Le Gourmet Hot & Spicy

We had made a reservation, but it was hardly necessary, as the restaurant was hardly full. Half the top floor had been sectioned off and the entire lower level was completely closed. Staff numbers looked more than adequate as one casually shined glasses and another lingered by the doorway to the kitchen. The remaining staff appeared to efficiently wander aimlessly when not delivering orders, ignoring the elephant in the room that was our party. They had obviously been aware of our presence as the four of us stood in the doorway, but failed to properly acknowledge us until a telephone continued to ring in our vicinity. This prompted an indecisive young woman to attend the telephone, only to stop short of actually doing so and show us to a table instead. The ringing eventually subsided unanswered.

The creative director for Hot & Spicy did a terrific job, if the goal was mimicking the Night at the Roxbury set in vivid detail. Cloth in various shades of purple adorn tables and everything else, with dark wood making up the solid textiles. Early 90’s RnB hung in the air to complete the ambiance. An industrial-sized fan was situated by the bar, pointed in my general direction, but completely failing in improving upon the lack of adequate air conditioning.

After descending a spiral staircase to the highlight of the visit, washrooms divided into four compartments housing a urinal or toilet and their own respective sink, I return to our table to order our meal. The concept of Hot & Spicy is an a volonte a la carte buffet. That means that 88 menu options await unlimited orders, all for a fixed price, regardless of your appetite. In retrospect, for one or two this potentially holds great value, but for our group of four… not so much. The benefit of choosing unlimited food options decreases as the total price for the table increases. To make matters worse, our portions would enlarge to accommodate our number, regardless of whether more than one was particularly interested in that selection.

We peruse the menu and decide upon two selections each and an addition of spring rolls. Writing this on a paper napkin we happened to have with us, we then continued our planning, selecting two more options each for a second course, if prompted later. When our waiter arrived we ordered our nine items and requested water and soft drinks, parched from the scorching sun.

It was not long before our meal arrived.

Our first and only course consisted of a trio of heavily-battered and deep-fried meats; sesame beef, orange beef and what was supposed to be chicken with crispy spinach but instead was served as “chicken Shangri-la”. The only noticeable difference between any of these offerings was that the orange beef lacked sesame seeds and the chicken was not brown. The sauces that adorned were so sickeningly sweet they stuck to the plates like caramel and sat in my stomach as if I’d just eaten a gallon of fruit loops and cola. Hunan dumplings; boiled chunks of dough in sweetened peanut butter, sprinkled liberally with sesame seeds. Shanghai noodles; boiled egg noodles fried and doused heavily in oil without any vegetables or garnish. A piece of duck rolled in a rice pancake that paled in comparison, both in size and flavor, to the soft cucumber apparently cooked in hoisin that came with it. An eggplant with chilies dish that tasted as though it’d be microwaved; a completely unpalatable plate of mushy zucchini and eggplant doused in a cornstarch-thickened sauce. Finally, a sambal seafood dish, with tiny scallops that squeaked between my teeth, large and chewy rings of calamari, over cooked tail-on shrimp and imitation crab.

Imitation crab. Less than a half dozen tiny slivers of crab meat were offered in this entire plate and they were crab-flavored pollack sticks. The strand of duck that graced my Mandarin pancake could have mistakenly been a hair. The meat concealed within the deep-fried starch balls and smothered in corn syrup could have been chiseled from the frozen carcass of mystery meat. We finished our first course unable to order a second, neither hungry nor satisfied with our previous choices.

The bill arrives as I feel as though taffy runs through my veins. At $30 a head plus an additional $10 for non-included soft drinks, our bill is roughly $150 for an offering worse than most mall food courts. In a city that features an encyclopedia of world cuisine and hundreds, if not thousands, of fantastic restaurants, of these, most, if not at all, are locations where a reasonable meal can be had for $40 with the inclusion of liquor, we ended up selecting a place with all the quality of a fast food take out counter and the price of a high class tasting menu. If an ideal meal for you is to be filled more with spite than adequate sustenance, clearly no better restaurant could meet these demands. I am deeply embarrassed to have brought company to this restaurant, and frankly completely infuriated to have spent so much money on something so worthless.