I Have An Announcement to Make...

I had one of the loveliest new year eve’s eve dinner. We decided to celebrate a day earlier as a few of us will be travelling on the 1st, hence they need some time on the 31st. Although the dinner was not the ideal (that would’ve been impossible) but it had to be one of the better one for me at least in the past couple of years.

The best term to describe that dinner session would be ‘One Client & 4 Agencies’. There are five of us, one working in the client side, two from competing agencies and another two are currently freelancers.

The place was Italianies, in Gardens, one of the new shopping mall next to Mid Valley. We were seated at the corner with a very good view especially when the large drain outside looked like a small river at night. LOL!

The food was great. We had Caesar salad, which to be is pretty standard, the Bruschetta was very good and so was the Roasted Red Pepper, juicy and sweet. Perhaps we were relatively late that the restaurant ran out of a few items on the menu. For main, we had Magharita Pizza, which was quite good. The taste was just right. The spaghetti came with a real huge portion and everything just went well with the 2007 Sauvignon Blanc white wine.

The only weak point came from the Service. The crew who serve us was quite good initially, being very patient with our indecisiveness but he soon turns out to be quite unreliable as a few of our requests were repeatedly ignore. I don’t really blame him as he was also serving a few other tables, which indicate the lack of resources. A very common issue in KL. Here’s some of the few things he did that annoy our ‘Client’.

We asked him to set up for our fifth member who came late, fashionably as always, a few times but was very much ignored. The complimentary bread which was supposedly and had to be the first appetizer to be placed on our table was somehow one of the last one. All we had was the plate of olive oil to stare at. We did inform him about it but again was repeatedly ignored.

Opening the wine was another near disaster. For a restaurant who serve wine, I would have expected the crew to be well trained. Bringing the bottle with one wine glass to our table, and then return later with the other three somehow reflected the staff lack of knowledge. Took a while for him to open the wine and probably nervous, he ended up serving the wine to three out of the four glasses. Hmmmmm……..

Our friend, the Client, decided to behave like a Client and make some bitchy complaints to the Manager while the four Agencies, behaving like Agencies just kept quite and listen to the Client complaints.

The Manager behaving like a well-trained Manager, did make sure our evening was not totally ruined as he switched an experience crew to our table and offered us two lovely desserts. Both the Cappucino Pie (which was an ice-cream cake) and the Cheesecake were really good. And we had a good time that night.

I don’t mind returning to this restaurant again. And so is our ‘Client’.

p/s ATO, wish you were here.