I need to spend more time in my kitchen

Things haven’t exactly been coming up Loxy lately.  From the below mentioned concussion, to an unfortunate Blackberry incident, to online dating failures, to arriving home and finding my door open and spare key missing, to losing $100 in the mall yesterday, to going back to work today… I’m surprised I’m in such a good mood! (Strange, right? I know.)

On top of all that, I’ve had three consecutive thumbs down meals.  I don’t want to bore you with the play-by-play, but all three came down to one thing – poor service.

Over the years, I’ve put in my time waitressing.  Outside of a short period serving on an operational steam boat, I tend towards a lunch/pub-type environment.  Needless to say, the three places I went in the last 48 hours are all within my abilities as a server.  So while I am, by no means, a great waitress, if the service couldn’t even match my work, you know it is bad.

On Monday I went to Doolin’s with my mom.  We wandered for blocks trying to find a pre-Regina Spektor (side note: She was precious, just precious!) eating establishment, eventually ending up at the Irish pub.  We found ourselves a booth among many empty tables.  For the next hour and a half we were treated to the service of a… bitch.  Dare I ask a question?  Getting a response that was even worthwhile was like pulling teeth.   She routinely ignored our table, despite having to walk past it every single time she went to the kitchen.  Finding out if our meals were okay was, at best, an afterthought.  Her manner (and manners) left much to be desired and while I know going to a pub as a woman might not garner the best service, as waitresses tend to the drunk guys with the escalating bar tab, I’m not a needy customer.  One smile or pleasantry would’ve increased the tip by 5%.

On Tuesday night, I met up with my City Hall friend with a trip to White Spot in mind.  Unfortunately, that’s what a lot of people had in mind.  We were 9th in line and it was already getting late for my early morning wakeup call.  So, down to Broadway and Cambie where the first thought was Original Joes.  Now outside of having a hilarious meal with the mayor and his fellow 12th and Cambie staffers, OJ’s always fails.   So we didn’t go there either.

Instead, we tried the Mongolie Grill.  I’m a big fan of Great Han Mongolian BBQ on Main Street, so I figured I’d be in for a similar experience.  Boy was I wrong.  Everything great about Great Han was a failure at MG.  Price, service, speed, accuracy… all fails.  If you’ve never been to one of these places, it goes like this:  You pick out your meat, veggies, noodles and sauce. You put it in a bowl.  They grill it and bring it to your table.  Simple, right?  Not on this night.  Half an hour from giving it to the chef to getting it back.  By then, any sauce we put on had been cooked out.  And with a different array of sauces, I made some fatal mistakes in my choices.   (But that’s my fault.)  Getting anything from the overworked server (who seemed to be managing the whole place) was labour-intensive.  If it weren’t for my always entertaining company, I would’ve walked to the back and cooked my overpriced bowl of food myself.

Today, I met Iris for lunch.  Seeing that the area around her work has few dining options, I suggested a trip to Gastown.  After scanning Urbanspoon (sign up and be my restaurant friend!), I settled on the well-reviewed and yummy menued.. The Greedy Pig.  I’m still peeved by this one, so I don’t want to get into it… but… Coles notes… Over an hour, no sandwiches – despite meals served and eaten by tables that arrived after us, an offer of 10% off for our troubles, and eventually the sandwiches thrown into to-go bags free of charge.  Mine wasn’t even a sandwich by the time I tried to eat it.  It seemed like it might have been good, but not worth the hassle.

I’m certain the busy waitress forgot to put our order in. I get that.  But she also did not figure it out in due time.  And when we called her on it, excuses rather than apologies started to fly.

Not every meal I’ve had lately was bad… despite the concussion, I stomached a few Chicken McNuggets on Saturday. Those were good and the service.. well, not terrible.

Now I’m trying to figure out if this is an actual issue or just a series of coincidences.  Have service standards gone downhill?