The managers responses to other complaints are fabulous. He really goes for the jugular and says those things you wished you could say but don't.....
(C&P)
Dear Tripadvisor Readers,
We have all (unfortunately) encountered people like this. For whatever complex personal reasons, their default strategy in life is to belittle others and find fault, to act unacceptably and then dare the rest of the world to protest. These people are bullies and wife-beaters as spouses, backstabbers as colleagues, and professional complainers as hotel guests. They get their jollies by demeaning hotel staff and trying to intimidate them into waiving bills.
This reviewer's group was unable to find any fault in our rooms, our leisure facilities, or our ambience. Therefore they had to settle for libeling us about our food and mocking our willingness to enforce rules. Motives? They ordered a steak Medium-Rare, ate all of it (every last morsel), and then tried to intimidate our staff into cancelling the bill because they claimed the steak had been Medium. Prior to that occasion, several members of this party got drunk at our swim-up bar and had to be refused service. On yet another occasion one of them repeatedly heckled the singer at our nightclub, and had to be strongly cautioned to respect our employees.
Unlike most hotels, which follow the line of least resistance, we don't allow a few rude people to ruin the experience of our other guests. Abusive guests cost hotels money and managerial time, and harm staff morale. The cost of that is eventually spread out among the normal non-complaining customers. If you and other travelers allow a few bullies like this to influence your hotel choices, eventually you will pay the bill.
Allow me a word about our food. Our chefs are regularly sent to the US, Europe, and around Asia to hone their cooking skills. Our current Executive Chef is Filipino, but we have had French, German, and Danish chefs in the past. I am the Resident Shareholder at Plantation Bay and personally vet each item that is included in our menus. If you want to know why I am qualified to do this, please go to our website, www.plantationbay.com; you will find my Tourism-Related Resume under Contact Us>Management. Not every dish will please every guest, but most people find a number of dishes to get enthusiastic about (which is about the most you would expect of even your #1 personal favorite restaurant in the world).
As for the reviewer's accusation that we recommend steak Well-Done: Guilty as Charged (but on only one count; the reviewer deliberately presents an incomplete truth to mislead readers). Traditionally, many steak lovers claim to prefer Rare (US definition, Purple-Red) or even less-cooked, as in the French Saignant (Bloody, leaking like a sieve), or Bleu (Blue or full-on Purple, barely touched the grill). I don't agree with these preferences, and explain my reasons in our menu, which can be previewed our website: Dining>Restaurants>Palermo>View Full Menu, page 3. (We're so confident about our food, we're one of the few hotels in the world which publishes all our menus online.) Most of our steaks are recommended Medium-Rare (reddish) or Medium (bright pink), because in our experience these cooking levels bring out the full flavor of the respective meats. Of course you can order steak any done-ness you like. No one is holding a gun to your head. We in fact counsel against Well-Done except for our Japanese Kagoshima Sirloin. This super-marbled steak consists of almost 70% fat; if you order it Rare, you're just eating raw fat. Cook it our way, Well-Done and butterflied at that, and you will taste a steak unlike any other in the world, with the fat rendered crisp and succulent, rich with smoky, caramelized, and char-broiling flavors. No guest who ordered our Kagoshima steak Well-Done has ever sent it back. And it's a steal at less than $70 - you'd pay double to triple that almost anywhere else in the world.
Sincerely,
Manny Gonzalez
Resident Shareholder