Restaurant Rage

Well rage is a bit over the top really!  But why do some places think they can get away with serving up food which is blatantly bad?

The best example I've come across was a few years ago in a local bar and grill type restaurant, not a particularly cheap place.  Meals there are usually on me and usually with my parents.  For two people that never normally go the whole hog when eating out when we are there and I'm paying we have the bread, dips and olives, followed by starters - usually the prawns or something similarly at the top end of the pricing scale, then mains - think lobster or steak, then more often or not pudding, coffee and liqueurs.  Nothing like someone else picking up the bill!  Don't get me wrong my parents are by no means freeloaders, they are incredibly generous people, it just amuses me that on these outings they go through the card.

On one trip both me and the mothership had ordered half a lobster.  Both halves came out with rather charred shells, shrunken overcooked tail meat and no claws at all as they'd apparently been burnt so they just took them off.  Really what we were served was quarter of a lobster and that was inedible.  Obviously these were sent back and two new ones brought out.  In fairness to the restaurant they took both meals off the bill.  So rather than burn one, throw it, start again and charge for the meal, they'd thought they could get away with it, cooked 4 meals and not taken money for any, rather than cook 4 and at least get paid for 2.

Last week I went out for dinner with some friends.  A place we have been may times before and the food is usually pretty good.  They have a selection of pizzas on the menu, lovely thin crispy, not overloaded, just a few good quality ingredients, have had them before and they've always been lovely.  Last week mine came out as the most anemic, soggy specimen I have seen for a long while.  It was that soggy that cutting from the centre out snagged and crumpled the base.  Obviously sent back.  After a while, as everyone else was almost finishing their meals, the waitress that had taken the offending pizza back walked out of the kitchen, caught sight of us and shot back into the kitchen, my pizza having clearly been forgotten.  Out it came.  I swear she had just bunged it in the microwave, it was a hotter more soggy version of the original.  I could see this was going nowhere.  Very politely I asked her to take it back and just take it off the bill, no thank you I don't want anything else, no thank you I don't want a salad, no really I'm fine just take it off the bill.

Obviously to do this she had to approach the manager, all of about 12 bless him, who scuttled over to the table to enquire exactly what the problem was.  Whilst trying to explain he was looking a bit black, unfortunately in trying to expand and give a more detailed explanation the only way I could think to describe it was "just rather flaccid really" wine was spat across the table by my companions, the poor boy went bright red and in his flustered state offered us all free deserts.

Then there is just appalling service.  A restaurant in China town at new year, okay it was after the theatre so it was late but this place was open till midnight.  There were 5 of us, one who is a very fussy eater and doesn't eat much anyway.  Dim sum platter was ordered for 4, fussy eater didn't want any.  Half a crispy duck was ordered, although who I presume to be the manager loitering in the back ground shouted for a whole one.  Then we ordered 3 mains and rice for 3, again she piped up that we needed 5.

Dim sums came and where shoved on the table, half way through the half crispy duck was dumped on the table, a plate picked up that had a spare rib bone, the bone hurled into the middle of the table and the plate put back down.  Then the main courses and rice crammed onto the table.  Then they had the nerve to put 12% service charge on the bill and question when we didn't pay the full amount.