Spring Rolls and Fleas For Free!!!
An incident worthy of note occurred in our restaurant. As everything is freshly prepared to a guest’s order, it can sometimes be 15 to 20 minutes before the food arrives. In this day and age — where people expect food to be in their mouths only seconds after the order has come out of them — that can seem like an eternity. I therefore decided we would provide some free appetizers and arranged for our cook to prepare a small plate of Thai vegetable spring rolls with some sweet sauce the moment a customer arrived. This would then help bridge the gap between their order being taken and the food arriving, as well as being a nice touch.
We had employed this new feature a few times during the day and our customers were extremely grateful. The plan appeared to be having the desired effect; that was until a particularly difficult customer entered our establishment. He ordered a meal and, as planned, a few minuets later the spring rolls were placed in front of him.
“What’s this? I did not order this,” he barked at our diminutive waitress.
“Is for you, is flee.”
“Flea, you bloody well want me to eat flea?”
“Yes flee for you while you wait food you order.”
“I did not order this and I most certainly don’t want no bloody fleas, what do you think I am?”
I had realised the situation was quickly spiraling outside of the waitress’s control as she stood looking completely perplexed — quite understandably — as to why this customer was shouting at her. In response to his question, I did have a damn good idea of what he was but, assuming it to be rhetorical, decided not to share my thoughts on this occasion.
“Sorry sir, is there a problem?” I enquired.
“Yes, I ordered spaghetti bolognese and this woman brings this to me. When I tell her I did not order it she tells me it is fleas. Do you think I want to eat fleas?”
“I have absolutely no idea sir. Do you want to eat fleas?”
“No I do bloody well do not.”
“Okay then sir, I am terribly sorry for the mistake. Let’s just take the fleas away then, shall we, and revert to your original order, which I believe you said was spaghetti bolognese?”
“Yes, I don’t like foreign food and I most certainly am not eating fleas.”
I did consider advising this man that, with him being an Englishman in Pattaya, spaghetti bolognese would actually fall into the category of foreign food, however, resisted the urge. I simply contented myself by taking the vegetable spring rolls into my office and devouring them myself. Lovely they were too — not a flea to be seen!
