Indian Restaurants! aiyoyo kadevele!

I have long been a fan of Indian food! Ever since I was a kid my dad would take me and my family out on the weekends to enjoy a nice Indian meal. From the beloved roti canai to thosai and to a nice banana leaf rice! I am always ready to try new dishes and so on. 

But what I am writing here today is not about where there is a good place to eat or what to eat, that I will do it in another post. This post will be all about the service of this restaurants as a whole. I have been to many Indian or Mamak (Indian Muslim) restaurants and stalls in Malaysia and I realised there is this one pattern that always crops up and I am pretty sure most of you experience it too. When the business is still small and what I mean small is when they are still at a stall or have a small customer based, the service is rather good. I wont say its excellent but I would say attentive. But when their business grow, things start to get rather messy. What I mean by messy is in the service and the quality of food. 

Have you ever have to wait for such a long time just to get served? Sitting there like a fool waving your hands to the waiters and they will ask you to wait or they just ignore you? I've been observing many restaurants having this same way of handling their customers. When they started the business, they are always friendly. Although there are one or two of the workers that is kinda like rude but the service is good. But once their business started growing, somehow everything goes down the drain. 

It is as if they are not willing to serve you. Sometimes you get this one waiter that dont even understand the language. You ask them what is this or that they will try to answer you with this really ridiculous answer. Or when you order they will forget what you say and after 15 minutes later come back and ask you what you ordered or someone else will come and ask you "Tadi you order apa?". And this guy doesnt look happy, as if we gave him a hard time. And when they serve you and they will just chuck everything on the table. Splat splat splat! and when we want to order other dishes they will listen to one dish and walk off... without asking is there anything else we wanted. Some waiter try to be overly friendly and they will tell you what to eat. Like "Ayam ini bagus, ambik la" or when you finish ordering and they will continue asking you "ayam? kambing? ikan? ayam sambal..." and if you order just rice or just one small dish they will look as if they are disgusted with your order and serve you even worse!

Sometimes when the food is served but when you want to order drinks, the guy that serve the food dont know what are you babbling about and stare blankly at you and walk off, leaving us frustrated. Sometimes when you make a small request like, "kurang manis" but it is as if it fell to deaf ears. The drinks comes really sweet. tsk tsk tsk.

There is one restaurant, a rather famous one actually. Just because they have the who and who that patronise their restaurant they started to have double standard in serving. Once I came with my friends and we dressed very casually and drive a normal car. They literally ignored us and took ages to take our order. But the next time I went and we have a white friend that came with us and immediately you can see how fast they came and direct us to an available table. Two to three waiter actually served us and I have to say the service was kinda excellent! so how la? famous already they literally forgotten their customers that patronise their place when they were small. 

Then when it comes to payment, usually the cashier is either very arrogant or missing! You can stand at the counter and wait and no one will come. Dont want us to pay is it? I'm ok with that. The arrogant or snobbish  one is usually the bosses's wife or some lady related to the owner. The way she look at you or not look at you when she say the price is as if you are not welcomed. Hence thats why I say as if we need them more then they need us. 

Some restaurant instead are very racist. Once I went to this restaurant, sat there and ordered my food and waited. But when a group of indian family came, the waiter took their order immediately and guess what? they got their food first. And it was the same waiter that served us. Cmon man... I talked to you with a smile and made my order simple and yet you treat me like this... very sad indeed.

But again there are one or two restaurant that have moved away from this crappy style and I have to say I rather go there. They have adopted a more modern approach and they hire locals that understand the language and one that can explain what is good and not. This are the ones that I love to go... 

All in all, as much as I am irritated with the service I still go to these restaurant. I tend to ignore the crappyness of the service and enjoy the food that I love with the good company of loved ones or friends... its all good!