Fancying something a bit different for dinner one night this week, we decided to order the Sushi Bento Box from Steam Boat in Nawala. We went to their website and found the list of Bento boxes OK, but, when I tried to look at the rest of their menu and order something else, all it would show me was salads. Although you can see all the menu categories on a drop-down menu, it won’t actually let you view anything, which is a total pain in the ass. In the end I called them and ordered a Chicken fried rice (which I had to check they had over the phone) and the Bento Box. They said ‘no problem, sir’ and that they’d call me back with the total cost of my bill. They never called. Eventually I called them again and asked them the cost (1,400Rs – about 950Rs for the Bento, 450Rs for the fried rice, plus another 120Rs for delivery) and was told my food was on the way.
The guy turned up on his bike with our food and pulled out a bill for 970Rs and a Bento Box, they’d only gone and forgotten the fried rice! When we called them and told them our food wasn’t there, the guy actually began laughing with his mate on the end of the phone. This didn’t go down too well. Eventually we got them to send our rice though we were told it would take over 20 minutes. It turned up fairly fast, but this time an old trishaw driver delivered it and not the guy on the bike. He was nice enough but didn’t have any change at all, so we had to scrape the money for the fried rice together from notes we had lying around the flat.
The food itself was a big hit and a fairly large miss. The Bento Box was the good part. It came with a few different types of nigiri, maki, and sashimi, some fruit, steamed rice, pickles, ginger, and wasabi. It all seemed fresh and was pretty tasty. The fried rice was really average though, in fact less than, and had next to no flavor. It wasn’t as good as fried rice I’ve had from other similar places (Moon River in Thimbirigasyaya for example) and was more expensive.
Though maybe ours was just bad luck, as these sort of things do happen with delivery services everywhere, I don’t think I’ll bother with Steam Boat again unless I’m craving for Sushi and can’t muster the motivation to leave the house (it’s unlikely, but this scenario could happen one day). If you do decide to give it a try though I hope your experience is smoother than ours was.
