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Sunday, October 01, 2006

Japanese takeout, anyone?


I just came back from dinner and it was unequivocally the worst dining experience ever. Okay, I take that back. It was more like a bittersweet experience with lots and lots of bitter and very little sweet. It's the sort of feeling you will probably get when fighting in a war and losing some limbs but after being served the best steak and potatoes during dinner, you seem to forget your disability and somehow manage to overcome the inconvenience of trying to cut a piece of red meat with only one arm. If all this sounds like a big blur to you, head on to Samurai Japanese Restaurant in Hawthorn, Melbourne.

It all started out with eight of us waiting outside the restaurant in the cold for more than thirty minutes. Not only were glimpses of hope of getting in after five minutes constantly shattered, this fiesty lady in a kimono who spoke in horrendous English was taking our orders with an even more horrendous sense of politeness. She was persistently pressuring us into ordering our food and she kept snapping "Excuse me please, no no" every time we attempted to order something on the menu which was excluded from the dinner box set. And after those of us have ordered our dinner box sets, she announced sternly "Dinner box now end".

So we were finally allocated a table after forty five minutes. We walked up this really narrow and windy staircase, which by the way, is just a lawsuit waiting to happen. As we sit at our table, another lady frantically runs in to take away the dishes and glasses on the table. In the process, she stacks a glass onto another glass full of milkshake. Obviously, we had a bit of a show as we all watched the spectacular milkshake fountain display. Still holding the dripping glass, she lets out a huge sigh of dispair as she stares at the floor and sees what looks like the morbid remains of the Marshmallow Man after the Ghostbusters had finished shooting it with their ray guns. We all expected her to promptly clean up the mess but instead, she suddenly became stoned as the milkshake continued to overflow out of the glass onto her pants.

When the food came, so did more drama. We reminded her that three of us have not been served our drinks. When we told her what was missing from the table, she starts to sigh again. Halfway through the kind reminder, she goes into a frenzy and complains that she can't possibly remember three items.

After bringing in our drinks, she brought in a dish and a placed it on the table. When we asked her what it was, she looked like she was going to go berzerk again. To avoid the possibility of her jumping out the window, we told her it was ok and that it was probably the teriyaki beef. She walks out of the room and lets out a huge sigh again. Zi Wei starts to dig in to the teriyaki beef.

Or at least what he thought was the teriyaki beef. Fifteen minutes later, she brings in another dish. Thinking that it was something that someone else on the table had ordered, we proceeded to help ourselves to the real teriyaki beef. Suddenly, crazy waitress lady bursts into the room and yells "You ate! You ate!".

Of course, we suddenly all had a moment of revelation and realised that she had brought something to our table which was meant for another. She then asks if she can charge us for her mistake. My friend looked a bit indignant and muttered "I don't think so".

The look on her face was priceless. It was as if she had just received news that bombs had just been dropped onto Hiroshima again. With tears flooding her eyes, she starts to shove her face into the wall and chant "But you ate" over and over again as she imagines a cauliflower-shaped cloud in the otherwise blue Japanese sky. That ordeal lasted for a solid two minutes. The amount of tension in the room was tremendous. It was so tangible you could almost order it as a side to your sashimi and pack it into a box to bring home and open up whenever you feel like you need a good kick.

After all the hallucination, she walks out of the room. Feeling bad, we call her back in and tell her that we would pay for it. When she brings the bill in, she looked hysterical. Her face was smudged with make up and mascara, and her hair looked like a broken slinky. She looked like she had just climbed out of one of those bunkers which are supposed to shelter you from nuclear attacks.

Doubtless, the food was good. Eating the food was good as well. But the moments in between were not. Whether or not the drama endured was worth the food is arguable. However, seeing as all this can be avoided or diminished at the very least, the smarter option would be just to call up beforehand and order take out the next time.

The phone number is 9819 4858. But quickly hang up the phone if the person on the other line introduces herself as Aiyo.

6 Comments:

Blogger Blurry D said...

Oh man!!! She must be having a hell of a day man.. Plus i thinks she is having a PMS at the same time.Not being sexist.Man what a exprience!!!

October 01, 2006 6:12 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hahha..have never commented here so far but this post was comment-worthy!! shall be on a lookout for crazy waitress the next time i'm there. Have been meaning to go there for quite awhile now, just that they're closed everytime we decide to pop by for lunch after church on Sundays.

Kimchi Grandma in the city did the same thing to us. I could've sworn it was spare ribs but the waiter kept coming back insisting that it was chicken and forcing us to take it. After 10 minutes of eating the spare ribs the poultry-confused waiter served us, our real teriyaki chicken came.pointing out that they served us the wrong order initially, the waiter TAKES BACK THE HALF EATEN PLATE OF SPARE RIBS. Geez, it's half eaten.. they should've just left it on our table since it was their mistake.. but no.. stingy pigs decides to take it back. i wonder if they served it to the next customer that orders teriyaki chicken.

and to top it off, they didn't ASK us if they could charge us for the half eaten serve spare ribs. They put it on the bill anyway! full price might i add! grrr.. but we obviously complained like mad and got refunded.

the recurring theme seems to be Asian dining places. sigh..

October 05, 2006 12:23 am  
Blogger ikewauhc said...

I should add that when the bill came, they magically charged us $20 less than they were supposed to. We thought of telling them they messed up their elementary school math, but we decided against it after we heard more dreadful sighing from a neighbouring room. No way were we going through all the drama again. So not only did we NOT have to pay for the extra dish, we actually got a discount.

October 05, 2006 12:35 am  
Blogger dogbone said...

Her name is 'Aiyo'? Go figure. :P

October 06, 2006 11:58 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Whoa nelly...
Now that's what I call a story. Teehee:D

Oh well, worth the experience simply because it's one more story in the pocket? :P

April 24, 2007 4:02 am  
Blogger ikewauhc said...

Maybe it was a theater restaurant and we didn't know they were doing "Mad Waitress"...

April 24, 2007 9:43 am  

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