Sunday, November 12, 2017

Tale of two restaurants

Nathan and I went for dinner with some friends last night. The restaurant is always busy and last night was no exception. We ordered our meal. They stuffed up one of the orders, which was not a big deal. However, it did mean that one of our friends had to wait a bit longer for her meal to arrive. Still, we felt a lot of pressure to eat quickly, as the waiters kept coming over to try to take away our bowls and plates before we had finished. In fact, Nathan went to the bathroom and when he returned, his plate (which still had food on it) had been taken away without the rest of us even noticing. In the end, the friend whose meal arrived late still had to skol her beer because the waiter wanted to clear our table in preparation for the next customers. By the time we had walked out the restaurant, there was already other customers at our newly vacated table. It was conveyor belt service.

Contrast last night's experience with the lunch I just had with a friend at another restaurant. The kitchen also stuffed up the order. Again, it wasn't a big deal and we waited for my friend's meal to arrive without any complaint. Still, when the bill came, we were taken by surprise when the waitress said they had deducted the cost of both of our drinks due to the 'inconvenience'. It was unexpected and unnecessary but we appreciated the sentiment. We left what would have been the cost of the drinks as a tip.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It can be very difficult to slow down your food coming out in Asian restaurants and you get tired of trying and 'being difficult' about your food.

Victor said...

I wonder whether the first restaurant might get the message with some negative reviews on Trip Advisor or maybe they simply don't care?

Ben said...

I absolutely hate when restaurants do that. I haven't had many problems in Australia, but I've been to places who were like "You're going to finish in 30 minutes, right?" The service was really quick though, but the whole being rushed to eat thing isn't nice. In the USA, I remember going to a Mexican restaurant close to my hometown (which was not very busy), and they were trying to take the plates away while I was eating! I'm not exaggerating!

Oh, another pet peeve of mine is when you go eat something, and the server watches you the whole time and comes to take stuff away a second after you finish. I really hate being watched while eating like that.

Adaptive Radiation said...

Andrew: Very typical of some Asian restaurants. Generally I don't mind but this one took it a bit too far.
Victor: Their food is so amazing I don't think a bad review would do much.
Ben: I think American restaurant service tend to be better because waiters are keen on impressing customers for tips but I did get rushed through a meal at a very popular dumpling restaurant in New York. Once again, the food was so amazing, people didn't seem to mind the bad service.