How Important is the waiter in your dining experience?
Sunday, September 21, 2008
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This past Friday we had a new experience--Ugly that couldn't be covered up by the fantastic food, beer, and hot sake.
We didn't have to wait to be seated at 7:45PM which seemed odd, but a good thing at the time. But we were seated all-the-way-all-the-way in the back where it was hot and steamy.
We did wait for at least 15 minutes before anyone came by to ask if we wanted dinner. Our waiter smelled like smoke and looked a little disheveled, like he just rolled out of bed or something else. We ordered drinks and Tuna Tataki.
The drinks weren't brought out to the table until the Tuna Tataki was brought out-- It wasn't that busy for a Friday night. I have been there on nights where there are wall-to-wall people and never waited for a drink!
When the large Asahi beer, hot sake, edamame and Tataki were dropped off at the table the waiter didn't bother to take the rest of our order... No one checked back to see how we were doing--if they had they would have seen we were out of drinks and food--with no food on the way! I had to ask the Busboy to get our waiter. Patients dwindling!
We ordered more beer and hot sake and a series of rolls and sushi--very excited! Our excitement evaporating after 30 minutes went by--I got up to physically locate our waiter--I found him looking at this fancy new age Jukebox and he was surprised to see me.
Still it was a half an hour without a word or even visiting the table. The people I was with asked about our food order and like a deer in the headlights--it appeared that he forgot about our food. GREAT!
The sake arrived just barely warm--I sent it back! I didn't wait almost 45 minutes for hot sake to be just barely warm!
Again no one checked to see how we were doing, I couldn't taste a thing anyway! We needed more drinks, we needed more wasabi, we needed attention! We eventually needed the check and again NO ONE!