Archive for July, 2008

I was at Prime Steak Restaurant at the Le Meridien on Monday for a business luncheon. Now my Eric, he doesn't quite like the food at Prime, which he politely grades as 'overpriced, overrated, not so nice' but I still like going there for business lunches, especially if the guest is of very high priority level – I like the ambience, and I love the huge armchairs they sit you in.

However, Monday's lunch experience at Le Prime Grill kinda killed my opinion of the place. Or maybe they had some trainee waitresses waiting on us that day. I don't know. I just remember the plates clanging and a lot of shuffling around the table as the ladies assigned to our table tried to do their job. And then, as we were just about to dig into our main course, one of the girls actually dropped the plate of butter and cream.

A few minutes later I was to be reminded that the rated five-star restaurant (which places skyscraper prices on its steaks) didn't exactly have very five-starred service. My phone rang, and as it was necessary to answer the call, I took leave from the table and was on my way out of the private room, when I slipped, slid and fell on the hard wood panelled floor with a great thud and half a split. RIGHT in front of my lunch dates. And these were rather important people, mind you, all of them editors and reporters. Talk about a way to impress the guests.

Apparently, the waitress who spilt the butter FORGOT to clean the floor, and so I had conveniently stepped on butter, cream, and oil.

Never mind no one came to apologize to me personally, and instead my staff who was sitting outside was given a card, where the F&B manager said, 'Please tell your friend inside to call me so that we can help her.' That was Monday. So now I fall in your restaurant and you expect me to call you back to tell you, 'Excuse me, sir, thanks to your waitress I fell and hurt myself. So now what?'

Two days later, nursing a bruised hip, a scratched knee and a twisted ankle, I visited the doctor with a black patch on my left foot. 'Its a blood clot, and well, I'm going to give you some reparil, and require you to come back on Monday,' said the doctor. 'If it doesn't get better, we'll have to do an x-ray. I hope there's no broken bones. And oh, no high heels for the next month'

The problem is NOT possibility of broken bones. See I can handle that. But I'm shallow and I have a problem walking around my office in house slippers and a bandaged foot. I'm also shallow to the extent that I want to complain about not being able to wear heels… or the other problem of not being able to take my engagement photos in sexy heels.  I'm so shallow I am not interested in going for business meetings and seminars, limping, in oversized slippers and I am just not keen on telling people the tale of 'how I fell and sprained my ankle at the five starred Prime restaurant.'

Not this month, not this week. Because I have too many meetings to attend and now I've to go to all of them with a limp.

The other thing is I'm just annoyed at the stupid waitress who split butter, because when I looked at her to sign the bill and told her that she needs to be more rigorous and urgent over cleaning up, she just stuck out her tongue in the most unprofessional manner, and instead of saying sorry, she GIGGLED. (You think I'm your friend-ke? Don't do that thing, that's the kind of behavior you reserve for high school kids)

 And the F&B Manager, couldn't even come to me direct, or to our table, because of this reason, 'Didn't want to interrupt you guys in your important conversation,' and instead, he leaves a card behind, telling me and my staff to call them if there's any problem.

…

So today, I decide to call the front desk of the hotel to highlight the matter. I said, 'Look, this is a five star hotel, its the LE MERIDIEN, and this is really quite ridiculous. Why is it that no one returned to us to at least find out how we were, how our guests were.'

And it took them two days to come up with a defensive, 'Oh yeah we wanted to find out how things were but didn't have your number.'

Gosh. We booked a table and we called a few times to confirm the menu. NO number ke? Come on.

…

So later in the afternoon I received this bouquet of flowers from the Le Meridien's inhouse florist, Mulberry, with a we're so sorry card attached to it. Cantik kan? But you know, even the delivery guy saw my bandaged foot and he said, 'Aiyoh, the nice flowers won't cover the damages man.'

-_-"

Well. Its a pretty bouquet, I'll give them that. I had people wishing me HAPPY BIRTHDAY today damn it. And I hate this kind of unnecessary attention. Because of the bouquet I had to point my colleagues to my sandaled feet and tell the tale of the butter slipping incident and the heavy bandage. (Yah I rant, I rant!).

I'm in PR, and in the service industry myself. And honestly, I feel for the hotel. If I were in their shoes, I'd not know what to do either. But I think, here, that the Le Meridien has A LOT to learn from The Mandarin Oriental's Pacifica Grill and Bar. The last time I was invited there for dinner, my friend was served the wrong dish, and the entire meal was given to her FOC with an additional invite to go back for another round.

You'd think the hotel's PR would want to be as discreet as possible about the matter right? But no, they decided to play 'courting Boyfriend' and send me a bouquet of flowers'. COOL! Now I get to tell the WHOLE office and my family, my fiance and my friends how and why I got a bouquet of flowers. Man.