Have an opinion? Contact us at opinions @theotherpress.ca @ Opinions OFF CAMPUS Pee By Jacey Gibb, Opinions Editor Does cafeteria food fail to cater to your taste buds? Not digging the Dougout? Then grab your finest bib and try to avoid drooling on the person next to you, because we're here to offer salvation for you students looking to humble your hunger, without having to wear your shoes out getting there. uring my orientation day at D Douglas, one of the many pieces of wisdom that my group’s team leader bestowed upon us naive freshmen was to avoid the tea house across the street. As he so delicately put it, “It’s so bad that they named it wrong twice to try and warn you.” Almost a year and a half later, bored with my traditional Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki foot- long feast, I chose to temporarily 16 RongRong Tea House CU iSl [i] E Two Rongs don’t make a right = silence his words of warning and check the place out for myself. Of course my surroundings are usually the first thing I take into consideration when | enter a restaurant and the crowded, disorganized setup should have been the first red flag. The only man working nonchalantly told us to sit anywhere, and I was surprised to find tables further to the back of the restaurant. Going off of what I had seen from the exterior, I always imagined a much more cramped setting, but the spacious posterior lar fried noodles and the honey ginger chicken on rice. A few minutes later, my bubble tea showed its promising face and I plunged my colourful straw through the plastic, expecting the thirst quenching satisfaction that normally comes with bubble tea. But, for the first time ever, I was disappointed by a bubble tea. The beverage was borderline watery, with small ice cubes conflicting with the tapioca bubbles trying to gain entrance to my straw. Nota swell start to the dining experience. “Subpar food for average prices, terrible service, and a crappy atmosphere. The hat-trick of bad is a hard feat for a restaurant to pull off, but RongRong does a phenomenal job.” was welcome. Two mugs of refreshing hot tea were immediately brought to my companion and I as we browsed the “menu,” which is actually just several of their paper takeout brochures slid under a glass tabletop. Any doubts I had about the restaurant’s level of class were definitely silenced by this point. I welcomed the sight of bubble tea listings and eagerly selected a papaya variation. My comrade was only looking for a snack and ordered a bowl of the hot and sour soup, while I opted for two dishes, with the intent of bringing home leftovers: the shredded chicken The food came out not long after, with our server/ cook immediately retiring to the television nearby—where he in fact stayed for the majority of our visit. While I’m no connoisseur of fine soups, my friend’s looked skimpy on the contents, to which he added that it was far too salty. As for my two dishes, they were generous portions—though for $7-8 a piece, it’s what you expected. I alternated between the two, allowing time to take them in separately, and found them both to be beyond lacklustre. They were cold by the time they arrived, which gaverted frist rice we. Be = taieenene style eee” : ‘a = 5. See - De coe cee yp. a Us 7.75 suggests they were either pre-made or just weren’t made great in the first place. I ended up only putting mild dents in both of the plates and concluded that maybe if I reheated them at home, their flavours would fare better. My companion finished up his soup and then we waited for our bill to come, but we eventually realized that we would be there until closing time if we didn’t make the first move. I brought my food to the man, who had remained in a coma in front of the television since he initially brought out our meals. He eagerly packed away dishes and handed us our bills. Since I used to serve in a restaurant, I’m usually a great tipper, often leaving $5 on bills as low as $10, but I left a meagre $2 on $20, which was honestly more than he deserved. He hadn’t once offered to refill our teas, hadn’t checked on how our meals were, and wasn’t even the one to initiate closing our bill. Possibly the worst service I’ve ever had. I guess the moral of the story is you should listen to the advice your team leaders give you at orientation. While I’ve reviewed some duds in the past, every restaurant has had at least one redeeming quality—that is, until RongRong Tea House. Subpar food for average prices, terrible service, and a crappy atmosphere. The hat-trick of bad is a hard feat for a restaurant to pull off, but RongRong does a phenomenal job.