My boyfriend and I decided to eat here Christmas night. I had called Jade Palace in Scottsdale (both locations) only to find the wait for a table was around an hour at either one. We arrived at Autumn Court around 5:45 pm. and were seated immediately. The atmosphere was very intimate, warm and cozy-- perfect for a cold December night.\r
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Our order included an appetizer, Paper Wrapped Chicken & Dinner Specials Kung Pao Chicken and Shrimp w/Lobster Sauce as our main entrees. We joked, we laughed, we waited. And waited. And waited... We were just about to leave at around 10 till seven when lo and behold, (slow restaurants must have some kind of irritated customer sensor) our 'appetizer' came. Paper Wrapped Chicken turned out to be 6 aluminum foil triangles with tiny pieces of chicken (I'm talking a normal size spoonful of one piece of chicken) wrapped in them, no vegetables, just chicken that apparently was marinated in some greasy, oily black-flecked substance which didn't taste like anything. One chicken blob I opened was completely burnt and black... My boyfriend started laughing at the situation-- the irony of waiting over an hour for an appetizer that was about as appetite-whetting as six peas on a plate. We started joking about how the chef and waitstaff must be into some kind of dinner-torture thing.\r
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We laughed, we joked, we waited... We ran out of stuff to talk about. I became so bored I began unintentionally listening to other people's conversations. I felt like I was drifting in and out of consciousness waiting for our food. Waiters scurried past quickly the entire time, not making eye contact; not offering a single apology about the wait. Then a little after 7:15 (!) --remember, we were seated and our order taken 1 1/2 hours ago-- our food finally came. Just the entrees. No soup or egg rolls like we had ordered . Both our dishes were lukewarm, very salty and not worth the wait at all. Won't be returning.
Pros: Ambience
Cons: Service (capital 'S' for Slow), food, everything else
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