I suppose that the lack of other customers should have been an indication that I should avoid the restaurant entirely, but considering that it was a slow Sunday, I though I would give it the benefit of the doubt. We had a fairly bland TomYum soup to start, with, Lamb potstickers ( which were extremely poorly flavoured and tasted more like sweet bolognese mince inside), as well as some other prawn dim sum. All in all I felt that the restaurant was very expensive for the quality of food, which was bland and uninteresting and poorly executed on a technical level. After calling a waitress from her 'mobile phone time' behind the bar, we left to finish our meal at willoughby's, (which was amazing by the way)

Every year I would make sure I visited Haiku in Capetown, my visit today to Haiku in the Waterfront was true to ALL the bad comments I heard from friends.Nobody in waterfront knew Haiku,the info boards dont even give the shop no,eventually we asked for bhukara We waited For 17 minutes while the hostess was in the bathroom. My virgin pina colada was made with a syrup with a bitter,artificial aftertaste, the duck was dry,the pancakes undercooked and the hoisan sauce was atrocious, powdery and thick with an awful taste. My partner had sushi, he said it was OK I was so afraid to order their chocolate spring rolls that I left without ordering desserts.. It seems that the manager was not interested in our complaints. Perhaps they are just waiting for suckers to rip off with BAD FOOD and EXTREMELY HIGH PRICES. What a pity Haiku couldn't keep up their standards.

We have eaten at Haiku at the V&A a number of times. The food has been consistently good but the service has been consistently poor. Our experiences have ranged from pushy service(clearly aimed at increasing the bill), to disinterest to utter cluelessness. Clearly there is something wrong with the way that staff are trained.

We have been regulars at Haiku in the city centre, but noticed a decline in service and in portion size. When we noticed the new venue in the Waterfront we were intrigued. After last night it makes sense. When your service is terrible, you do not mind exposing once-off clients to it, and will not be able to rely on regular clients. After all, you can upset a tourist, s/he will probably be upset but move on, wheras a Capetownian will not only be upset, s/he will tell everyone s/he knows. So, a shrewd business move on the part of Haiku's owners. And there must be some truth to my theory since a third of the reviews on an international travel blog rates the 'new' Haiku average and below.
We ordered starters, and stressed that we wanted our mains to arrive at the same time (having ordered the same at the previous venue and had to watch each other eat). The starters arrived and was as good as we recalled Haiku in the early days. When one main arrived we asked where the other (orange duck) was. After some time Dean, our waiter, relayed some story about the chef not being happy with the dish, and would I want to order something else. I asked to speak to the manager, expressed my dissatisfaction and told them I will now watch my partner eat her mains. Another pseudo-apologetic manager also arrived and wanted to make amends to a spoiled meal. My partner finished her meal when a dish (no idea what it was, certainly not orange duck) arrived for me which I declined. The manager then wanted to tell me that I will get this (?) dish as a take-away. Again, I declined, paid our bill ( for the first time ever tipping zero - quite simple, my expectation of service not met, waiter's expectation of tip was not met) and left.

A fine venue for a tourist in the mood to be ripped off, but definately not a venue for Capetownians.

An email to the owner remained unanswered, but as speculated above, they do not wish to keep regulars happy, this might all be about ripping off once-off-touristy-could-not-care-less patrons.