I’ve noticed this alot even with my girlfriend we will order stuff (write it down on the order form) and give it to them. Locals get there after we do and they get their food before us. So usually after 10 minutes we ask about it. And they “forgot” to make it. This has happened 4x to me recently. Even when dishes take two seconds to prepare (niuroufan) they seem to be “forgotten.” I thought nothing of it until a friend told me that it is pretty common practice to serve locals first in places like Japan and Korea. If I had said it and they forgotten then I’d understand, but the sheet is right there in front of them.
Anyone else had experience with this? I was here 07-09 along with frequent visits until now. Is it because I moved out of Tianmu to non-foreigner area?
[quote=“California”]I’ve noticed this alot even with my girlfriend we will order stuff (write it down on the order form) and give it to them. Locals get there after we do and they get their food before us. So usually after 10 minutes we ask about it. And they “forgot” to make it. This has happened 4x to me recently. Even when dishes take two seconds to prepare (niuroufan) they seem to be “forgotten.” I thought nothing of it until a friend told me that it is pretty common practice to serve locals first in places like Japan and Korea. If I had said it and they forgotten then I’d understand, but the sheet is right there in front of them.
Anyone else had experience with this? I was here 07-09 along with frequent visits until now. Is it because I moved out of Tianmu to non-foreigner area?[/quote]
I usually get the opposite. I get my food first before the locals.
I’ve not noticed it. If anything I get served too fast in restaurants over here. I’m used to waiting a while and having a drink and a chat before I get my food. It’s all a bit too hectic in restaurants here, for my liking.
Tienmu per se is not a foreigner area anymore, and there are too many foreigners elsewhere, except in teh boondocks. I’ve never experienced what you said. Maybe it has more to do with teh timing or the place: if teh place is too busy, or it is rush hour, they may tend to “scramble” teh orders. You may notice it is not just your order that’s delayed.
In general, the attitude here towards foreigners is not of resentment as in Japan or Korea. On teh contrary, most of the time, too friendly.
If anything, like the others say, I am sitting there wondering why my food is coming before other locals. Don’t think I have ever noticed worse service for being western, except perhaps when someone appears afraid to talk to me because they dislike having to try and use their english (:
I’ve had a few incidents like this. At one place we ordered our food well before a group of Taiwanese who came in after us, when they got their food first we just got up and told them to forget it, we’d go somewhere else to eat. After all, they were frying everything up in the same wok. Wasn’t like ours took longer to prepare.
Another time I went with my daughter to a little restaurant and ordered beef noodles, she ordered some chicken and rice combo. Halfway through my meal my kid starts nagging at me that she’s hungry and hasn’t got any food. So I tell her to go remind them and she does. They are doing mostly take-out stuff so are worried about the line of people there. I finally finish mine and wait a few more minutes and nothing comes. Again, I tell them to forget about it, paid for my noodles and never went back.
I never really considered the fact this might have occurred because I was foreigner. Just thought it was their own shitty service, and that the people served first might be regulars, but I’d never give them a second chance to do it.
Most restaurants here have no idea about service, in the west we normally do table by table … here it goes with or against the flow … one person can have finished his/her meal before they bring the other dishes …
It’s like … ooh! we have three noodles on three different tables … let’s do the noodles … forget about the rest …
normally they will ignore the locals to serve you? but I tend to stick to the spots where I know the owners. doesn’t hurt to buy the owner a few beers.
Ususally if you’re waiting for a long time you should get something free. Either a little plate of food or a drink or something.
If they’re blatantly ignoring you in favor of other customers - they may be an asshole (I’ve had a fried chicken vendor do this, I asked him if he was blind and walked on to the neighbour - fuck him) or they might think YOU’RE an asshole. I think people act a lot friendlier in small restaurants here than they do in the West - that professional distance that we try to keep as a customer-server relationship comes across as cold to Chinese people.
Try smiling more next time. If they still keep serving people before you just get up, tell them you’ve been waiting for a long time and they can just forget it, and leave. There’s lots of competition
Let’s say table A arrives before you. You’re B. Table C comes in later. If you’ve ordered stir-fried squid, while tables A and B have ordered shrimp-fried rice, When the chef gets around to doing table A’s rice (which was ordered before your squid), he’ll do a double batch, given that C also wants some (after all, why make it twice?). So Table C will get theirs (ordered after you) before you because A ordered it before you. I believe this is very common.
In over 17 years here I’ve never noticed a preferential serving order, for or against foreigners. I have noticed that in some shops they’ll urge me to sit at the table nearest to the front window, however. Whether this is just for foreigners (look! foreigners like our place so it must be good) or whether it’s standard when you have only one or a few customers (since locals often judge how good a place must be by the number of clientele), I cannot say with certainty.
I’ve had the same thing happen many times. Walk into an empty or almost empty restaurant and get put close to the window.[/quote]
Same. Again, this may have nothing to do with being a foreigner. Especially in tourist areas where there are a few restaurants in the same area, the Taiwanese will will stroll along and see which one is most crowded, therefore the best. They probably want to fill those seats by the window first so everyone can see how good their food is.
Can’t say in 13 years in Taiwan that I have ever really thought this was a problem.
As a restaurant owner I have experienced people who were convinced they were being discriminated against for xyz reason since their food took longer. The reality was the food they ordered took longer. Not all dishes take the same amount of time. And sometimes bottle necks occur, eg if when we were moderately busy we had a number of dishes that needed the use of hot plates pizza and other oven based things might still be fast, but say an risotto or pasta could slow down.
Maybe for this people are “thinking too much” if they think restaurants in Taiwan are often biased against foreigners. Don’t get me wrong, some things are (don’t get me started about banks…) but restaurants… ummm no.
It means they like you. They want to keep you in the place for show.
One thing I know is that its pretty common for locals to call ahead to places and place their order in advance of their arrival. This might be what is happening.
Other than that, I’ve not noticed this happening with any regularity.
Shitty service is universal.
I do recall it happened big time to us in Qinghai last year, up on the plateau, small town called Heka. We ordered noodles at 11am in a virtually empty restaurant. Then locals started to arrive. They kept on serving those in-coming locals for well over 60 mins. Eventually they ran out of locals to serve, and had to bring us something :raspberry:.
I’d have complained only it was pouring down outside and we weren’t going anywhere, anyway.
[quote=“Nuit”]I do recall it happened big time to us in Qinghai last year, up on the plateau, small town called Heka. We ordered noodles at 11am in a virtually empty restaurant. Then locals started to arrive. They kept on serving those in-coming locals for well over 60 mins. Eventually they ran out of locals to serve, and had to bring us something.
I’d have complained only it was pouring down outside and we’re weren’t going anywhere, anyway.[/quote]
Could make a cool short film. “My lunch with Ah-Tsai”. :bravo:
To the OP: I would say it is bad service or more likely the preparing of multiple orders of the same dish at the same time like others have said. Although it could be “make the easiest order first”.
Only had that problem at fast food restaurants like McDonald’s and only at busy times. They ask you to sit down and say that they’ll bring it out to you. right… Forty minutes later… I go back and they forgot.
I stand there now and say politely in Chinese “I’m very hungry now. I’ll just stand and wait, OK ?” The sandwich comes to me in less than ten minutes.
