After a couple of years of being regulars at The French Loaf, a not-so-pleasant experience this time.  It was my Dad’s Birthday, a totally homely affair, and hence apparently no big damage.  It could have been worse if it was a Birthday Party with guests and so on.

We were just four adults and two kids in all, so didn’t want a really big cake.  Stepped into the Madipakkam outlet and ordered for a 500g Strawberry Fantasy cake.  Looked wonderful, and just right !  Packed it.  Went home, a totally informal setting, dad cut the Birthday cake and we made it into pieces and started to eat.  A couple of bites and it was very clear that the cake was NOT OK.  It was definitely ‘on its way’ to the waste-bin.  An unwanted moisture read as ‘wetness’ in the cake, and it was a clear indication that the cake was not fresh.  When cakes get spoilt, there is this strange nail-polish remover smell, don’t know from where. 🙂

A small 500g cake, already cut into 6 small pieces and each one of us took a bite or two, to come to a consensus of how spoilt it was.  So we were left with about 30% of the cake.  I wanted to give it a shot and packed that and went to the store.  Strangely, It was not as bad as what I expected, as a customer in India.

The manager/in-charge at the store agreed that the cake was indeed well-past an eatable stage, however he still maintained that the cake was delivered on that day.  As I have seen earlier, the cakes are delivered to the outlets at around 10:00 or 11:00AM.  I went to the outlet roughly around the same time.  If it was fresh and just arrived, there was no way that it could have been so bad.  Anyway, he profoundly apologized and offered to replace the cake with an Irish Fantasy that was available.  The consolation was that I got my money’s worth.  This was DEFINITELY a fresh cake, absolutely delicious, and how a cake is supposed to be from The French Loaf!  So we had another round of cake cutting at home 🙂

Since it was a completely homely affair, we didn’t mind it so much.  Had it been a bigger cake, a lot of guests and a ‘proper’ birthday party, we would have been screwed !  Had the manager been a little more proactive in taking a call if the cake should be disposed or not, it would not have resulted in this not-so-pleasant experience.  It is worth mentioning that I have never had any such experience from the Taramani Road (Velachery) Outlet.

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