection of the quality we offer. Go to the center of any major city in the world with 1000 Rubles (London, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong or New York) and you may find cheaper food, but to be truthful you will not find cheaper food at the same quality as ours. Your comparison with your experience at Turandot is a little unfair since you are listing the cheapest offers on their menu and not necessarily the choices most people would make. Finally, please try and be a little more open minded in your assessment of Buddies, yes we can make improvements to our offer in many areas and certainly that is our intention, but in the first instance if you are not happy with anything in our CafC) simple ask for the manager and we will undertake to do everything we can to improve your satisfaction. Hope to see you at Buddies again. Kelvin Message: 2 Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:33:37 +0300 From: "Gio" <[email protected]> Subject: Expat List RE: Expat Digest, Vol 53, Issue 10 To: <[email protected]> Message-ID: <003801c9a1a6$5918a440$0b49ec...@ru> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I also don't understand why there is so much praise over Buddies Cafe. Good for everyone that really likes the place, but I tried it and wasn't impressed at all. The dPcor was unattractive, the food was average at best, and the prices were no less ridiculous than most Moscow restaurants. To top it all off, the "smoke-free" dining hall reeked of smoke. As the waiters continuously walked back and forth from the smoking bar area to the kitchen doors they brought the smoke with them. Message: 4 Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:52:10 +0300 From: Stan Parker <[email protected]> Subject: Re[2]: Expat List In Praise of Buddies Cafe Actually, I have no ideas why you are praising the cafe. It's empty, and expensive. I often dining at Tourandot (tURANDOT, Tverskoy Blvd, 26/5), and my bill is around 1000 roubles: - vegetarian soup 250 rub - hot salad 350 rub - whiskey 220 rub - tea 120 rub Which one you prefer? My opinion - prices in Buddies are overpriced. Totally. They should be 3 times cheaper at least. Then they might have a success in a student niche - that's exactly how they look and service. Well, a spoon of honey, food there is ok. I liked the design of spring rolls and they tested good as well. SP _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat http://www.expat.ru/forum/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.lists.ru/pipermail/expat/attachments/20090311/381c14b3/attachment -0001.html ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat End of Expat Digest, Vol 53, Issue 14 ************************************* _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat http://www.expat.ru/forum/
