CHOPSTICKS - Not So Strongly Worded Letter

AkanmuAbuja@gmail.com

Rating: 7.7/10

January, 2013

"Chopsticks" – Restaurant, Chinese

66, Mississippi Street

Minister’s Hill, Maitama, Abuja, Nigeria.

Please see the bottom of this letter in the Highlights/Review section, as well as the bold sentences for the brief version of this letter/review.

Letter to Chopsticks Management

Dear Chopsticks Management,

This is a not so strongly worded letter to express my opinions following my experience at your establishment. I should inform you that this letter is being made available to the public through the internet, primarily for the purpose of empowering or entertaining other consumers curious about your establishment.

The good news is that although Chopsticks isn’t as special as it was about a decade ago, the quality of food has, for all intents and purposes, not significantly diminished. (I know…talk about a backhanded compliment, but I’ll explain soon).

About a decade ago, Chopsticks was ‘THE Chinese restaurant’ in Abuja. This is not to say that Chinese food was not available in other places, but that Chopsticks used its authenticity, fine dining (at least compared to other restaurants in town then), and overall unique experience to surpass all others. Now, Chopsticks is still a nice restaurant that still feels like fairly fine dining (once again, compared to the average restaurant in town), while the quality of food here has only very slightly reduced (or perhaps that’s because I am now an MSG-paranoid adult and was an easily excited kid back then).

To clarify though, your menu is good because it has the variety one would expect of a Chinese restaurant. Most of the dishes are quite yummy although not mind-blowing. The service at your restaurant is good and the waiters are usually very helpful. This is especially noted in how almost every evening one eats at Chopsticks, there is at least one customer being surprised for a birthday or achievement, which are each usually followed by dimmed lights, loud birthday/congratulations music, and jolly waiters holding a sparkling candle.

Furthermore, your restaurant is well set-up, being significantly more understated than I remember (once again, maybe I was just an excited kid back then). Does the interior seem a bit dull to me now? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Not at all. Everything seems to be very clean, with white table cloths and white cloth napkins. There are various sizes of tables to accommodate groups as large as 2-12 and maybe even more.

I like that your food is served family style, where each main dish (such as black bean beef) is served in a large quantity and various types of rice or noodles can be ordered separately. Best of all about this is that each order can feed about three (non-greedy) people. This means I also commend you for doing a good job by having take-away boxes readily available. Although on the slightly higher side of things, I believe the pricing here is reasonable because a customer can literally leave this restaurant feeling like their overall experience was worth the price. Moreover, the amount of time it takes the appetizers and main dishes to arrive is reasonable too. The appetizers themselves are only a little above average but fulfill their purpose.

All in all, I think the best thing about Chopsticks is that your restaurant does not mess anything up. (Yet another back-handed complement, I know…but it’s true). By maintaining a fairly consistent dining experience worth its fairly high price, you are doing a fairly good job and are worth being a place for people to seek fairly fine dining. In fact (and here comes the first true compliment), you are indeed worth people going to for their birthday or accomplishment celebration dinner. As proof, a lot of Abuja Residents’ stories include the phrase “that time we were at Chopsticks to celebrate……”  I wouldn’t know what more to ask from you.

Please feel free to contact AkanmuAbuja@gmail.com if you represent Chopsticks and would like to respond.

Warm Regards

Akanmu

Highlights/Review

1.     This is a positive (and thus, not so strongly) worded letter, primarily because the overall experience here is worth it.

2.     It is on the higher end of things as far as pricing goes.

3.     Parking is readily available on site.

4.     Groups of 2-12 can dine here.

5.     There isn’t anything too special about this restaurant that one wouldn’t expect given its price and that Chinese food isn’t rocket science. That being said, it is still worth patronizing.