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| - I have been here when it used to be Sairam Om. I am of Indian descent and grew up eating a lot of indian/pakistani food. I am well aware of the cultural etiquette and the social norms of the society. The reason I mention all this is because of a terrible experience at Aroma Curry House that left a very distasteful taste in my mouth.
I was talked down to, disrespected, treated like a lower class citizen. Here is the story;
I walked into Aroma Curry House with friends of mine anticipating some good old home food. We arrived at and were seated at 6:30. I remember checking the time because the clock was right in front of me. No one attended to us, or asked us if we had any questions about the menu or anything. Hell, we didn't even get as much as water. We sat there till about 7:00 pm, that's half an hour, until my friend got up and asked a waitress to take our order. She finally came, and took our order, apologizing and telling us that the man in the front, i.e., the man who seated us had to take our order. We ordered an appetizer each, and a main course. My friend ordered a mango lassi, and the rest of us got water.
About ten minutes later, our water showed up. It had been about 45 minutes now, and all we had managed to obtain was water. The experience so far was unprecedented in all of my dining experiences. Waiting so long for water?
Time ticked by, our stomachs ached, our anticipation for the delicious indian food grew. We started even talking about home (India/Pakistan) food, and how it takes so long to cook food. It was 7:30 by this time. It had been one hour, and we had yet to receive our appetizers. My friend approached the waitress who had taken our order and asked her when she anticipated our food would arrive. She said it just needed a bit of reheating and it would be on its way. REHEATING! A few minutes passed by, and two of our four appetizers arrived. The mango lassi appeared after. The waiter serving us the lassi seemed to be from the kitchen, and he seemed visibly scared. I think this was his first time serving anything. Our hunger had clouded our judgment and for a few minutes we forgot that we had been sitting here for over an hour. My friend got samosas, and another friend of mine got Sambar Vada. The Sambar Vada was disgustingly cold from the inside. The samosas seemed to be freshly cooked, but had a tangy smell coming from them.
At this point my friend was really upset, and she approached the waitress asking her why it was cold and that this is terrible service. The waitress was very polite and told us that the man who greeted us in the front was supposed to be handling our food. so we should approach him. My friend went off to talk to him and he came back to our table.
My friend proceeded to tell him that we had been waiting for 30 minutes before we were even attended to, that we only got water 45 minutes later, and that our appetizers came in after an hour of us being there, and that it was cold! The man cut her off mid sentence and said condescendingly, "let me tell you our business philosophy, we cook fresh food here, we aren't like other restaurants where we make all the sauces pre-made, and cook you a meal in under 20 minutes, okay? What can I do to make this better?" My friend then said, "what can you do for us" He then said, "I can give you a twenty percent discount on all the food, or the appetizers are free whichever one you want" My friend to this was like "Okay that's fine" a friend sitting next to her also casually remarked "the mango lassi came after the appetizers, and usually drinks come before the food." To this he condescendingly remarked,"Well maybe we should just prepare everything before hand and serve everything as soon as you come in and not make it fresh, it takes at least 20-40 minutes to prepare a dish."
I wanted to lay out all the facts, because this guy was trying to make us look like it was our fault, and that we didn't understand his grand restaurant philosophy, and he was completely justified. So I told him, " It has been 1 hour and 15 minutes. That's 75 minutes. it doesn't take 75 minutes to serve somebody appetizers. Nobody took our order or attended to us till we had been sitting there for half an hour."
He then snapped at me saying " I told you how it works, you are trying to pick a fight with me, how you are talking to me is unacceptable, and I would rather you leave than have to deal with this." I told him whatever man, and my friends looked at me in shock at what he had just said. He was extremely rude and we left the restaurant. My friend who had not said anything to anyone about this stayed back to apologize because she felt bad. He was really rude to her too and said I could never come back.
If only he came to our table, and apologized for the delay, said they were busy, and he would do what he could to bring the food as quickly as possible, it would have made things better. He did not even do as much as apologize.
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