Yang Di Tunggu Tak Tiba

How long is considered a decent wait in a restaurant for your food to arrive following your order? Fifteen minutes? Twenty minutes? Half an hour? Maybe the answer lies in the type of food one asks for and the number of patrons at the time of the order.

I guess if you request for meat dishes like steaks and cuts, you may have a slightly longer wait compared to an a la carte order of local dishes like asam laksa which doesn't require cooking per se, or fried koayteow which doesn't need baking or grilling.

But what if one orders rice and all its accompaniments (lauk)? I do know that certain lauks are pre-cooked or pre-prepared; all the kitchen has to do is heat them up.

So I reckon if we order plain white rice with four types of lauk, for example sambal tumis udang with petai, kerabu sotong, daging masak merah and somtam (kerabu betik), the food should arrive within 20 minutes.

Two days ago the family decided to try out this new restaurant in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, located alongside Domino's Pizza. It will not be fair for me to name the restaurant; suffice to say we are not likely to step foot inside it again.

The place which opened its doors some months back serves Thai food. Seems to me like everyone is on the 'tomyam' gravy train these days, with Thai restaurants sprouting like mushrooms after the rains.

Anyway, one look at the menu of this restaurant, and you can see it's a wee bit on the high side. Then again, if the food is good and the service commendable, price usually ceases to be an issue. The most important thing is you get your money's worth, and that you are satisfied.

Unfortunately enough (for both the Abus and the shop), we got neither, simply because we didn't even get the food in the first place! However, we did learn, to our detriment of course, that the service was one massive thumb down and the operator's attitude stank to high heaven.

If I were to put my 'not-so-disciplined' mouth into good use that day, I would have suggested the management place a more pleasant face behind the counter for starters, since the face also doubled up as one of those who took down orders.

It is not enough to have a pretty face and a willowy body (clad in tight t-shirt and equally tight jeans) pacing the restaurant floor with a most unpleasant scrunched up look and a petulant pout brimming with "I'm busy, so screw you!" attitude.

I would also recommend the pot-bellied, middle-aged Malay guy (who was either the owner/ operator/ manager) exercise a bit of PR when one's orders ran late, by coming over to one's table to apologise for the delay, instead of casting guilty glances at the fidgeting customers and scurrying back and forth to the kitchen with a constipated look on his face.

It was noontime on a working day, so naturally there were quite a number of office workers among the patrons when we walked in at one o'clock. It took ten minutes and a couple of vigorous hand waves for the staff to notice us, and one finally scurried over to take our order.

Thirty minutes later, we were still waiting. I was being kind, honestly. I gave them a lot of leeway considering the place was packed. At 1.50 pm my patience wore out, especially after I noticed those arriving much later than us being served their respective orders.

Then it dawned on me that those patrons had ordered a la carte dishes i.e. fried rice, fried noodles and the like, as opposed to ours, a complete set of nasi and lauk. The kitchen had been clearing those single-dish orders first, apparently.

I beckoned Miss Willowy and asked about our order. Without a word she stomped off to the kitchen, presumably to check. And then she walked out again and instead of coming to our table to inform us of the status, she went to hide behind the counter. As for the pot-bellied fellow, he slunked back and wasn't seen again.

I stood up, walked to the counter and asked in an annoyed voice: "Mana order kami? Dah buat ker belum? Kalau belum buat tak payahlah. Dah sejam lebih!"

She shot back: "Ha, tak payah pun takpalah!" It was 2.05 pm. We had been there for one hour and five minutes, waiting for food that never came. So we left and went to KFC instead.....


PS: Patrons from two other tables also left, just before us, when their respective orders too did not materialise.