Okay, Sunday night, waiting for my computer to finish doing some stuff so I can reboot and go to sleep … time for another rant!

Let me start off by saying that while I may be an aspiring foodie, I don’t have a foodie’s budget. Diary of a Growing Boy seems to eat gourmet tasting dinners with multiple wines every night but I can’t.

And when we’re going out at night, if we’re not sticking around Sai Kung, more often than not we end up in Wanchai. A few simple reasons, starting with the fact that I can park for free here and that we both like the two bands at Amazonia. And in the past 18 months, I got into the habit of having a lot of meals at bars not because I liked the food but because you could sit there and smoke. It’s more gourmand than gourmet (especially because it seems that everything on the menus at the Brit-style pubs is guaranteed to help you gain weight, clog your arteries and stop your heart) but the price is pretty cheap and some of these places actually seem to care about the food they’re giving to you as well as the drinks.

You all read here about the mess at Trafalgar last week (didn’t you?). The flip side of that, the only other place I’m going to name, is Doghouse. And I’m naming them because right now I can’t have any alcohol and I’ve gotten used to waitresses and bartenders looking at me cross-eyed when I order a bottle of water in a bar. But in Doghouse, I was talking with one of the owners one night, and I apologized that I wasn’t getting more than just a coke and he responded by saying, “that’s all right, I’m happy just to see you back here again!” Now that’s the kind of attitude all these places should have, right? Actually most of the places know me by sight if not by name. They know I’m a fairly regular customer. I don’t expect preferential service but I also don’t expect them to think they can slack off and treat me worse than an average customer either.

Earlier this week, in another Wanchai bar for dinner, I ordered a steak sandwich. Now when you get a steak sandwich, you may not expected imported Kobe beef but you would at least expect that you’d be able to pick this up and bite into it, right? But this piece of steak had so much gristle in it that I had to resort to opening up the bread, cutting around the gristle and putting what’s left back onto the bread – and not an easy thing to do when you’re given a knife that wouldn’t cut through warm butter. Yes …. I should have complained there and then. But I didn’t. Sometimes I’m that way. As we paid the bill, the manager asked how the food was and I told him that the steak had too much gristle to enjoy. Now if I was the manager of that place, I would have said, “sorry, your iced tea’s on me!” And I would have left feeling a little bit better about it. Instead he peered at the plate with a quizzical expression as we left.

Saturday night, we couldn’t work out what to eat. We ruled out Sabah because my gf had already had a curry for lunch. That also ruled out Thai Farmer. We weren’t in a mood for Agave or Amici or the cheap ‘n cheerful Beijing dumpling joint. My gf decided she wanted fish & chips, so we hit one of the, you guessed it, Wanchai bars.

We sat down, about half the tables were occupied, maybe more. We ordered our food at the same time. After awhile, they brought my plate out. I sat there picking at it while my gf kept saying, “Go ahead, don’t wait for me.” After five minutes, a waitress walked by and I asked her if she could see what happened to my gf’s dinner. Nothing. Five more minutes and I asked another waitress where my gf’s food was. All she had to do was say, “Sorry, let me check,” and that would have at least made us feel better. Instead, she practically yelled at me. “The kitchen’s very busy, everybody ordered at the same time.” And walked away. Apparently it was my fault that I’d ordered two dishes at the same time and expected them to be prepared and served at the same time.

Finally, my gf’s food arrived but she’s more sensitive than I am and she’d lost her appetite. She picked at her food until I finished. When the waitress came by to clear the plates, she asked if we wanted another round of drinks. In truth, I would have been happy to order some more and hang out there for another hour or so. But looking over at my gf, I just asked for the bill. As soon as we got out the door she said to me, “Don’t ever ask me to go there again. If you want to go there another time, I’ll wait for you someplace else.”

Look, I know this ain’t 5 star hotel cuisine and service. I know you get what you pay for. But is it too much to ask people to at least be professional and courteous to the customers who are paying their salaries? Or is it a case where since there’s relatively little tipping in HK, since waitresses don’t have to work to get 20% out of you, they just don’t give a damn?

The thing is, I don’t completely blame the waitresses. Of course they’re gonna do the minimum required and they know if they get kicked out of one place, there’s 27 others that will hire them the next day. It starts with the owners, who set the standard. And continues on through the managers. You train your staff, they treat the customers well, the customers come back. Not rocket science, is it?

All right, I know, it’s all a tempest in a teacup, isn’t it? But I feel so much better for having written all that!

By the way, you know the corner of Lockhart and Luard, right? There’s that Chinese place right on the corner, Hay Hay, open 24 hours, decent enough roast meats, noodles, eggs, other cha chan teng things, cheap & cheerful for decades. And in front, there’s a newsstand. The guy who works the newsstand at night, round glasses, ponytail down to his waist, always remembers what magazines I buy and what cigarettes I smoke and always has a smile even when I walk by and I’m not buying something from him at that minute.

Thursday night, the newsstand was closed. And Saturday night, Hay Hay was closed as well. Closed for renovations? Forced out by 300% rent increases? No idea right now. Are we gonna end up with another 7-11 or Mannings or Starbucks in its place? Who’s looking out for us? Apparently no one.