The sad part of the story is that I got pretty pissed off by a friend or better the business of a friend and his mangers/staff, therefore I won’t name the place. Well here is how it went…
Last Sunday Rhoody decided to go out for dinner with his little family as it was the last day before school starts for his little pictures-monster. Being so generous, Rhoody gave her the choice where to go and Daisy decided to go to, hmmmm … let’s call it “The Great”. Well fine with me, as I like “The Great” for its food and cute waitresses. So we four jumped into the trike for the 10 minute ride to the Restaurant.
Upon arrival were two other tables occupied and food served. Having heard some complaints of friends about the waiting time at “The Great” in the recent past, I thought that it can’t be that bad as we are the only guests the kitchen has to take care.
A girl without uniform appeared and brought us four people exactly one menu. Well I guess she thought that I am the only one who can read.
Darling, please do not compare your English and/or waitress skills with the skills of my family, they are very well able to read AND understand a menu in a restaurant.
I ordered water and before anybody else was able to order anything she disappeared to get me my order. My company was again not able to order as the waitress disappeared again. Exactly at 7:07 pm (I got a SMS at that time) another waiter showed up where we ordered our two dishes. He apologized that he can’t explain anything as he was never working before in “The Great” and has just been “borrowed” from another Restaurant for a few hours.
Here we go, a magically disappearing no English speaking waitress and a borrowed waiter without any clue. Our order was pretty simple, so I still hoped that not that much more can go wrong. A simple Pizza and homemade Pasta should be done in about 15-20 minutes … if you take a nap in between.
… Wishful Thinking, Rhoody !
After 30 minutes our “borrowed” waiter came to announce that the order will take 10 more minutes. Hmmm, seems the kitchen takes some extra effort and cuts the Pasta with a nail-cutter for us. After another 10 minutes the borrowed waiter “Clueless” came again to announce that he is going home now. .???
What the fuck… It seemed it was too embarrassing for him letting us wait for almost an hour now and just deliver stupid excuses. But guess what, the little un-uniformed girl appeared magically and whispered something like:
“Sohry Sirr, glybbediglyp, buksana, bolera ako, walang ulam… “… and run away again. I am actually not sure what she said, but it was not English and appeared also for my girlfriend who speaks Bisayan, Tagalog, Waray and English more like a magic evil spell from a long forgotten fairy tale.
An hour waiting time passed by and I went outside to have a cigarette. Here I recognized that it was outside actually cooler than inside the restaurant, despite the fact that there is a huge Aircon Unit in “The Great”, the sweat was running between my two backside-cheeks.
The Waitress magic spell seems to work as my little picture – monster came outside to tell me that the food arrived. At least parts of it. After glorious 1 hour and 7 minutes waiting time the home-made pasta appeared. Did I mention that homemade Pasta takes about 4 Minutes to cook. Ok, a quick look, that was not the homemade pasta for that we went to “The Great” this was simply cheap Lee Plaza crap.
Nevertheless, the waitress ran away again. So we needed to search around in the guestroom where to find some pepper, salt and hot sauce. Being a little explorer, my little picture monster finally found it and … wow, give me a fuc@%ing break…
In the salt-shaker was a worm happily relaxing on white grounds, stretching its belly to the top like Rhoody on a Sunday afternoon at the Beach in Dauin.
As a matter of fact, that little thingy was too big to get into there through one of the tiny holes of the salt-shaker. Conclusion, it must have gotten inside there when refilled in the kitchen of “The Great”.
Of course I told my family immediately to stop eating anything there. I don’t even wanna know how disgusting it is in the kitchen if those things are even presented in the dining-room.
Oooh, after 1 hour and 20 minutes the Pizza (about 5 to 6 minutes baking time in a brick-oven) arrived. I will never find out how many baked/cooked/fried/raw animals were on there as I just reject to eat that. Yes I know there are many countries and tribes where people eat insects and worms, but the average Rhoody is none of them. At least it should be mentioned on the menu of “The Great”.
Here my suggestion how the special dishes can be included into “The Greats” Menu:
Todays Special:
Pizza Bombyx Mori – Asian Style Pizza w/ Mozzarella, Asparagus and fresh Silkworm pupas.
I will send a mail to recommend “The Great” for Andrew Zimmerman’s Travel Channel program Bizarre Foods.
For all that, I “only” had to pay the drinks. Maybe I am a bit picky, but if it would not be a friends place I would have told them: Fuck you man, you try to food-poison me. This hygienically conditions here are utterly disgusting… basically enough to close each foreigner-run restaurant on the spot and you still charge me for anything??? … that is ridiculous.
Well, will I visit “The Great” again? I don’t know yet, the regular, (English speaking) waitresses are still sweet and nice to talk to, but if, I will only have something to drink and will demand to clean and open the can/bottle by myself.
cheers
Rhoody
