The dinner-that-never-was at Global Village Restaurant

Saturday May 14 was our 11^th wedding anniversary. My husband asked me to choose which restaurant to go to. I picked Global Village in Manzini because we had his birthday dinner there, which was perfect, and my friend is the manager there and I wanted to support her business.

We arrived to a lukewarm reception from a self-effacing waitress and we had to ask if they had drinks as she had not offered anything. We planned to have a 3 course meal, and ordered crumbed mushroom and chicken livers from the menu as starters.  They each cost about E50/R50. The waitress said she would go and find out from the kitchen if they had ingredients for our order. She came back with the shocking news that they had neither chicken livers nor mushroomsL. I asked how that could be, because that restaurant is located less than 10 minutes from Manzini town where supermarkets had mushrooms and livers. A punnet of white button mushrooms costs E28 at Pick ‘n Pay, and they serve you less than a third of the punnet. A kilogramme of chicken livers sells for E16, and they give you about E5’s worth as starter. So I could not understand how a whole restaurant could fail to procure commodities that were so cheap and would still have given them a profit.

Moving on, we said so what do you have, she said they had samoosas. We didn’t want samosas so we decided to skip starters and moved to the main course. My husband chose a tilapia dish. The reason why we had settled for Global Village in the first place was because of their tilapia which we enjoyed when I was writing a cooking column for a local newspaper. Read here for their tilapia recipe*. We had always vowed to visit  Global Village again for the fish. The waitress said they did not have tilapia and said my husband could have hake insteadL. He didn’t go there for hake so he declined. I ordered chicken lasagna, and the shy waitress said she would check if they had it. I said they should surely have it because there are chicken dishes here, and chicken is the main ingredient in the lasagna that I want. I was to be dismally disappointed. They didn’t have chicken lasagna eitherL. I said ok what do you have? She said they had pork chops and grilled chicken. If I wanted grilled chicken I would have gone to Nandos, they make the best grilled chicken as far as I’m concerned.



Dessert from Lugogo Sun Hotel

I then asked my husband that we go to Lugogo Sun where they have buffet dinner every day. I was not going to eat what I didn’t like on a special occasion and have an unwanted dinner shoved down my throat by people with zero regard for their customers. We were paying customers for crying out loud, so why were we supposed to be the ones that bend over backwards to impress the restaurant with our patience with their bad service? It’s as if people just expect you to understand that they’re not serious and you should just grin and bear it and say it’s ok. No it’s not OK that by 8pm I was still driving around to the next restaurant with a rumbling stomach. I was quite hungry! We told the waitress that we were just paying for the drinks and would find food elsewhere, and she said OKK. Well, we took our money elsewhere, and that’s what I would want everyone to do – walk out on service providers that are not out to impress you and give you value for your hard-earned cash.

On our way to Lugogo Sun, I felt it was wrong to just go quietly without talking to my friend, the manager at Global Village. She had to know so that she could try and salvage the situation. I sent her a text reading:

Hi *Name* we’d come to clelebrate our 11^th anniversary at your place but we’ve left without eating. We wanted mushrooms and livers as starter but were told there were none. Then main meal we wanted tilapia and chicken lasagna and were told we also couldn’t have that. So we’re not going to Lugogo SunL. 1kg liver costs R16 in town and mushrooms are there at Spar. We will bring our own food next time, because we know where to find it, then the chefs will just cookJ.

She responded saying sorry and that she would deal with the issue. I wonder how many more customers just walk our quietly and spread the word on the bad service. Word of mouth can actually floor a business.

I had avoided Lugogo Sun initially because I was trying to avoid the buffet, which I feel prompts me to overindulge a little. They always have a wide array of meats to pick from – chicken curry, chicken stew, roast chicken, leg of lamb, roast beef or pork, goat stew – you want it, they’re bound to have it. They also make the most delectable eclairs, cakes, custard, pudding, ice cream for dessert. Don’t get me started on their yummy creamy soup of the day. No, they didn’t pay me to say this, and yes, they’re that good! They also make the best pizza in town, which I didn’t have the pleasure of eating on this day. As soon as we got into their restaurant, I looked around, felt my taste buds tingling with anticipation, and thought, “Now we’re talkingJ!” We had a good dinner at Lugogo Sun, and guess what, they had mushrooms! YayJ.  All is well that ends well. To 11 x 11 more years!