Pica Pica

First, the good, because it deserves praise. “Six Impossible Things Before Dinner” a sort of mind-reading show presented by Philip Escoffey in the Studio at the Sydney Opera House. I say “sort of” because – well, you would have to go to see it. Highly entertaining, totally baffling. Just two tips for you: 1) go, and 2) stay to the end.

And now the bad. Before the show we decided to eat in the “Opera Bar”. Drinks bought and food ordered, we sat with our identifying number (197) on clear view at our table, and waited for the food to be brought. The food order was very simple, but it was quite some time before anything arrived – but it was not what we had ordered. The waitress wandered off to try and find the proper recipient for what she had in hand.

After a few minutes a waiter approached, and asked us whether we had been given the number 197 at the bar, which of course we had. He was about to leave, but I asked him what was happening to the food we had ordered, since the wrong order had been brought to this number at our table. He said “Oh that’s coming, it’s on its way, it will only be a minute”. It felt like a brush-off.

Evidently it was indeed a brush-off, as still nothing happened for some time, until I felt compelled to ask if somebody could check what had happened to our food, explaining that entirely the wrong dish had been brought to us at number 197. More time went by. Finally we are approached again, and asked again what we had ordered. We are told “It’s just on its way, it will be here in just a minute”, but when we ask what “a minute” really means, there is no clear answer, except that we are asked if we would like another drink in the meantime. We decline, since we hve a show to watch, and ask for our money back. We leave.

The shame of this is, as so often, not the original mistake. Mistakes can happen, and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that a busy kitchen serving fast-ish food is a fertile ground for mistakes. But if the original mistake had been acknowledged and acted on, I would hardly be bothering to write about it now. If, having brought the wrong dish to our table, and presumably having found out where that dish was really meant to go, somebody had gone to the kitchen and asked where the right food for 197 had got to, we might scarcely have noticed that anything was wrong. At the latest, the time when I asked what was happening to our food should have been the signal for somebody to say “I’m sorry, we’ve made a mistake, please hang on”, to go to the kitchen and to make sure that our food was being prepared. It was the brush-offs, the “it will be here in a minute”, when it is quite obvious that, as far as the kitchen was concerned, 197 was gone and forgotten long ago – that is what made it annoying.

I am, of course, informing the Opera Bar of this little story, and will let you know of any response.

PS. I must tell you that I received a prompt and unreserved apology from the management. We look forward to going again!