I Just Wanted a Burger!!
I’m hungry. I shouldn’t be. But I am. I guess in one way that is a good thing: my doctor tells me a loss of appetite is one of the first signs of kidney deterioration. So I guess, it’s good that I am hungry.
But I sure tried to get a good meal last night. Three restaurants and several attempts went totally in vane. All I got for two hours of dining was a basket of onion rings. Not that I didn’t try though. (Yep this is another story about the difficulties of eating out in Dongguan.)
A friend and I went over to the Pub last evening. But we decided to skip away after a beer to try a new restaurant. You don’t want to eat at the Pub every night, and Sunday can get a little noisy after the weekend local soccer matches and with F1 racing.
Our destination was one of the first western style restaurants in the area, and it was the very first I tried here in
Place looked great, and we were ushered in to our choice of the whole place. (Should have been a sign right there.) Getting a menu, I was surprised how similar it looked to the one from the Pub. Even down to the color of the menu. (Did they just get some extra copies printed?) But I didn’t see a food menu. Suddenly, a waiter was moving a big blackboard over from the window. So that’s the menu. It didn’t have but about five very fancy items. I just wanted a burger like the first time I had dined here.
Asking the waiter for a burger, he took off to the kitchen to inquire. Returning quickly, he informed us that yes, they could do a burger. Good. Studying a little closer and letting my friend order first, I finally told the waiter I wanted a burger with cheese, lettuce and tomato. But then, he didn’t understand what cheese was. I had to look up the Mandarin on my phone translator. I still got one of those blank stares, and some response about the sirloin. Wait a minute! Steak? I want hanbaobao (Mandarin for hamburger)! A continued blank look.
At that point, I looked at my friend and we agreed that maybe we should come back when the place has things figured out a little better. So out we went.
Now I told ya that part to lead to the real story!
At this point we decided to step into another nearby western restaurant that had also remodeled a month or so before. I had not been too impressed at the Grand Opening, but that was just for drinks, and maybe they now had had time to work out kinks. And besides it was only a few doors away.
And you know, the menu looked good. Much better than I remembered. Only the waitress wasn’t so good with English. She finally understood that I wanted iced tea and hamburger, with an appetizer order of onion rings.
After a long wait, my friend’s order arrived first. Finally, I got my hamburger, but still hadn’t received the appetizer of onion rings and the plate had a big pile of French fries. So at this point, I just told the waitress to forget the onion rings.
But wait, I looked under the egg………. (Yep, the bloody Brits had an influence on this place too and they had put an egg on the hamburger). The burger patty was still very red. Now I go along with a lot odd things to eat in China, but I did not want raw ground beef, so I requested the waitress to take back to cook a little longer.
Back it came. Just rather quickly. I looked again, and it didn’t look any different! Are you kidding me! At least, the manager was here now, so I showed him.
Third time is the charm. Right? Wrong! Not here! The manager himself delivered this time, and the plate was really hot. Top of the burger did look a little more burned, so I took one bite. Sure enough, still red! Can you believe it? What had they done? I took one French fry too, and burned the upper plate in my mouth! I was really happy now!
At this point I told the manager to forget the hamburger and now just get me an order of onion rings.
Of course, it was about that time that a waiter was at another table trying to give them my original order of appetizer onion rings! Now, as you may remember, I had asked the waitress to cancel that order. Well, that never happened, so here I had the onion rings anyway. Only the waitress came over now and asked if I wanted a second set of onion rings! Are you kidding me!!??!!
So you see, we may have good parties and good dinners from time to time, but there is still a lot of hardship you have to put up with here. Particularly for anything western oriented!
And the most disheartening thing was that never at either location did I ever hear: “We’re sorry.”
Next time, I’ll probably just go to McDonald’s for a burger!
Labels: China blog, Chna food, Dongguan
posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 5:35 PM
Comments: 0
