The rude waitress at new shanghai

( I wonder if this title will get any SEO hits. Probably.)

Here's the thing, I am the world's largest doormat when it comes to bad service at restaurants. I am the abused wife that crawls back to the asshole husband- I always give restaurants with bad service another chance.

Maybe it's the optimist in me but I always think that the next time won't be so awful, that it was a once-off, that it'll never happen again! More often than not, I am left gypped and fuming.

It's not like there's a shortage of restaurants in Sydney for me to go to so... don't ask me to explain what's going on in my head really.

Anyway it was late on a public holiday holiday and ND and I were searching for something to eat on the lower north shore, when he announced that he felt like Shanghainese food. There's really only one place that's open that late and I was pretty wary about going back.

I had tried it three times previously and each time there was something rather hilariously comical about just how hard the waiters/waitresses didn't care about anything. Really they should rename it the New Shanghai Restaurant of Apathy. If I don't know better, I would seriously say that the owner has been long dead in the closet in the backroom and the service staff are running the show because I honestly can't believe that any person that really gives a stuff about their business would only hire angry depressed teenagers.

If I didn't mention it before, the restaurant is called New Shanghai and you can find me validated here.

But back to the story, I just looked at ND with wounded eyes and said "Because I love you, I will sacrifice myself and go back to a restaurant where they're going to be rude to us."

He just laughed and said "You're just picky. Don't be so melodramatic." ( I really was not being melodramatic.)

So we sat down with St Mary and of course the same rigamarole ensued of no tea, no food, slow service and plain ol' just being ignored. I probably would have been okay with that (not happy but okay).

Generally as a bunch, we're pretty environmentally conscious. We recycle and switch off our switches at the plug and blah blah blah. The menus in New Shanghai double as placemats, kind of like the ones you used to find at McDonalds. Someone has put them some effort into them and as such we all felt loath in wasting that kind of paper so we put them aside on the table next to us and proceeded to keep talking. The waitress picked them up and tried to hand them back to us (and in all honesty, don't you think keeping us fed and liquified is more important?!) and we gave her a puzzled look and said "it's okay, we don't need it.... you can recycle it?"

This for some reason triggers the inner hulk in her and she flies into a rage. I don't even know how to convey the suddenness or the violence of it.

"YEAAAAAAAGGH!"

She snatches the placemats and crumples them up, slams into the counter and bins them.

We're all left blinking at her. Actually I'm blinking. ND has his jaw agape and St Mary is spluttering "whatthefuck? whatthefuck?"

Well, yeah what the fuck just happened? Why does she hate the green movement so much?
And then to look at her, she was just wandering around serenely afterwards as if flying off the handle at customers is an everyday occurence. Bad service is one thing but Jekyll and Hyde-ing it out is another.

Needless to say, we didn't leave a tip and we will never ever go back, not even if those dumplings are awarded a Michelin Bloody Star. Four times and a placemat rage experience is more than enough for me to say goodbye to it forever. If you choose to venture into the Gorgon's lair for food, don't say I didn't warn you.