Had an interesting dining experience last night. The Missus, Robbie, and I went to Blue Orchid with another couple and their young daughter. They were first-timers. We arrived around 5:30pm to discover that they were nearly booked solid with reservations. (Note to self: next time, make a reservation.) Fortunately, they were able to squeeze us in thanks to a recently-canceled reservation. As it turns out, I wonder if those people knew what was about to happen.
We were seated, we ordered, and we had a nice conversation. Robbie was in a good mood, the atmosphere was great, the service was great ... it was developing into a fine evening. Heck, we had even managed to snag a parking spot in Blue Orchid's tiny parking lot. Suddenly, it got very, very noisy. Fire alarms tend to be like that. Everybody in the restaurant froze momentarily. I think everybody expected the chefs to come barreling out of the kitchen, chef hats and aprons aflame. When that didn't happen, nobody quite knew what to do. The staff did the only thing they could do: they went about their duties. A few moments later they had obviously been briefed and told to deliver a specific line: they had confirmed there was no fire in the restaurant, and the manager was checking the rest of the building to find out what was going on. Robbie was surprisingly tolerant of the noise, much to our relief. He didn't seem to be fazed by it, so we tried to ignore it as best we could.
Until the firetruck arrived, that is. We all had to leave at that point. It only took a couple minutes to herd everybody outside. The staff did their best to apologize and to thank everybody for their patience. After a couple minutes the manager made an announcement that they had found the source of the alarm, and that we would be back inside within a few minutes. Sure enough, shortly thereafter a firefighter came out of the building with a smoldering and partially melted plastic bucket. They grabbed a hose, drenched the bucket ... and that was that. The bucket had contained discarded cigarettes, and apparently it began smoking enough to set off the building's alarms. It was never clear where the bucket came from (a break room? one of the building's apartments?).
Once we were back inside, the evening carried on almost normally. Service wasn't quite as good because the staff's rhythm was out-of-whack, and our food was obviously delayed since the kitchen had to start over. But overall I was impressed with how smoothly the staff worked through such an unfortunate hiccup in the evening. I was especially impressed with how they all seemed to be on the same page at all times. As far as I could tell, nobody deviated from the script. That's good training, good personnel, or probably both.
On a more general note, my seared garlic stir fry with shrimp was excellent. I still haven't had a bad meal at Blue Orchid.
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Glad to hear you had such a pleasant dining experience there. I want to get to Blue Orchid and try them out after that recommendation.
Myself, I had the opposite experience last night. With no fire alarm or any other problem I could see to cause it, I had some *awfully* sub-par service and food at Scrumpy Jack’s. It was our first and last visit to that dining establishment.
Why?
- We were offered a drink refill ONCE in our hour and fifteen minute stay at the table.
- Our appetizer came without the dipping sauce that was described in the menu. When I asked the waitress about it she turned the claim back around on me and denied that it was suposed to come with one. When I re-suggested that I was fairly certain it said on the menu that there was a dipping sauce, her response was “Well, maybe it did in the past, but it hasn’t for a long time. These are old menus.” At this point I got nervous - was I gong to get the entree I ordered, or was the menu wrong about that also? (She eventually brought us some other kind of dipping sauce later - after we were done with the appetizer.)
- The tables are pressed uncomfortably close together. Having to move your chair every time the waitress needs to get past your row to the back row of the dining area is not cool. They really need to remove one table set-up per row. I can’t imagine the Fire Marshall would approve.
- My entree was room temperature, my wife’s was cool.
- After finishing our meals, we sat for a good ten minutes scanning the room for our waitress. When we finally saw her, she was walking over to a table of 10 people who were just sitting down. By the time she took their drink orders and filled them and then came over to see if we wanted dessert, we had been done eating for nearly 30 minutes, and it had been 40+ minutes since she had been to our table.
Having worked in the food industry in High School and College (my wife too) we tend to be really leanient towards waitstaff. Maybe she was given too many tables, maybe the kitchen was behind, maybe the manager was having her roll silverware or something. As far as we could see, nothing was preventing her from giving us decent service.
As for the food, average at best. Had I paid $8 for my entree I would have said - “Yeah, they could have kept it warmer, but it was OK Aisan tuna.” But I didn’t. I paid $17 for it. And it was not OK. For the first time in my life I believe there was too much meat and not enough “garnish”. It was a full tuna steak on a tiny bed of noodles that I can only guess was decorative, because there was about 3 bites worth. There was a plate FULL of tuna though.
The meal was not cheap ($54) for two adults with no bar drinks or dessert. I’m not averse to paying that price for a decent meal with decent service, but Scrumpy Jack’s food and especially the service I got there were not worth the price I paid. Not even remotely close.
It made me kind of sad when I was walking to the car, shaking my head and thinking that I could have gotten much better food and service at a national chain. I WANT local places to survive, but they have to give a better effort than that.
That’s too bad. I had two good experiences there, one was an outstanding lunch experience and the other a nice dinner—certainly nothing like you just described. That sounds awful and inexcusable.
I wonder if this restaurant is limping to an end, considering Doughboyz Pizza, its counterpart, closed shop a few weeks ago. I hope not, I like the local dining options too and support those over franchises as often as I can.
Blue Orchid IS a great place to eat. The service is great and the food is very good. We plan to get there often.
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