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WARNING: this is a long rant piece about why the service pissed me off so much that I won't return to a restaurant with good food. If you have no interest in my rant, skip ahead to where the pictures start showing up and I actually talk about the food. For the few of you who already have your bowls of popcorn or bags of peanuts ready... read on!
*BEGIN RANT*
It's been a while since we caught up with Winnie the Chew, and I was pretty happy we could figure out a date that worked for everyone. To my great surprise (NOT!) she requested that I take her to
Neighborhood... but as I was already scheduled to dine there 3 nights ago, I turned down the request and looked for an alternative. When Hello Kitty suggested that we try out
Tate Dining Room and Bar at their new location, I thought it was a great idea. Vicky Lau has been getting some love in the press lately about her move to the brand-spanking-new digs, most notably from
Hong Kong Tatler. Both of my meals at the previous location were reasonably enjoyable, and after reading such a flattering piece in
Tatler, along with Da Jam's restaurant review, there was no reason not to check out Vicky's new
"All the Odes" menu...
It had been raining heavily only hours before dinner, so I carried my umbrella to the restaurant. I was surprised that there wasn't a place for me to park the umbrella, so I took it to our table and hung it from the side. No one bothered to take notice, and it wasn't until I nudged it and the umbrella hit the floor with a loud "whack!" that someone came over and checked it for me. Small matter, but many establishments would have taken care of it upon arrival.
We brought our own wines as usual, and I carried both a Champagne as well as a red Burg. I asked the Bespectacled Waiter - whom I recognized from my previous visit a year ago - to chill the bubbly. While I made clear to him that we would also open the red Burg, I told him I needed to think a little when he asked me whether I also wanted the second bottle opened at the same time. He politely walked off, but left the bottle of red Burg sitting in the middle of the table. This bottle would remain in the middle of our table for the next hour or so - without anyone coming to ask if they could help put it somewhere out of our way. Nobody on staff thought it was strange to have an unopened bottle of wine sitting in the middle of the table during dinner - for a whole hour. I finally asked the Bespectacled Waiter to chill it before having it opened. Strike one.
Alas, that doesn't surprise me. I remember the Bespectacled Waiter precisely because of the way I watched him serve wine to another table on my last visit... and was thankful that I didn't BYO that time. And also because I just found difficulty in terms of communications with him. Not that we don't speak the same language, but maybe we are just on totally different wavelengths...
For some reason, one of our waiter took away the Champagne glasses from two of us while was still plenty of bubbly left in the bottle. When it was discovered that we hadn't finished the bottle, new glasses were brought out for those who longer had them. How did this happen? Did someone decide on our behalf that we didn't need to finish our bottle, or someone made a decision that two of us shouldn't have any more Champagne? Strike two.
I know I can be a pain in the ass when it comes to wine service, and I normally don't want my glass topped up with a fresh pour until I have completely finished the wine in my glass. This is because I want to taste how the wine develops over time, and I don't want to mix the old and new pours. So I don't mind when I find my wine glass empty.
However, not everyone is like me, and Hello Kitty was feeling fairly thirsty tonight... so she asked a waitress to pour her some wine when her glass became empty. Well... said waitress kinda just ignored her and walked away to do something else unrelated to our table, and her glass remained empty. Hello Kitty was none too pleased about having to make a second request to get some wine in her glass. Strike three.
Hello Kitty is a lefty, so she is used to moving the silverware from her right side - where waitstaff usually sets them down - to her left side. Normally the smart waitstaff at restaurants would notice this after a couple of times, and begin to set the silverware down on her left. When you are setting down silverware
for the seventh course and you are still putting it down on the wrong side - YOU ARE CLEARLY FAILING AT YOUR JOB. What made it even worse? After Hello Kitty moved the silverware from her right to her left, one waitress came and MOVED THEM BACK TO HER RIGHT! WHAT KIND OF BRAINDEAD PERSON DO YOU HAVE TO BE?? Strike four.
Good waitstaff needs to do more than just set down plates/silverware and recite the names of the dishes. He or she should also be observant of the customers and - in rare cases where the staff is exceptionally good - anticipate the needs of the customers. NO ONE was doing that here tonight. Not even close.
While I am commonly referred to as the Arrogant Prick by my friends and well-known to be very, very picky when it comes to service (I once inadvertently caught a glance of
Amber's warning note to their front-of-house staff about me...), Hello Kitty is generally very easy-going. When you fail so badly that you bring out
THE Hello Kitty - kinda like
that time when Good Chucky made a rare appearance - then a good skewering is gonna come your way. Hence this portion of this post.
Oh, one final thing. I know not everyone is able to deliver the flawless pronunciation of every single term which originated in a foreign language - myself included - but I still think that restaurants need to train their staff to try and do better. Waiters who tell their diners about the SE-VEESH on the plate will get the same reaction from me as shop assistants who welcome me to their VER-SAYS or CHANNEL store. I'll let a lot of this stuff slide when I'm at my local Spaghetti House paying 1/10th of the price because I don't have any expectations. When you're charging USD 200 for a seat in your fine dining restaurant - part of which goes to pay for the fancy decor and the custom-designed fancy uniforms for your waitstaff - I expect you to do better. A LOT better.
Contrary to popular belief, I don't enjoy skewering restaurants. OK, maybe just a wee little bit, but it's far from my
raison d'être. Skewering is the inevitable result of an experience so poor that it elicits a reaction in response, and when I'm paying my own money to dine out, the last thing I would want is a poor meal - money down the drain and/or wasted calories consumed.
In case it isn't clear: I want Tate Dining Room and Bar - and Vicky Lau in particular - to do well. Just last week I had written another rant piece about
the hate that certain people have for the "Best Female Chef Awards" given out over the last few years, in which I defended the need for such awards. Vicky is a previous recipient of that award, and I would love nothing more than seeing her succeed and inspire others. I think we need to see more diversity in the hospitality industry - especially in the kitchen. But at the same time, it doesn't mean I'm gonna cut her and her restaurant any slack when they fall short of my expectations.
I've said many times before that poor service is one of the reasons why I don't return to restaurants - regardless of how good the food is. And as a normally generous tipper, it takes a lot for me to put a big fat zero in the "tip" row on the credit card slip. Which was what I put down tonight.
*END RANT*
Vicky Lau's new "All the Odes" menu comes in eight parts, with an additional ode at the end of the meal. The menu is presented in a book-shaped box, along with the wine list. There is no longer a choice between a shorter and a longer menu - so a more economical option has been removed. There is now only a choice between the "regular" menu and a vegetarian (and slightly cheaper) option.
