It was another one of those days when we were feeling lazy. Too lazy to cook, too lazy to go out to buy food. Since I had a Groupon voucher for UberEATS lying around - $2.99 for $20 for first orders - we decided to use it to order in.
Readers of this blog would probably know that my family and I are huge fans of Indonesian food. So when we saw an Ayam Penyet President listed on UberEATS, mom and I decided to give it a go.
All I wanted was tahu telor and a little bit of meat, so we ordered a carb dish for mom (Ketoprak), and tahu telor and grilled chicken (Ayam Bakar) to be shared. The ordering process was easy and intuitive; the UberEATS app already had my credit card information from Uber. From the app I could see when the food had been picked up by delivery, the location of the delivery driver, and the estimated time the food would be delivered.
UberEATS must have calculated the estimated time strictly according to the location of the delivery driver. At first it showed at first that my order had been collected and would arrive at about 5.10pm. But possibly because the location of the delivery driver had not moved, I could see the estimated time slowly increasing to around 5.20pm.
Nonetheless, the food arrived at least 10 minutes earlier than the original estimated delivery time, and I was glad because looking at all the pictures of food on online menus had made me hungry!
So the three dishes arrived in three separate paper cartons, stacked and held together by a clear plastic bag. I had asked for extra chilli but am not sure if any was actually given in addition to the sauces provided with every order.
Hungry me attacked the Tahu Telor fast..... and hungry became angry. The Tahu Telor is described in the menu as "Indonesian style bean curd omelette garnished with bean sprout, sliced carrot, and sliced cucumber served with rich peanut." Welp... first of all there were no beansprouts. Second, the picture on UberEATS showed the gravy as containing chunks of peanut. However the gravy provided was some greyish liquidy thing with perhaps a tablespoon of peanut powder, and no peanut chunks. Suspect much?
But what it was that made me angry was that the tahu telor was cold, as if it had been taken from the fridge, it was not crispy, and parts of it were sour and had turned bad! You might be able to see the strange medley of colours of the tahu in
the picture below. The bits that are creamy yellow were sour. Mom tasted the tahu telor and confirmed it had gone rancid.
The Ayam Bakar is described as "signature grilled tender chicken with a hint of sweetness served with grilled tofu, tempeh, and cut chilli in black sauce". The picture on UberEats' website shows a piece of chicken leg with a wedge of tomato, a slice of cucumber, a cabbage leaf, some green beans, and a block of tempeh. You can compare this description with the picture above - we got at room temperature half a chicken breast with the wing, sad looking pieces of cabbage, cucumber and tomato, a ball of tempeh, and no green beans. There was a chunk of "grilled tofu" that was grilled so much it was burnt on one side, and had a tinge of sourness. The chicken tasted meh.
The last dish, the Ketoprak, is described as "beehoon, rice cake and bean sprouts served with freshly ground richly spiced peanut sauce and crackers". Beehoon, rice cake and bean sprouts - check. At least they put the crackers in a separate plastic bag. Mom said it tasted so-so, but after eating the dish she felt nauseous and needed something sweet.
So, what to do about the awful food especially the rancid tahu telor? The UberEATS app lets you make complaints about various things like items that are missing from your order, or the quality of the food you received. I did just that. (Which is why there aren't many pictures of food in this post - one hand was typing out the complaint, and the other used to feed my mouth a substitute of cucumber from the fridge and the toppings off a frozen-microwaved Dr Oetker's pizza.)
When you click the selection you do not get to type out the issue; you have to wait for someone from UberEATS to start a chat with you (which they did about 10 minutes after I clicked the button). However it took UberEATS more than 1 hour after I typed out the complaint to provide a response. They apologised in somewhat broken English and said they would "rufund the item and return the $4 promo code that used in this order [sic]", and "added $10 UberEATS promo code that will apply automatically on your future order within Singapore".
I appreciated the gesture, except that I did not understand what "$4 promo code" meant since I used a $2.99 Groupon voucher for $20's value. When I enquired about it, UberEATS responded, spelling my name very wrongly and saying that they had "processed the refund of the Tahu Telor worth $6.96. For me to cover the amount, I've refunded the remaining amount on your bill worth $3.13 and returned $4 promo code to cover the price of Tahu Telor."
Because I still did not understand what UberEATS was trying to say (and it was getting frustrating), I decided not to respond but to wait a few days and see what the checkout cart would report then. Updates later!
Meanwhile, what can I say about Ayam Penyet President but 0/5, thank goodness I did not order the grilled fish I had wanted to order, and stay away!
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EDIT (28 Dec 2016)
After some further back and forth with UberEATS today, what they meant was finally clarified:
- $3.13 was refunded to my credit card
- The $4 "promo code" is a discount that will automatically apply to the next order
- The $10 "promo code" is a discount that will automatically apply to the order after usage of the $4 promo code. They cannot be applied together.
I wonder whether UberEATS spoke with Ayam Penyet President about their spoiled tahu telor, and I appreciate the $4 and $10 discounts, but it is troublesome and irritating that the discounts cannot be used in the same order. It has been frustrating enough that I may just forgo the discounts and order from foodpanda or Deliveroo next time.
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EDIT (28 Dec 2016)
After some further back and forth with UberEATS today, what they meant was finally clarified:
- $3.13 was refunded to my credit card
- The $4 "promo code" is a discount that will automatically apply to the next order
- The $10 "promo code" is a discount that will automatically apply to the order after usage of the $4 promo code. They cannot be applied together.
I wonder whether UberEATS spoke with Ayam Penyet President about their spoiled tahu telor, and I appreciate the $4 and $10 discounts, but it is troublesome and irritating that the discounts cannot be used in the same order. It has been frustrating enough that I may just forgo the discounts and order from foodpanda or Deliveroo next time.
