DO NOT PATRONISE

This is a diary of hate.




OK, maybe I exaggerate.

I admit that I am quite a fussy eater, and quick to judge whenever food, service – or the general quality of the restaurants I go to – is sub-par. If a place fails to impress, rarely do I give it a second chance. Of course, this isn’t a cast-iron rule. I was far from moved the first time I visited Westend Bistro in DC, but regrettably went back, seduced by the name of Eric Ripert in the window. The second trip confirmed just how poor it was.

But I struggle to think of another eating establishment that I have so thoroughly detested, and yet visited so often, than the in-house restaurant at the club I go to. Even the Ratty had its moments, but I dare say that I have never had an enjoyable meal at Manzhu Café at the Chinese Swimming Club. And yet I go back.

Let me explain. The Chinese Swimming Club is a club in Katong, where my parents used to take my siblings and me when we were kids. I learnt to swim there, and we spent many Sunday mornings horsing around in the pool. Afterwards we would go to the in-house café and I remember that the fried chicken wings were absolutely spectacular. Perhaps their quality has been garnished slightly by my hazy memory, but no matter, it is the sentiment that counts.

Today, I retain my membership at the Chinese Swimming Club, which has changed dramatically over the years – and occasionally visit the gym there whenever the guilt from pigging out hits me. The kicker is that there is a monthly food and beverage levy, or quota you have to use each month – which gets forfeited otherwise. Pretty standard practice. But the only place you can use this credit is at the Manzhu Café, quite possibly the poorest excuse for a restaurant I have ever been in.

The Manzhu Café actually has a lot it could work with. Soaring ceilings and tall sheathes of glass for walls; it looks out at the swimming pools and, further still, at the low-rise skyline of the Mountbatten area, which is tranquillity typified. It seats at its maximum about 100, or 120, but I have never seen it that packed, and at most I have only ever seen it half-full.

The food, I should say upfront, is very mediocre. What pisses me off is that I cannot even say it is downright bad. That would actually make me more satisfied, to condemn it thus. But the problem is that it is not terrible, but just middling in every way, as if it were concocted to satisfy the greatest number of people at the lowest common denominator – and as a result truly gratifies nobody.

But what irks me the most about the Manzhu Café is the horrendous quality of service. There isn’t a hostess, so you have to seat yourself once you make your way in. This is not actually a big deal (and is actually par for the course at many places), but it is what happens after that that is infuriating. You would think that a restaurant would train its staff to attend to people that walk in, if not immediately, then pretty soon after they do. But I once walked in, sat in my seat for ten minutes, got up to get myself a menu from the station, and sat undisturbed for a further ten minutes. The waitstaff at the Manzhu Café do know how to do their jobs. They can bus tables, they can serve food, they are reasonably efficient at taking orders. These things - they can do. But it doesn't occur to them to do it, so you have to ask them to do it, which sort of defeats the ideal of service. I think that nobody has ever really connected all the dots for them, and shown them the different steps, different things to be done once a customer steps in, once he is seated, once his food comes, and so forth. First, it doesn't occur to them that customers want water when they sit down. But then once they have asked for it, and received it, it doesn't occur to the waitstaff to check back after a certain time to refill the glass. I do not know if it is innate in the staff that they hire, or a consequence of the training they go through, but there seems to be a complete lack of proaction in all of them. I have seen a whole gaggle of waiters chatting at the station – with the manager, even – while waters go unfilled and empty plates go uncleared. Even if there was nothing to do (which, in a restaurant, is a rare occurrence), public skiving by waitstaff is absolutely unacceptable. The dining experience is a jigsaw, with many different parts, some of which are causal of others, some of which necessitate others. It is only the very best restaurants who succeed at piecing this jigsaw together perfectly for its customers, so that they do not have to themselves.

(There is one lady, an older Eurasian-looking lady, who is the sole exception to all I have described – the one ray of sunshine in the Manzhu Café. She always has a smile for everyone and is the most conscientious of the lot. I try to sit in her section when I can, but it is not always possible.)

The sad thing is that I am forced to go there, otherwise I forfeit a sum of money each month. It is not the amount, but the principle of the matter that counts. And what pisses me off even further is the knowledge that the Manzhu Café is effectively being subsidised – by the F&B levies from all the members of Chinese Swimming Club. If this place were running on its own merit, without customers who were obliged to patronise it each month – it would close down in a heartbeat. I have no doubt of that.

So I continue to visit the Manzhu Café. The first few times going back I still held out hope that things would change, that the previous times were aberrations. Each time I was disappointed, or driven mad by something. And nothing tastes good when you are angry. At this point I do not know what I would do if the service suddenly improved. Now, each time I go back, I almost physically manhandle the first person I see upon walking in – and state in no unclear terms that I would like a menu and a glass of water, please. You have to. Otherwise you could be there for a while.

For some reason I thought that writing all this down would lessen my hate of the Manzhu Café.

I was wrong.