Rolld Vietnamese, Gateway Sydney, Circular Quay (5 Sept 2016)

Ground floor, Gateway Sydney
Alfred Street, Circular Quay, Sydney NSW 2000
http://rolld.com.au

Long time no pho

Now before I get to the pho here's the ordering experience. After ordering with the friendly staff it's never a good sign to see lots of frustrated customers asking about their orders including wanting to speak to the person in charge. Rolld simply got slammed and couldn't keep up with the demand which resulted in long delays and angry customers. One would want to give them a bit slack having just opened 5 days ago in the new Gateway Sydney but with 8 stores already in NSW and 36 others in Australia I would expect these guys should be a well oiled machine in setup and operation. Achieving a fast and efficient service for busy people with limited time for a lunch break is key in this dining precinct. I waited patiently for 30 mins and simply had to ask at that point like many other customers what was happening to my order. The system failed big time and would have left a bad taste in many of the customers. The system was chaos and left you feeling like that buzzer in your hand would never go off to collect your meal. With obvious delays it would have been beneficial to tell the people how long the wait would be so they could decide whether it was worth ordering and waiting. The staff were apologetic and tried to handle it as best they could with some degree of urgency when prompted.

Now back to the pho. Mixed chicken and beef pho ($5 opening 2 week special with promo flyer) was actually quite nice — and hopefully being very hungry at this point in time hadn't swayed my judgement and tastebuds too dramatically. Decent amount of flavour in the broth. Some chilli added but wasn't particularly hot so they must be using quite a mild chilli. Thinly sliced rare beef and lean shredded chicken hidden underneath. No sign of Thai basil or a side of lemon to squeeze in for extra flavour. It was also provided as takeaway but I ordered it as dine in which would have been clear if they'd read my order along. When I saw someone complaining about their order I thought it was an isolated case of an order going missing. Unfortunately it was pretty much everyones order when I visited. Hopefully they'll pick up their game soon and we won't be hearing the kitchen say "10 minutes on rice! What?!".