They Used to be so good, What Happened?
My fiance and I have eaten here over two hundred times (once or twice a week or more for the past 2+ years). We've noticed the service slipping over the past six months or so. Tonight we went in to order something we order a lot here. We weren't greeted or seated, but we're regulars, so we just sat ourselves.
After a much too long time, one of the two newish waitresses finally came over to take our order. We told her our drink orders and were about to tell her our food orders, but she walked away. More time went by, and finally she brought our drinks. We told her our simple orders (two noodle bowls, one with tofu and onions, one with shrimp and onions but no cilantro, both with the Vietnamese egg roll topping option), but due to her pathetic English skills, she did not understand us. We repeated our orders. She repeated them back wrong. We repeated them again. I repeated NO CILANTRO (I HATE cilantro). She said she understood. We never saw her write anything down.
When the orders came, we saw immediately his was wrong - shrimp instead of tofu, and no egg roll topping. We sent it back. I began to eat mine, and after just one forkful bit into a LARGE chunk of cilantro. EWW! We tried to get her attention again, but every time she looked at us she looked away fast. We tried to ask the other waitress to get her for us, but she didn't do it.
Finally we just left and went to the car. Before I started the engine, I said to him, "Hey, we've been eating here for a long time. We should tell the manager what happened." So we went back in. I asked for the manager. He came out of the back and we told him what happened. He said, "Oh, I'm sorry, sh!t happens in the restaurant business." We asked him what he intended to do about it, and he said, "Nothing. I'm the owner. I don't have to do anything."
I sure hope he doesn't have that attitude toward food safety and cleanliness. I'm not taking any chances. I'm not going back, and I'm telling the 25+ co-workers I introduced the place to WHY I'm not going back. We're devastated to have lost a formerly favorite restaurant, but we have no choice.