Of course, Moscow restaurants are abominable, but I've discovered a new low.
I've forgotten the name...it's a French bakery-cum-restaurant chain and this
particular
one is on the corner of Novi Arbat and the Kelso U-turn...on the right side.
Since I now walk about 2 km mid-mornings, I've decided to make a stopover at
this place (chiefly because they had a really nice washroom). So, the first
time, the check came to
365 Ru and the waitress blithely gives me back 130 from my 500 Ru note. I
asked: "where
is the other 5 rubles?" It took three move queries before she finally brought
me about 5 of those miniscule coins. I left that plus a 30 ruble tip.
Next day, I came in again. This time a splurged and the check came to 835 Ru.
For my
1000 Ru note I got back 160 Ru--again she (more probably--the restaurant)
swallowed
my 5 rubles. Now I was fuming. I asked a neighbour-guest to tell the waitress
that, unless
they gave me my 5 rubles, I would not be coming back anymore. The waitress had
nothing
to say. Obviously, it was restaurant policy to grab the 5 rubles for every
check as all prices
ended up with it. WHAT AN OUTRAGEOUSLY STUPID THING TO DO!
Restaurants the world over spend thousands trying to entice customers and
here's an idiot owner/criminal/manager who goes out of his/her way to spit in
the customer's eye. I fail
to understand it lest it falls under a suspicion of mine: in my 5 years here I
have learned
that the Russians' greatest pleasure is in "THE TRANSMISSION OF MISERY".
What a sadly infected mind they have!
Peter
Oh yes, one other thing: the sheer stupidity of the waitress is not to be
over-looked.
Had she kept a roll of 5 ruble pieces and given one to me, I probably would've
left
a 50 ruble tip. One would think that she would've known that since I had been
there
the day before...
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