Nando's

This is an open letter to Nando's Pavilion and/or its management/crew/staff... My friend and I was at your establishment for dinner after our movie last weekend. I have been to Nando's many times. At other malls like KLCC, Midvalley or Jusco Maluri. Normally, I (and my friends/colleagues) would walk away quite satisfied. With both the food and the service.

However, this time, the service was really bad. Extremely bad. This is like an open letter/complaint to you/your establishment. Ordinarily, I would have just ignored it but the gross disservice needed to be made known.

Nando's Pavilion has a special menu called Just @ Pavilion... one of the items on the menu is called Cataplana, which was chicken thighs on a bed of rice and grilled veggies. Definitely delicious. So my friend went ahead and ordered it. Since I've had that before, I ordered the classic Nando's dish, the quarter chicken with the potato salad and mediterranean rice as side dishes. Had that before also and yes, it's yummy.

So after a while, the cataplana arrives in a metal dish that looks a bit like a War Turtle... hehe

And yes, as expected, the food was great... But my quarter chicken dish was nowhere in sight. The cataplana was almost finished and still no quarter chicken. And it seemed no one cared enough to explain to us why this was so. No one was even looking over at our table. It would have been nice if I was made aware of the delay or whatever snafu that had occurred in the kitchen.

To add insult to injury, every other table keeps getting a visit from one of your waiters and all I kept seeing was quarter chickens on plates... Kept my cool. Maybe they've ordered before me. But as time goes by, it appeared that my plate would not appear...

Is it really hard to bang out a staple dish? But then, someone, I think she was the floor manager or something, asked us if we had another order pending... wonder what tipped her off? Was it because I was sitting with an angry body posture, folding my arms and nothing in front of me? Or did she really check up on the orders and realized that mine had not arrived? And it was not just me... the table next to mine was also experiencing the same problem...

At that point, I had knocked back two glasses of Sprite... and came my food finally...

So I asked for another refill... the waiter came over and refilled my glass... with something else... looked like 100Plus coz it was a bit cloudy and Sprites are supposed to be clear... I asked, nicely, if that was Sprite and the waiter gave me attitude... he asked me if I had a different drink before this and now attempting to cheat by ordering something else... I did not appreciate the attitude but I was not rude either... I explained the glass was effing empty when he poured the refill... and he grabbed the glass and went off...

After waiting and waiting and waiting... the drink never came... we kept looking around for waiters and literally can see about three working the floor, including the floor manager... we signaled to the guy behind the counter and he nodded, pointing to a glass of Sprite on the counter but there was no one to grab it and bring it to our table... contemplated going over there and taking it for myself but I decided to wait...

Finally, when it came, it came without the straw... which was fine, I can sip from the glass... no big deal... but the waiter saw I was sipping from the glass and he grabbed a couple of straws and just flung it to our table...

The attitude on this guy... wow, it's like he was Beyonce or Madonna... And after all this, I still did not get a single apology... not for the lateness of the food, not for the wrong refill, not for the long wait to receive back the right drink... nothing...

Also, there was an issue with the seating because they've closed down the section where we were seated... and others try to seat there but weren't allowed... Unfortunately, this decision was not relayed to the entire team so a party managed to get seated... two guys who were refused to be seated there started complaining to the floor manager... she did not even apologized to them... she immediately went to one of the waiters and told him the sitch and asked him to fix it while she huffily walked away... Sigh...

We immediately decided to leave, even before I completely finished eating, which is something I had never done in a Nando's... we did pay before we left though... we do not have attitudes, unlike some waiter...

So, for those this may concern (and if you are reading it), please fix the way your staff works and interact with the customers... a little courteous goes a long way... thank you...

The Wan & Only