Never Again...

Yesterday evening, Sinta and I went out to downtown Sunnyvale for an early dinner at a Filipino restaurant. Earlier that afternoon, I interviewed the owner/head chef/server over the phone for a final assignment for my class. Mrs. S is the all-around person with a staff of three or four running the one-year old family business. She seemed nice during the interview, and we thought it would be nice to drop by to thank her and have dinner. The nippa hut-style restuarant is small and cozy, complete with local crafts and paintings, pina fiber blinds, and even a canoe in the middle of the restaurant. Sinta and proceeded to order our dinner, which consisted of pancit bihon, and grilled tanguegue (mackerel), and calamansi juice.

In my assignment, I'm supposed to write about what I learned from this woman, and whether or not I'd like to open up my own restaurant someday. There is no way I'm running a restaurant the way she did. I'm more compelled to write what I would do to run this business better. Hell, thanks to her, I may even write a business plan soon for a restaurant based on her mistakes she committed last night.

The kitchen lacked efficiency. The pancit wasn't brought to our table until after twenty-five minutes later. What were they doing? Peeling the vegetables at the back while making "chismis"? Did they not prep the vegetables earlier in the day? We were served the fish 10-15 minutes later, which was bland and dry. It doesn't take that long to cook fish. Dessert was last, and the server barely cleared our table. Obviously, she lacked serving skills--couldn't carry more than two plates in her hands. She took away the pancit to wrap it up for us, but she left the little "palayok" on the table next to us, and it just sat there for a while. We were more than eager to leave, and we tried to get the owner or the server's attention to get our check. That was another thirty minutes. It took another five minutes for the server to write up our check. It ain't rocket science. We waited for the server to take our payment, and when she was walking towards our table, she turned around and decided to set the other tables. Sinta and I were growing very irritable, and I was very sleepy and tired on top of it. We waited awhile, until I suggested that I'd take the damn money up to her. She and Mrs. S were just "chismis"-ing when we brought the money up to them. F that shiet...never again will we go to that restaurant.

There was only one other party dining there besides us. It's not a busy restaurant. They weren't worried about table turnovers, so they were just taking there sweet time serving us. Their service sucked arse. Hmmm...I wonder why their business is so slow?