Thread: Please teach them to serve customers

Originally Posted by mordred

but shouldn't it be common sense?

Common sense has to be imported into Thailand as there is none to be found locally. Unfortunatley there is a 300% import duty so it's pretty rare here

Seems standard practice these days in most Pattaya restaurants that you get the entree some time after the main "curse" has arrived.

We like the food at a western restaurant that always has good DVD's playing on the beach rd in Najomtien - during the "high season" a few weeks ago. it took them 40 minutes to deliver the entree and 50 min to serve a soda water and a fresh watermelon juice
Usually the service is instant but this time "poblum wit compew-ter , solly"

Originally Posted by Spin

Originally Posted by mordred

but shouldn't it be common sense?

Common sense has to be imported into Thailand as there is none to be found locally. Unfortunatley there is a 300% import duty so it's pretty rare here

'Common sense', Spin? Common....as a collective standard? Perhaps you mean to inflict Western "sense" and standards as the definitive. That won't work. Never has, nor ever will. Common sense.....

Does not that fat George over on TV own some of these sizzlers, why not complain to him, or the manager. The customer is always wrong in Thailand.

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

'Common sense', Spin? Common....as a collective standard? Perhaps you mean to inflict Western "sense" and standards as the definitive. That won't work. Never has, nor ever will. Common sense....

Shut up, at once.

Wow............. how intense.

it happened to me when i was eating some place in Cambodia last year. I ordered a side dish and a main meal with rice plus a beer. The main meal came 1st minus the rice and no beer. so i just sat there, twiddling my thumbs while the staff paid no attention. finally the beer came but still no side order or rice.

must of been about 30 mins before someone said something and my bowl of rabbit food came. Great, now to start my meal

^yeah, the other night I went to the bar and there were 3 service chicks for each customer, the bitches know what I drink and are on the case as soon as I walk in, totally destroying my odering experience. I'm getting fat from not having to walk to the bar for each single drink. Almost as annoying as when I go into a department store and someone is following ready to assist, it makes me oh so uncomfortable, or the slut that cuts my hair and throws in a facial treatment and double head massage. Fuck that, we have OHS laws back home preventing hair technitians from touching the face for a reason.......fokd if I know what it is. These Thais though, useless bunch of halfwits with their non regimented dining ways. When will the street stall figure out I want to be served my pork soup 15 minutes after finishing my dry pork skin, and there should be a sorbet in between to prepare the pallet for the main. Seriously.

Outside of 'fine dining', aka expensive places, the only way to regulate the order of your meal in Thailand is to order your starter first, then when that comes order the main course. Better still, order your drinks first, then when that comes, order your starter...

That will at least mean you eat in courses, but you've still got the problem that whoever you are with, well their meal will arive at random intervals compared to yours. Frankly I've given up, and just give it a 'mai pan rai' shrug.

^well use my method order your appetizer first then order your dinner when you receive the appetizer. Never had it go pear shape yet!!!

Originally Posted by Spin

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

'Common sense', Spin? Common....as a collective standard? Perhaps you mean to inflict Western "sense" and standards as the definitive. That won't work. Never has, nor ever will. Common sense....

Shut up, at once.

Good reply to an answer you don't like

Fact is that serving food hot and in partiular order is a western cultural preference, not common sense.

Originally Posted by kingwilly

Fact is that serving food hot and in partiular order is a western cultural preference, not common sense

wheres the sense in the rice turning up 30 mins after the rest of the meal? has happened to me a couple of times, no cook yet was the answer

Originally Posted by crazy dog

wheres the sense in the rice turning up 30 mins after the rest of the meal?

Actually, in the traditional Chinese banquet the rice and noodles come right at the end- the Fillers after you've got the nice stuff out of the way.

It's just meals on the run that are served 'on rice'.

Wheres the sense in eating in the company of other people, each with his own discrete little plate of stuff- when you can lob it all in the middle and share, Asian style? I guess it's how you look at it, what you're accustomed too.

Isn't the salad bar at Sizzler all you can eat? Do people really order an all you can eat salad bar AND a meal? I'll bet it's more than customer service that's chapping your ass.

Originally Posted by sabang

Wheres the sense in eating in the company of other people, each with his own discrete little plate of stuff- when you can lob it all in the middle and share, Asian style? I guess it's how you look at it, what you're accustomed too.

indeed.

intercultural awareness, more than just a buzz phrase.

Originally Posted by mordred

I order food that comes with the salad bar or salad and the meal comes before you've had a chance to take the first bite of your salad.

At Sizzler it's a help yourself salad bar which takes 5 mins to grab. Can't believe they brought your maincourse during that time. PDQ if you ask me.

I prefer to eat my salad at the same time as the main course, its a side dish.

go figure.

The one that really winds me up is when you go out for dinner with a few friends - you all order - and the food comes one dish at a time with anything up to 15 minutes between each one.
The result is that the recipient of the first dish either waits politely until the others are served- by which time the dish is cold - or gets tucked in and is finished before the others have even started !
Its an Eastern thing - not just Thai - but it is annoying !

Originally Posted by Happyman

The one that really winds me up is when you go out for dinner with a few friends - you all order - and the food comes one dish at a time with anything up to 15 minutes between each one. The result is that the recipient of the first dish either waits politely until the others are served- by which time the dish is cold - or gets tucked in and is finished before the others have even started ! Its an Eastern thing - not just Thai - but it is annoying !

Originally Posted by DrB0b

The Eastern thing would be for everybody to share the food, there should be no individual orders. For example, 3 people might order 4 dishes which everybody shares. One dish per person is Western and Thai staff, even in some restaurants serving Western food, have serious difficulties understanding the concept.

But even if 1 order used 3 different dishes, they would still not be servrd at the same time, no matter how you try to explain it, Thai are still the most inconsiderate, thoughtless bastards even given breath on this planet,, I have seen hogs with 5 times the logical thinking of Thai.

Originally Posted by DrB0b

One dish per person is Western and Thai staff, even in some restaurants serving Western food, have serious difficulties understanding the concept.

Well if the restaurant is serving western food to westerners then the owner should explain the concept to his staff until they understand it.
Shrugging shoulders and saying "farang big problem" won't make a success of his business

Originally Posted by Thetyim

Originally Posted by DrB0b

One dish per person is Western and Thai staff, even in some restaurants serving Western food, have serious difficulties understanding the concept.

Well if the restaurant is serving western food to westerners then the owner should explain the concept to his staff until they understand it.
Shrugging shoulders and saying "farang big problem" won't make a success of his business

True. I'm not making excuses for them, just trying to find a nice way to say they're retarded without using the word "retarded". Guess I failed