Friday night. I was at Indochine (or Pho Chine?) Wisma with 2nd Boss, and 2 foreign colleagues around my age from Malaysia and Hong Kong.

We had sesame chicken wings as starters, Vietnamese main courses, ice-cream for dessert and rounded it off with drinks. Basically, we hang around the open air sidewalk restaurant for about 5 hours and enjoyed the performances by the live band. 2nd Boss entertained us with his experiences overseas and the other senior staff in the region.

The table beside us sat 2 women and a man. One woman in particular is extremely loud and attention grabbing. When they paid the bill, she grabbed it from the man and refused to let him settle.

Afterwards, when we were ready to end the night and asked for the bill from Waitress A, she disappeared for 15 min. Waitress B came along and asked whether we wanted to settle the bill (since we have long finished our drinks). "Yes please, we have actually asked for the bill 15 min ago."

Wait......wait......wait. Tap, tap, tap. Both Waitress A and B walked past us and ignored our attempts to catch their eyes.

10 more min later, we caught Waitress B's attention (more like she could not pretend not to notice our blatant attempts to get her to stop). "Sorry, please hang on for your bill."

5 more min......Waitress A came over with a S$400+ bill and asked whether this was what we had. 2nd Boss perused it and said no. It was full of martinis etc! Definitely not ours. Anyway, our bill couldn't be more than S$150.

Wait....wait....wait. All ignoring us. They went over to the table beside ours. The man had left and the 2 women were still lingering over their drinks. Waitress A showed them the bill they settled just now and said that they made a mistake, and could the ladies settle the balance? I heard the women making a fuss and then Waitress A went back to the cashier, presumably to consult her manager.

The 2 women scooted off from the other end of the restaurant, fast. Smart.

When Waitress A walked behind me, I stopped her and ask, "Excuse me, we have asked for the bill about 45 min ago. What's the problem?"

"Sorry miss, there was a mixed up with your bill. Someone else seems to have settled it. Could you hold on for a while?"

By then, I was super pissed off with the service. "A while?! We have hanged on for 45 min! If there was a problem, you should have come over and explained to us rather than making us wait like this."

"Sorry miss, could you please hang on?"

"NO!"

She only glanced back and walked off.

Finally, Waitress A came back with the correct bill. I asked her,"You made us wait 45 min without an explanation. Now it's past midnight and we have to incur midnight charges back. Aren't you even going to offer a discount as compensation?"

"Sorry, we can't do that."

"What kind of service is this? Where's your manager?"

"The manager is walking around."

Walking around???????? He has nothing better to do but walk around?

"This is extremely bad service on your part."

"Sorry, we are all new here."

"How is that any of our business? Someone should have at least come over to explain the situation to us."

She just shrugged and looked helpless. We paid up angrily. When we left, she still had the audacity to say, "Thank you, please come again."

I didn't even bother replying. With this kind of f****** up service, they still expect people to come again? In other restaurants, if we so much as mention that the beef taste a bit weird, the manager would come over and see whether there's anything he can do about it, offer to change the beef or to waive the charges. Here? Preeeeash.

# posted by Shopaholic : 2:02 PM