Encroaching Cockroaches

It has happened twice with me within the last month. Once at 'Opium' at the Salt Lake Electronic Complex, and the other time at 'Peter Cat', one of the good restaurants in Park Street. The encroachment of a cockroach on my table, I mean.

Frankly speaking, the Opium is a bit too dark inside for my tastes, and resembles an opium den rather than a restaurant. I probably would have failed to notice the creature crawling up and down the spoon in the sauce container but for the light coming from the TV. When we called the manager and showed him the cockroach, he displayed such fantastic surprise that I felt I had showed him some extinct creature.

The waiter at the Peter Cat was completely opposite. When we showed him the cockroach that had decided to walk onto my plate from which I had just eaten the last forkful of my starter, he reacted with the impassivity of an English butler and literally carried the cockroach away on a platter, as if this was the most normal incident in the world. My boss (who was also there) complained to his boss (the waiter's, not the cockroach's), but he just did his duty by saying that cockroaches were removed once every three days, and the one that came on my plate was not supposed to be there. They forgot to inform the cockroach I suppose.

I may be acting as a cockroach magnet, or the restaurant owners may be having an unlucky run with me (I ran into trouble with my office cafeteria manager as well), but the point that I am trying to make here is that none of these two restaurants took any corrective action to improve my opinion about the place. If this was the US I would have expected to have a complimentary lunch, or at least a discount. No such thing here. The end result is that I end up doing bad publicity about these two restaurants on my blog.

These people have a lot to learn about customer relationship management. As for the cockroaches, they have a lot to learn from their American cousins too. I don't believe there are no cockroaches in the US. All they need is a little hiding skill, and they can prevent the occurrence of such blog posts in the future.