Since coming to Shanghai, I have experienced THE worst restaurant service EVER. Service that is so terrible sometimes it makes me laugh. Restaurants here NEVER bring out everyone's food out at the same time. NEVER. So what ends up happening when I eat out with my coworkers is that usually one person will have to wait for his noodles/dumplings/fried rice while helplessly watching everyone else munch on his food. It would be understandable if there's a large group of people who are sharing all the dishes family style, but I'm talking about 3 people each getting a bowl of noodles!!
Many waiters/waitresses barely acknowledge our presence when we place our order. Sometimes, we have to keep repeating our orders just to make sure that they actually wrote everything down. Granted, these servers mostly come from poor rural areas and probably have no more than a high school education, unlike all these Ivy-educated aspiring actresses, thespians, writers, models that seem to grow on trees in New York. But for the love of God and all that is holy, sometimes I wonder if these people will ever be able to handle anything more challenging than the most menial jobs.
Pete and I have banned at least five restaurants now because of terrible/slow service. Here are a few gems:
1.) Went to a gigantic Sichuan restaurant with a coworker and ended up waiting for **15** minutes for them to refill one lousy bowl of rice.
2.) Used to go to this noodle shop right across the street from the office because it's fast (in and out in 30 minutes), cheap ($1 for a big bowl of noodles) and the food is pretty good. Lately it's taken longer and longer because it's becoming more and more popular and the 12-year-old bus boy who's recently promoted to waiter is not very good at keeping track of which table placed which orders first. On Monday when I went with 3 coworkers for lunch, three of us waited for a good 20 minutes before our food finally came. While we were eating our noodles, the fourth guy, who's normally very laidback, went downstairs to yell at the kitchen staff. I couldn't help but laugh when I heard him yelling, "Thirty minutes!! I've been waiting for thirty minutes for my food!! Where is it??" Then he came back upstairs and watched us finish our food because his cold noodles still weren't ready! Needless to say, he left without any food.
3.) Also used to go to this Cantonese/Singaporean restaurant about a ten-minute walk away because it serves really good combo meals. The Hainan chicken combo meal is quite tasty. The first time I went there, I told one of the servers that they should update the prices on the sandwich board outside because the menu prices are more expensive. She just smiled and said yes. Of course, it never got updated. Never mind that. Two days ago, I went there again with a coworker for lunch. When the bill came, one of the dishes was 42 RMB price instead of 32 RMB, as printed on the menu, so we asked why. The waitress told us that that is the actual price, so I grabbed a menu to double check because I was positive that I saw 32 RMB. Lo and behold, that menu had a sticker with a 42 RMB price on it for that Hainan chicken dish. I was like, WTF, I'm not losing my mind, so I went through a stack of the menus, all of which had the stickers with the higher price, until I finally found the menu that was actually given to us. It did NOT have the sticker on it and did in fact show the 32 RMB price.
The hussy didn't even blink or seem slightly apologetic. She insisted that we needed to pay 42 because that was what the computer said. My coworker, who's Shanghainese btw, and I were in utter disbelief. We re-emphasized the fact that we didn't care what the computer said because we were ordering off the god damn menu and not the fucking computer. "Where is the owner?" my coworker asked. "He's a Hong Konger," she answered and then left us! This just pissed me off even more. I walked over to the counter and asked the old dude behind the register, "Are you the manager?" He said no. Then I asked a couple of other workers who's the manager. Of course none of them admitted to being in charge. Then the waitress came back and repeated what she said before. Then we repeated what we said before. Stalemate. Finally, she seemed to realize that we were not going to give in that easily, so she actually seemed somewhat concerned. "I'm sure you don't really mind 10 RMB. If you don't pay it then I would have to pay it and I only make 700 or 800 RMB a month, you are not going to make me pay it, right?" She said. My coworker replied, "That's not the point. We are not saying it's your fault, it's a problem with the way this restaurant is run and we shouldn't have to pay more than what's on the menu." Back and forth this went for a few more minutes. Finally, I said, "look, we come here every week for lunch." Somehow her twisted logic led her to reply, "So then you can kindly understand that we have raised our prices a few times already, so please be more understanding." I was ready to yell at her, "Bitch, I didn't bring it up so that you can tell US to be more accommodating to YOU! You are fucking insane and totally missing the fucking point!" Then I decided it's not worth arguing over what amounts to $1.50, even if it's about the principle. So I paid the higher price and told her we will never come back. The sad thing is that she couldn't care less since she doesn't give a shit if the restaurant loses a couple of customers for good.
That's the problem with China having such a huge population. All these restaurants with shitty service can afford to piss off their customers because we have nowhere else to go. Sigh.
4.) Coworker told me that a restaurant near his previous work place also had really bad service. Once, when they were harassing the waitress for their food after waiting for 30 minutes, they got this priceless response: "What's the rush?"
Luckily, I've also been to some great restaurants with awesome food and good service, but those seem to be extremely rare in Shanghai, which according to my coworkers, has really bad service compared to other cities in China, like Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
SIGH!!
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