On December 15, 2002, me and my friend had gone
to visit V&A museum. At about 3 o clock we got hungry and
decided to grab some lunch.We came across this restaurant known
as Shaheen of Knightsbridge, an Indian restaurant. Because we
still had quite a bit of the museum still left to be visited,
we decided to make it a quick lunch and rush back.
We ordered 2 Naan (pitta bread), one vegetable (Chana Masala),
1 Pillau rice, and 1 raita (Curd). Me and my friend are poor eaters,
and at this hour we did not want a heavy lunch as dinner was with
a friend at 730 PM. The waiter made a face at us as soon as we
ordered this, and said, "I am sorry but this won't be sufficient"
I said we don’t want a full lunch. This is all we want to
eat. He went and spoke to someone and then finally told us he
will get us some food as he was obliging us.
It took a full 50 minutes for him to produce the first morsel
of food to us. And trust me, the quantity of vegetable he got
us was laughable. It was so obvious that he gave us less quantiy
of the vegetable to prove his point that it wont be sufficient
for us. However, as I said, we are poor eaters and we decided
not to make a fuss about it in front of other customers. The vegetable
was EXACTLY TWO spoons portion, one spoon for each of us. I have
reason to believe that this is not their regular portion as the
couple next to us were given more portions of another vegetable
in a similar container (not that I have the habit of peeping on
next tables)
After finishing, he took about 15 minutes for getting the check
after being told so. And not surprisingly, there was an error
in the bill. The vegetable was charged £5.50, whereas the
menu said £4.50. I asked him if he had erred. He didn’t
say a word, and got me a menu card, as if I was wrong. I decided
to cross check if I was mistaken and found that Chana masala WAS
£4.50. I asked him and he said because we didn’t order
much, we have to pay more!! I HAVE NEVER HEARD ANYTHING SO RIDICULOUS!!!
NEVER EVER!!!
I decided to argue, and I decided to do so a little softly to
make sure that other customers were not hearing us. He walked
away from us, almost yelling, “You can’t just come
here and just order a chana masala as a main dish”. He wanted
to make us look like cheapskates in front of other customers.
I do not wish to say that £15.30 was a huge bill, or that
I was fighting for £1.00. I cannot afford to tolerate a
restaurant and a waiter behaving to a customer like that.
Finally he ended with: "If you want to eat like this, there
is a cheap chicken kebab shop next door, why don’t you guys
just eat at such places?" Now what does that mean? The restaurant
charges 12.2% service charge. For what? For a waiter to insult
his customers? We felt horrible on that day. My friend had recently
come from India and she got a bad impression.
I would like to know:
1) Can a hotel charge more that they say on their menu card because
we went there just to have a little lunch? There was no written
statement saying that.
2) I am not too sure about this, but is there no way to NOT give
service charge for a service that wasn’t even offered?
3) We really felt insulted and humiliated. Is there no way such
pathetic service can be taken care of? Is there no restaurateurs
association to which I can complain?
I would be obliged on any help on this matter. It’s not
about the extra 1 pound or the money lost on service charge. I
want these people to know that they can’t get away with
insulting customers.
I have the bill to prove what I said. My friend can also assert
whatever I have complained so far. There is absolutely no exaggeration
in whatever I said, and I feel deeply humiliated by such a rough
incident. Please reply. I will appreciate any help, any advice
offered on this. Thanks.
Truly. Ankit.
