Skyscraper

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Red Lemon - We Left With A Sour Taste

The meal that never was. That was our red lemon experience. Red Lemon is a cafe on Swan Street in Richmond. We had arranged to meet at Richmond before going to the Hawthorn versus North Melbourne footy final. I had commented to Justin that it was all going to go bad, as with our usual dinner before a big sporting event experiences. How right I was going to be.

Initially, we met at the Swan Hotel to eat. It was totally packed so we decided to go someplace else, sighting all these other restaurants on Swan Road. We walked down the street back towards the station and the MCG. Upon passing a lot of place, enquires within showed that most were full. Finally, we passed Red Lemon and they had a table so decided to go in. The huge blackboard with all these different simple quick meals also meant we could eat quickly and get to the match. How wrong we were to be.

When we got seated, we got given menus, which had all of 5, yes 5 items on it. When we wanted to order the dishes on the blackboard, we were told those were for lunch only and we couldn't order that. Ok. So out of the huge choices, most of us opted for the Porterhouse Steak, which was only a measly 200g instead of the usual 350g and would cost $19. What the heck, we needed to eat and beggers can't be choosers. We had a footy match to go to.

As we sat and waited, and waited, and waited, all the while looking at our watches and saying "Now we have .... minutes to eat", we finally had enough. Hence we discussed leaving and just grabbing some fast food on the way. When the waiter/owner heard us, he rushed over and very arrogantly put his hand on Justin and said, "It's only 5 more minutes". Justin then replied that we really had to go, to which the owner started to get aggresive and said "It's only 5 more minutes". Then Ha said that we had already been waiting 45 minutes, in which his reply was "You came in a big group (there was only six of us) and it was really busy when you got here". That still doesn't change that we waited 45 minutes and really had to leave now. I mean, how hard is it to cook a few steaks, especially when most of us wanted it medium rare too. There are only 5 items on the menu, most of which would already be half prepared already.

So we got up and left to catch our footy match. The owner walked out behind us and said "I don't want to see you come back ever again". We won't be thanks. So that was the meal that we never had. Not that I was particularly looking forward to it. It looked quite expensive and there wasn't exactly a lot of choice.

Has anyone else ever walked out of a restaurant? I've done it one other time when the food was really taking forever and we had a movie to catch. It wasn't as confrontational that time as we just said that we had a movie to catch and had to leave. The waitress said that was ok and cancelled our orders. This time, our meals hadn't begun being cooked yet either, so I don't know why the owner was getting so upset for.

14 comments:

  1. I've never walked after giving my order but have asked to see a menu in a restaurant a couple of times, looked at the menu, found nothing appealing and moved on.

    I guess it depends whether they already started to prepare your meals in which case they lose the cost price of 6 steaks. I agree 45 mins is a long delay, especially if you made it clear at the outset you needed to get out of there at a certain time.

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  2. Sorry, zero tolerance for slow orders. I've canceled so many previous orders. It doesn't matter if they've started preparing. If their service is such, then they certainly don't deserve my wait.

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  3. Truffle, I haven't done the look and go option yet as I normally just stay and say to myself "I'll see how it goes". I guess I should go sometimes if there is not appealing to me on the menu.

    They hadn't started our orders yet so I don't know what the big fuss was. They weren't losing any money from it.

    Alan, you have a very tough stance. I guess I'm not aggressive enough and feel like I shouldn't cause a scene.

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  4. You forgot the include the most important detail to this article

    What score did they get out of 20?

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  5. Did the waiter actually put his hand on Justin? Which part of the body?

    That could be common assault particularly if it was in the never never regions

    Please advise!!

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  6. well at least you gotta to eat at the MCG which serves the best quality foods with bestest prices around the Zoig Galaxy.

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  7. Very arrogantly put his hands on Justin!

    I bet he was a white piece of shit!!!

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  8. Anonymous, I would give them a score if I got to try anything besides water.

    Anonymous, the waiter walked after Justin but they were out the door and I was still trying to catch up so don't know whether he put his hand on him.

    Anonymous, funny you mention that, because the burgers at the MCG were quite good actually. It was $7.50 for a beef burger on a good tasting bun. The patty was cooked to a nice charred flavour too.

    Anonymous, he didn't touch Justin I don't think.

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  9. Thanh would you believe i once participated in a walk out at movida? Not in protest about the food or service (or at least some elements of it) of course. We had tix to a comedy festival show and we had to leave as our dishes still hadn't showed up after some 45 mins of ordering them (it was exceedingly busy that night i guess). The waiter was really nice about it (we did have a couple of drinks so i guess to them it wasn't too much a waste), but we did tell him in advance that we had to be out of there before 8 and we thought a little over an hour was sufficient time to order and eat. Anyway, its fair to say this experience didn't prevent us from revisiting the place on other occassions.

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  10. Serenity, a walk out from Movida, omg. I can't even get a table there without booking 3 weeks in advance so I would only go there if I had heaps of time to enjoy the whole night. But I totally understand where you're coming from. You had to be some place else since you already had tickets. Just like we already had expensive tickets to the footy finals and had to be out of there in time for the match. At least Movida have a huge menu and is extremely busy so they have an excuse. This place had all of 5 items on the menu, with the pasta, chicken parma, burgers and steak all easy to make.

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  11. Da Da Da Da
    The smell of your skin lingers on me now
    You're probably on your flight back to your home town
    I need some shelter of my own protection baby
    To be with myself and center, clarity
    Peace, Serenity

    [CHORUS:]
    I hope you know, I hope you know
    That this has nothing to do with you
    It's personal, myself and I
    We've got some straightenin' out to do
    And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
    But I've got to get a move on with my life
    It's time to be a big girl now
    And big Thanh don't cry
    Don't cry
    Don't cry
    Don't cry

    The path that I'm walking
    I must go alone
    I must take the baby steps 'til I'm full grown, full grown
    Fairytales don't always have a happy ending, do they?
    And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay

    [CHORUS:]
    I hope you know, I hope you know
    That this has nothing to do with you
    It's personal, myself and I
    We've got some straightenin' out to do[Big Thanh Don't Cry lyrics on http://www.metrolyrics.com]
    And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
    But I've got to get a move on with my life
    It's time to be a big girl now
    And big Thanh don't cry

    Like the little school mate in the school yard
    We'll play jacks and uno cards
    I'll be your best friend and you'll be mine Valentine
    Yes you can hold my hand if you want to
    'Cause I want to hold yours too
    We'll be playmates and lovers and share our secret worlds
    But it's time for me to go home
    It's getting late, dark outside
    I need to be with myself and center, clarity
    Peace, Serenity

    [CHORUS]
    I hope you know, I hope you know
    That this has nothing to do with you
    It's personal, myself and I
    We've got some straightenin' out to do
    And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
    But I've got to get a move on with my life
    It's time to be a big girl now
    And big Thanh don't cry
    Don't cry
    Don't cry
    Don't cry

    La Da Da Da Da Da

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  12. Thank you Fergie for the personalised lyrics. I can hear your sweet voice singing it in my head now. Very very funny indeed. :-)

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  13. I had once walked out from restaurant ~Dainty Sichuan(haven't oredered anything. just in the queue)~ with my frens as we had been waiting for 30 minutes in the line and needed to catch a movie afterwards. but in ur case, the owner n the waiter were quite rude,esp. if they haven't started cooking yet and also you have been waiting for such a long time.

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  14. Ironeaters, I think in most cases, people leave when they have somewhere else to go and its taking too long.

    I wonder if anyone has ever walked out after say the entrees because they were so bad and they couldn't eat them at all?

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