I really Rado not go back there

Posted by Gingerblossom at 2:31 AM

Wednesday, September 30, 2009


Was in Shenyang doing a Rado event on Monday & Tues. The watches were beautiful but I can't say the same of the city. Service at Trader's Hotel was almost non-existent. Asking the staff to help us tidy up was such a pain. One elderly old lady said, no one wanted to clean cos it's lunch time. She essentially hinted that, if we slipped them some $$, people would clean. We were already paying a lot to the hotel!! 
team mini meeting inside our room


We got to eat one decent meal out of 4 meals. That was at a fancy looking shopping mall next door, in a HK style restaurant. The food was quite nice but it seemed more "dong bei" than HK, serving spicy dishes like 水煮鱼 . Service here was not only non-existent, it was downright rude and to some extent, terrifying. My local colleagues, one of whom tends to pick on service, didn't dare to pick on service nor argue. We were kind of worried we'll get whacked especially given the Dong Bei reputation to fight first, talk later.  Conversation went like this: 

Taiwanese colleague: Can we have another menu please? There are 7 of us here.
Wait staff (fierce and very loudly): I gave you 2 menus and that's very good already. What do you expect? 7 menus? 
Taiwanese colleague ( stunned)
BJ colleague: Er... we're just asking for one more so that we can order faster
Wait staff: Look through the menu faster
BJ colleague: Er.. fine.. let us look through and we'll order

Wait staff stands beside me & BJ girl at the table and taps pen
BJ colleague: I would like a HK milk tea
Me: me too
Wait staff: So how many is that? 
Me: 2
BJ girl: Sorry. Make that 1, I want a juice instead
Wait staff ( very aggressively): So what exactly do all of you want to drink? Can you decide faster? 
All 7 of us looked at the waitress, a bit stunned... 

Order finally done. Waitress repeats our order  ( almost shouting) and goes off. We discover we are short of 3 plates and 3 pair of chopsticks.
Taiwanese colleague: Excuse me, can we have plates and chopsticks
Wait staff makes a sound of annoyance frowns and walks away with no response and comes back with the required utensils.  She kinda plonks them down.
Another BJ colleague: Least she gave us 7 pairs and not 7 chopsticks and says I gave you each one stick, that's very good already.  

Food is served, drinks are served but we're one tea short and also lacking napkins.
BJ girl: 服务员, can we have napkins?
Wait staff rolls her eyes at us and walk away
BJ girl ( adds quickly): bring 7 please! ( whispers to the table) what if she comes back with only one and tells us, I gave you one, that's very good already.  ( Snigger)
Wait staff comes back with 4 miserly pieces of paper...
We try asking again, she sounds annoyed and come back with a giant stack enough for 20 people and just drops its wordlessly on the table. She held it over the table for a second then dropped it as if saying " NAH. So mah fan"
Me: Er.. we're short of one hot tea. 
Wait staff: There's a cup in front of you. Can't you see it's tea?!? 
Me: I mean, we ordered 2 hot teas.  You haven't served the other
Wait staff: No you did not.
Me: Yes I did
Wait staff is annoyed. Checks order form and walks off.

I was worried she would come back and pour the tea on me!! 



3 comments:

Unknown said...

or worse... she spit into you tea. Eeks!!

Gingerblossom said...

Ewww... thanks huh. Oh but someone else got the 2nd cup of tea! Haha

Michelle said...

Classic! That one-more-menu thing also happened to me when I was in Harbin. ha...