Walked out!

Ok I guess the title says it all.  Elle and thought that we would give a noodle bar that is quite close to were we live a visit, just to try it out.  We had a friend who said that a his food was a little fat-logged - swimming in fat if you would prefer - and they made a mistake with his bill when it came to paying.  They gave him someone else's bill which was about twice as much as the food that they purchased would have cost.

We had an appointment with our landlord at 1 o'clock and wanted to get a meal in before we did, so we went into the noodle bar called *co-co's noodle bar* at about 11.45 am, we get in straight away and sit down.  We get an assistant wait upon us straight away and we order our food.  We order three starters, two main dishes and two drinks.  Our assistant asks if we "want it all at once or in stages?", we ask for it in stage.  So the assistant goes off and we get our drinks straight away, then about 5 minutes go by and we get our starters.  Spring rolls and Sesame prawn toast.  The spring rolls were good but they were swimming in oil, not as crispy as I would like, but the toast was good.

The waiting staff come back and take the empty dishes.  We sit talking for a while, the noodle bar begins to get busier as people start coming in for their lunch, Elle looks at her watch and says it's been a while now about 15 minutes.  Then a woman comes over with a plate of food, and leaves we both look at it, Elle says "that's not ramen" and I said "no, and this isn't chicken either".  So I call the waitress over and tell her it's not mine and that we are still waiting for ours.  She goes off to the kitchen and comes back out and gives the food to someone else.

*side note - This makes me wonder how many times I've gone to a restaurant and people have been given my food first and tried it and the waiting staff have just brought the same dish out to me in the end!  *

So we wait for another five minutes and we call a waiter over and tell him that we have been waiting for 25 minutes while all around us people who came in 15 minutes after us have been getting their food, and we would like to know where it is!  The waiter says "it will be ready in two minutes".  Now I know bull when I hear it, and this sounded like a line a mile wide.  Elle says to me when the waiter leaves "we'll give them 5 minutes and then we're leaving!"  She had looked at her watch again and we had to leave for the appointment within the next 10 minutes. 12.40 to be there in time.  

So we waited the two minutes, people still getting served around us.  We waited 5 minutes, still nothing, plates coming from the kitchens all the time, even the guy who we'd told about waiting so long was coming out with plates and giving them to customers.  Finally I said "ok, these two plates better be ours!"  We looked as this guy brought two plates across up to our table and stopped short at the people who had just come in 10 minutes earlier and gave them their food!

I took my coat and turned around on the bench and said to Elle "so are we going then?" she said "yes, I guess we are.  They don't want our money."  So we left and didn't pay a penny for it.

We went to the appointment and after which we went to Aroma (it's a really good chinese noodle bar close to where we had our appointment) the food was excellent and not at all greasy.  It's a really excellent place   and tasted that much better considering the other place we went.

Good for you!!!

Not to make light of it because I'd be B.S too but.......it reminds me an awful lot of a Seinfeld episode

Ok I guess the title says it all.  

*side note - This makes me wonder how many times I've gone to a restaurant and people have been given my food first and tried it and the waiting staff have just brought the same dish out to me in the end!  *

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as one who waitressed her way through college, I can assure you that it happens often and OF COURSE, they're too cheap and lazy to remake a dish. It just comes back, goes under heat lamps to get warmed up a bit and then, wham, out to the right customer. Might be different in posh restaurants, but after watching the Jamie Oliver shows on his new restaurant, I highly doubt it.....

Never happened where I worked.  If something is wrong with your food, it's generally "recycled" (i.e. we attempt to fiz the problem and give you the same food back) but wrong plates were left there...somebody got free extra food and you had to wait a bit longer.  We *never* did that unless it was clear the minute the person saw the plate it wasn't theirs and they didn't even hardly look at it, then we would give it to the right person.
So I guess you have like a 50/50 shot?

I worked at an Olive Garden btw.

Sounds like you had an inexcusably bad time. As someone who has close to 10 years experience of working in and running restaurants allow me to explain what was going on behind the scenes as your afternoon unfolded. This should also explain why I despise the catering industry.

You came in with approx. 1 hour to get in and get out. This is not an unrealistic turn around time for a table of two (known as a deuce or a two-top). If at any time you mentioned to your waiter that you were in a hurry, you've sealed your own fate. Here's why. A waiter with a bad attitude will mentally tell you to f**k off. If you have a waiter with a good attitude they will tell the chef you're in a hurry. The chef will then yell at them telling them to tell you to f**k off and go to Burger King. Can't win. Let's assume you didn't tell them you were in a hurry. Your food coming out late can be down to so many things. Inexperienced waiters (anyone working for less than two years) often get overwhelmed as it starts to get busy and forget to put orders through or put them through incorrectly. You might have had a perfectly fine waiter, but the items you ordered were particularly popular that day and the kitchen is playing catch-up with the prep work .It’s also very common for supplies to be delivered late and cause the same problem for the kitchen.

So some food is finally prepared, but someone has entered the order under the wrong table number and is brought to you. You tell them it's not yours. They are now freaking out. If they've put the wrong order in they may be asked to pay for it. If that's not the house policy they are still in major trouble as another table's food has gone to the wrong table. By law this must now be thrown out. The chef and the manager are going to be really pi**ed off as this effects their gross profit and they’ll get yelled at by the Operations Director or Owner. The chef screams at the waiter and asks if it's been touched. The trembling waiter says it hasn't regardless if it has. The chef will 'instruct' the waiter to bring it back out to the correct table and if they come back with it again he will personally chop their hands off.

By now you and your wife are getting understandably fed up. So much so you get up and go. The correct food finally gets delivered to your table where the waiter discovers you've done a "dine & dash". The manager now tells the waiter they're going to pay for the food. If this has happened to the waiter before they'll probably get fired. Why? Because if this sort of thing has happened before the Manager is probably under threat of being fired.

Should any of this matter to you who are waiting for the food you ordered? No - not really. The catering industry is an incredibly difficult one to work in. So much can go wrong by one small mistake and have such a tremendous knock on effect it is truly a miracle that anyone ever gets what they ordered. You may not be able to imagine why this might be or think it's only true of lower market restaurants, but trust me I've worked in some very exclusive places and it's the same everywhere.

Restaurants are my definition of hell. The stories I have would make your skin crawl and most of those are regarding customer behavior. Probably why I don't frequent them much.