Cafe Mochi

My wife used to think that there was a curse on South Grand, in St. Louis.  This curse, was one best described as good food and bad service.  There are some great places on South Grand.  In fact, the only place that I have been, so far, that has good service and good food is called Meskerem.  The other places; Natasha's, The Vine, Lemongrass, and Cafe Mochi, have good food and bad service.

Cafe Mochi is a nicely done restaurant, selling Japanese and Asian food, along South Grand.  It may be the last restaurant in that area, on that side of the street.  It was a nice day outside and we chose to sit outside.  We noticed at least 3 people, wearing black, wondering around and talking to customers so I thought that there would be 3 servers at 10 tables which seems like a no-brainer.  But, little did I know that there was only 1 server, and two bussers.

After ordering and waiting about 25 minutes, we got our food. I had ordered their Kabob dish.  Be very careful when you order and look at the menu, because the way the menu was arranged, they had a list of specialty sushi rolls and then the last item in that list, was a Kabob platter.  The plate was described and in no way mentioned anything of being a roll or a sushi.  It just didn't make any sense.  The plate I had received looked like this:

So, it at least looked good.  The potatoes were seasoned and cooked, the salad was anemic, the meat was cooked thoroughly, the onions were still crunchy, the peppers were soft, the mushrooms were hard and the squash was hard.  It seemed some items were cooked perfectly and others were not.  The food was good and I'd give it a 3 out of 5 stars.

This is where the bad service gets displayed.  This restaurant with the above mentioned ones, all have a habit of getting the customer their food and then disappearing.  They never send a server or anyone to come back and ask how the food was, how we are doing or if they can get us anything else.  They don't come back when someone spills their drink, they don't bring everything ordered and they basically just act like they took care of the customer and they sit back and wait for their tip.  The problem we have with these types of servers, is that they don't get our normal tips.  

I know that the cost of the food and labor and the main payments of the chefs are in the cost of the food.  So, the amount I tip, goes to the server.  If service was bad, I tip as low as 15% or even 10%.  If the service is great, I'll go as high as 20%.  In this place, when we ask the server a question, she would say "ok" and then not come back or not get us different drinks, or the food we had ordered, etc.  It seemed that she thought that she would just deliver stuff and hide.  Now, she paid a lot of attention to other tables, and even stood and talked at some, but at ours, she tried to stay away.

Not all Hooters are the same...

I was alone with my kids last night and downtown and wanted to find a cool, clean and nice place to sit down and eat.  I also wanted a location where I know has food that they will eat as well.  I saw the Hooters downtown and after navigating  the maze of one-way streets, I found a nice spot in front of Kiener Plaza.  My two sons and I were greeting warmly by a server named Nona and we were directed to a booth close to the door.  My kids had a bathroom emergency however, and we ran back to use the bathroom then.  The bathrooms were clean, which is always a plus.

Now after we sat down and were greeted again nicely by the server, she took our drink orders and she left to fill them.  I looked at the menu when my oldest had some questions.  First of all, I think everyone from Gordan Ramsay to Robert Irvine has said this, but you don't put items on the menu that you have no intention of serving!  The Hooters here had "Kid's Liver and Onions.....$22.99" on the menu.  So, it was the bottom item on the kid's menu and at first thinking it was a joke and then doubting myself because why would there be a joke on a menu?

Nona came back to take our order and she was asked by my son about the liver and onions which she replied that it was in fact a joke.  But still, why do that on a menu?  What if someone ordered it and wanted it?  Then that someone would complain because there was something on the menu that wasn't real.  It was not a very good or well placed joke.

So, we ordered boneless wings and went on waiting.  Just like other locations, we had received our food rather quickly and it felt like less than 20 minutes.  Albeit that the restaurant maybe had 10 other people it besides us, so it shouldn't have taken long at all.  But the waiting time wasn't an issue with this; the issue was afterwards.  You see that the service at restaurants has to be consistent and when our server is super nice and greets us and checks in on us every 10 minutes at most and then stops, it sends sense that she doesn't care.  The problem was that from the front door, 3 people came in who appeared to be friends with our server.  These two women and small child, hugged Nona and Nona went and sat down at the first booth with them.  Now, I had finished my food at the time and was waiting for my children to finish their's.  But, I watched our server chat and frolic with the group she sat at the first booth.  One of the older women even grabbed and squeezed her butt in her shorts.

So, now I sit and wait, and wait, and wait as my kids finish and we wait 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes the server, Nona, gets up and walks 4 feet over to our booth and asks if we need anything else.  You know, there is a certain kind of special when you ignore a paying customer for your friends.  I bet her friends will pay and I bet they will tip, as well, but the difference is that I would likely tip more if I had better service.

Why can't Americans do Lebanese?

I'm new into the Lebanese food thing.  My wife is 50% Lebanese, her dad is from Beirut and two years ago we went to Lebanon for Christmas and plans are being made to go there for this year's Christmas.  I like the food, which sometimes mixes meat and rice in the same dish, which is something I get yelled at by friends for doing myself with other foods and cuisines.  In Lebanon, the food is all fresh and made with care.  The food in a restaurant though, isn't what grades the establishment.  The service is what counts.  The service is near the best I have ever experienced at any location and when people in America want to make Lebanese restaurants, they fail to bring that same level of service to their place.

  In Lebanon, even the smallest two person restaurant has better service than the Lebanese restaurant I went to, a week ago, in St. Louis, on Grand.  The restaurant is called "The Vine" and they made their selves out to be a restaurant with a small store next door.  We called ahead for reservations, for 8 people and while only my wife and two kids had arrived first, they sat us in a small table and told us that the rest of our table is over there, as the waitress pointed to a table that currently had people sitting at it.  You know, I learned the hard way, that relying on customers to leave their table at a restaurant so you can use it for another customer doesn't work.  You have no idea how long those customers will stay and you can't kick them out nor even suggest to them that they leave.

Our seat, near the door, as it opens and closes each time bringing in the cold air, wasn't the best spot either.  What is sad also, is that the restaurant had an open 4 top next to two open 2 tops, so they could have put my party together right when we came in, but insisted that they put us against the window and make us wait for our table to get completed.  When all of our party was finally there....let's stop right here.  This place has horrible service, they forgot drinks, they forgot straws, they didn't take all the orders at the same time, they forgot things that we ordered and they made us box up our own leftovers.  There was only a single toilet, single person bathroom for both the store next door and the restaurant to share as well.

 The only savings grace of this restaurant is the food, which is done in a traditional manner but not using traditional techniques.  The food received good marks from my father-in-law, who is Lebanese, while commenting that most Lebanese would not patronize this restaurant because they would have expected better service.  The restaurant food is good, like a 3 out of 5, but the service is like a 1 out of 5.  My mother-in-law, actually had to stand up with an empty glass and bring it to the waitress to ask for a refill.  I just don't see how hard it is to run a restaurant because so many people can do it and even do it poorly.

While near the mountains of Southern Lebanon, my family stopped at a small building on the side of the road.  The building held a small wood fire oven and a table out on the front porch.  This was a restaurant, run by a husband and wife team.  Now, the husband stayed inside and made food for us while the wife did the customer service part.  Those two people, did a better job on food and service than this whole restaurant did.  This is why American restaurants cannot do Lebanese.