The Pirates is a new restaurant around my neighborhood. It looks very decent and well-decorated from outside that outshines the others. I had thought of giving it a try some time ago so I decided to have my lunch there.
Most of the food in the restaurant are of Italian style and they are not cheap, as in comparing with the typical food price here. After skimming through the menu, I ordered a set of Italian pasta called Aglio Olio.
It took a rather long time to get the food served. Just when I was about to eat, I realized something was wrong with the pasta. It looked a little too plain, something was missing. Oh yes, there was no broccoli on the pasta. I remembered I read about it in the menu. Feeling unsatisfied, I called the waiter and asked him where had the broccoli gone. He was rather surprised that he thought he had served up the wrong order. He took a menu to me and verified. I pointed the description of the pasta to him, which stated that the food was to be served with broccoli. He apologized to me and took the pasta back to the kitchen.
After a while, the food arrived. I saw no broccoli but only cauliflower. I looked at the waiter and said: “This is not broccoli. This is cauliflower and it’s different.” The waiter apologized and told me, ” I’m sorry, Miss. We only have this. Hope you don’t mind.” Lucky him that I was in a good mood and was pretty hungry then. I just let it be and didn’t push ahead.
Later, the waiter approached me with a serving of chocolate dessert and told me it was offered for free by the restaurant as an apology. Not bad. At least some degrees of sincerity was shown. I accepted.
While paying the bill, I said to the waiter, “Just an advice for you. Broccoli and cauliflower are two different things. They are of different values in term of price and nutrition. If you continue to serve your customers like replacing the broccoli with cauliflower, you’ll get into troubles very soon. Cauliflower is much cheaper than broccoli. I know that.” He apologized to me again and told me their broccoli was currently “out of stock”. What a lame pretext but I didn’t bother to argue with him.
That’s it. This will be the last time I pay patronage to this restaurant. The chef of this restaurant has no etiquette at all. First, he was trying to fool me by quietly serving the broccoli-less pasta, thinking that me as a first-time customer wouldn’t have realized it. Unfortunately, I did. Second, he was trying to fool me again by replacing the broccoli with cauliflower, thinking that I must be an idiot for not being able to differentiate between these two vegetables. Unfortunately, I did it again. I don’t know if I’m the first victim, but I suppose they will do the same thing to others during their “broccoli-short” period. Yet, I don’t think the others, especially youngsters will respond the same as me. Probably they won’t even realize it.
Anyway, I know someone who will definitely bang the table, give them a hell then cancel the order and leave. >.< I think I shall learn from him and scold like him next time, but it’s not easy at all. It’s not just barking like those typical obnoxious boors do, without brain.
