Hyatt Erawan, Bangkok (revisited May 2011)

I’ve always thought that the lunch and dinner buffets at the Grand Hyatt Erawan, Bangkok  are fantastic.  I’ve been recommending them to all my friends. You can read my previous review if you like.  I even recommended The Dining Room on A Luxury Travel Blog.

And now for the bad news. We went back for their dinner buffet last night and were horribly disappointed by the experience.

The food, as always, was great – wonderful Parma ham, delicious Manchego cheese, lovely salads, loads of choices for sashimi, seafood, foie gras,  mains and desserts. The food is truly wonderful.

The staff, who recognised us and welcomed us as though we were old friends, also were superb and we certainly have no complaints about them.

So what was the problem?

Kids. That’s what. There were about half a dozen small children running about totally unsupervised. They were eating from the display of food. They were running past, barging into other customers, snatching buns from the bread counter, and generally making it an uncomfortable place to be. I lost my appetite. It’s not easy to choose and eat food in such an atmosphere. It got to the stage where I had to complain.

I said to a very friendly chef on the meat station that I needed to speak to the duty manager. His behaviour was impeccable. The duty manager was immediately fetched. She came within minutes and we spoke about the problem. It was all done very amicably and I have no problem at all with the initial response to my complaint from Ornvaree Dandumrongsok, Assistant Manager – Front Office. She was very pleasant.

However, the problem still remains that what might have been a wonderful evening was totally spoiled by the mayhem of unsupervised children running around and making a nuisance of themselves.

I’m not suggesting that children should be banned from buffets. But they should be supervised. The parents were at fault for not keeping them under control, and perhaps the staff were remiss for not asking the parents to stop their children from making things unpleasant for other customers.

I only had one course and couldn’t face going back for more food because of all these children running around.  What a shame – wonderful food, great service, and a lousy evening because the place felt like a school playground.  Until the staff take action to prevent this from happening, I’ll think twice before recommending this place again.