Saturday May
14 was our 11th 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.
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| 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 11th 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!
