What was our favorite restaurant in Cape Town is now our worst dinning experience in decades. From being seated at a table that would clearly have done the job for King Arthur and his round table, 6 of us had to raise our voices in order for the person on the other side of the table to hear the conversation. Our request to plead be moved to a suitable table at the beginning of the evening was rebuked with an extremely curt “NO”. Not any effort made to soften the “NO” or attempt to try and accommodate our request in anyway.
We then decided to not let the curt managers attitude not ruin our evening, but that was only the beginning of what seemed like an evening that was set to test our patience in dinning out.
After waiting what seemed like an age to order my drink, we then set about ordering dinner. 2 starters were ordered, and the waitress suggested we place our mains order at the same time. We took her advice accordingly. Then we waited over an hour, in this time our waitress disappeared and I do mean disappeared… Along with what seemed to be most of the other waiters. Most peculiar, then finally after an hour she appeared with the mains…. We had yet to receive our starters. The starters then appeared as though they were side dishes, and the side dishes arrived so late we had already started on our main dishes. The food was ice cold, my pork was so tough that it resembled a mini wooden bat. My partners chicken Tika was so watery it should have been resold as “Tika consommé”. The other members of the party had the same issues with their food.
The manager who through the whole ordeal had been milling around the kitchen side of the restaurant briefly appeared, mumbled something incoherent about a bottle of white wine on the house to appease us for the shocking food. This was quite inappropriate as 4 of us didn't drink white wine, and we all were driving, so irrelevant really. It certainly didn't make things any better … And of course no explanation as to why our food was so late and so terrible.
He then appeared again after our meal, and again waiting over 4O min for our plates to be cleared away. This was again due to the disappearance of our waitress for another hour. When she finally returned, we were told that the issue was she and the other waiters had to deliver food to a function, being held in a marquee over 200m outside the restaurant. We were shocked, that explained it all. Yet it wasn't good enough as our meal wasn't for free, we were paying for it. The manager sensing a growing distention amongst our table arrived again, yes again, from the depths of “The Kitchen”, offering us dessert, we declined as we had no intention of staying there another hour or 2 waiting for a dessert, which no doubt would have been disappointing. He then turned on his heel and stormed away, not a “I'm sorry I understand … Just stormed away.
A member of our party then followed him back to the kitchen, to find him and discuss that it was not the waitresses fault, clearly she had been following instructions and eventually burst into tears of frustration, having to run out in the rain with food, and then return to face irate diners. His reply and I quote him here “It's because she's a woman and I'm a man that you are complaining to me, and blaming me.”
We left after paying, and there was yet another confrontation with a female manager, who was aggressive and feeble in her response to us.
The 6 of us, our families and friends will never ever go there again for dinner. If the manager had managed his restaurant in the correct manner, expected in the hospitality business, I am sure things would have turned out differently. Very disappointing.
