Thursday, June 24, 2010

Living Social: $20 for $40 at Sticky Rice

Sticky Rice
Photo from Frozen Tropics Flickr pool user InspirationDC

Spend $20 on a voucher worth $40 in food and drink at Sticky Rice. Oh, and Sticky Rice is turning two!

11 comments:

jamie said...

Note that unlike their previous Living Social (or was it Groupon?) deal, this is for dine-in only.

s said...

I've completely had it with Sticky Rice. I went there last night (to redeem a previous Living Social coupon) and have been there many times before. In general, I like the sushi at Sticky Rice. It's different. I've learned to deal with their ridiculous wait times, ridiculously dressed staff and horrible service. I even forgave them that time the homeless guy climbed up the back steps and sat at the table next to me reeking of urine and B.O. for a full 30 minutes because no waitstaff came to the outdoor patio in that time span. I can deal with all their previous blunders. Last night, however, sent me over the edge.

I waited an hour for a table. Fine. I went to the Pug, had some beers. No ruffled feathers there. Finally sat down, ordered. Never received drinks or water refills. Fine. Whatever. I've been a waitress. Filling up cups is annoying, though I should point out, PART of the job. I can deal with that. Apps come, we eat. A FULL HOUR LATER, we are still waiting for the sushi. (So, if you're counting, I've now spent about 2 hours on this eating venture and have consumed some edamame) I happened to be sitting AT the sushi bar watching the sushi "chefs" roll sushi. The orders are pouring in (clearly everyone there was trying to use their Living Social coupons before they expired) and none of the hipster-sushi-rollers were the least bit frazzled. No one was attempting to work above a snails pace. When we finally got our food, it was gross. The rolls were falling apart. I'm pretty sure it wasn't what I ordered and there was a giant poop-like blob of sauce a sushi roll a la ketchup and mustard on top of a hot dog. Completely unappealing.

I'm off Sticky until I can forgive them for wasting almost three hours of my life so I could eat something disgusting that I didn't order. It's gonna be a while...

Mel said...

Re: S- Sadly, experiences like your seem to be more and more common. I used to love Sticky RIce, but I'm tired of the attitude, the wait times, and the messed up orders. They also got rid of their beer taps, which didn't improve things. It isn't the case any longer that we have no other restaurant choices on H St, so it is too bad they are actually going downhill instead of improving.

They're expanding their seating- does anyone know if they are also expanding kitchen capacity? If not, I can't see how that's at all a tenable situation.

Anonymous said...

Now that you mention it. I too had a bad experience a few weeks ago. Me and my partner were put on a wait-list for seating. We were told about a 10 - 15 minute wait. After about 45 minutes, a second hostess came by to seat us upstairs. She seated us at the empty Sushi bar!!! She didn't ask if we would mind sitting there. We didn't complain to her as we were starving by then and just wanted to eat. But she could have offered those seats 45 minutes earlier if that was her intention.

Now on a positive note...The sushi chef gave us a couple complimentary pieces of sushi to taste. So that did make up for the awful hostesses.

Anonymous said...

I'm probably buying this voucher even though my one experience was subpar as well. Ordered the tilapia sashimi (which probably already makes me the idiot but I don't eat sushi very often)-- anyway it was a small portion (could be normal, like I said no experience), but the plate it was on had a major chip and was absolutely covered in fingerprint smudges. Yikes.

ss said...

Hearing these types of complaints a lot. My experience was them refusing to do take-out on one day, then refusing to honor my last Living Social coupon for take-out despite the coupon specifically not limiting it to dine-in only. They told me they didn't want to encourage take-out and that their kitchen was already at capacity, so they didn't want to do any take-out.

For those parents of us who want to eat sushi without: a) paying big bucks for a babysitter; or b) inflicting our youngsters on the rest of you in the restaurant, not being allowed to do take-out is a pain.

That said, when I have several hours to spare and what sounds like oodles of patience, I'd like to try to eat there because some of the dishes sound intriguing.

Cap Conservative said...

We stopped going a year or so ago and can associate with all these experiences. Sounds like much hasn't changed.....too bad. Though people still go, good luck ordering.

Anonymous said...

shame so man are reporting such problems. are ya'll complaining to the managers and owners? i for one love this place and would like them to stay open. if that means they need to shape up, let them know!

Anonymous said...

also, they're one of the few places that require an actual print-out for the living social and groupons.

not just showing them the email on your phone ( which most places are fine with)

Anonymous said...

Unless they're not in the restaurant, how could the managers/owners NOT know what's going on?

Anonymous said...

you have to complain for them to know how customers feel.

i personally would like the host with the crazy bad BO to shower before clocking in. its a restaurant, not the gym.