"Little Asia" : The Multi-Awarded Restaurant with the Worst Staff
We just had a very bad experience in the Greenhills branch of “Little Asia” last night. The food was good alright so I won’t complain about that. I’ve had my share of bad service experiences but theirs is the WORST I’ve had so far.
We waited about half an hour for the food. That would have been okay if we didn’t see other customers getting served before us and we came there BEFORE them. Their excuse was that our chicken was delayed because it takes a longer time to cook. Well I say BS to that. It wasn’t even a whole-size chicken and the other customers ordered more elaborate dishes. Bottom line is, we were discriminated. I still can’t believe that some restaurants do this.
Even simple things like filling up again our glasses with water was also neglected. They started serving the rest of our food after we started complaining. And what restaurant serves the dessert together with the main dish? I told the waiter to put it back in the fridge because the ice cream would melt. Later, I ask for it again and what does he say when he comes back with the mango crepe? “Inayos ko na yan ha?” - in a bad-mannered tone as if implying that we should be very grateful that the ice cream was served properly this time. Well shouldn’t it be?
And to top it all, the staff was incredibly rude when talking to us. They utter side comments when they pass by our tables. I couldn’t even believe I was hearing those things from people who were supposed to be serving us customers.
My colleague asked for a manager or supervisor but they said there wasn’t one available. We asked several times but they still insisted that there was no one. Refusal to escalate an issue is a big no-no in customer service. It felt as if they were not worried at all if we left the restaurant in a bad mood because after all, we were just nobodies to them.
They said sorry to us countless times but we can tell from their faces they were genuinely insincere about it. They offered some kind of dessert probably as a “peace offering” but we did not even dared to touch it. Well, who knows where that thing came from? Instead, they could have done us a favor by actually admitting their faults and letting us speak to a manager.
One thing’s for sure, Little Asia is definitely not the best restaurant in Asia (contrary to what their numerous “awards” last 2005 say). Good food alone doesn’t make a restaurant the best of all.
I’m not completely ruling out the possibility of eating at Little Asia again because they admittedly serve good food. (There’s still the Tomas Morato branch.) But then there’s also the question of why risk getting bad service when there are several other restaurants in town that serve excellent food and service too? Little Asia (Greenhills) is certainly not one of them, unfortunately.
