There is an Indian curry restaurant about ten minutes away by car that my husband and I sometimes visit.
Since the restaurant has run by Indians, once you step in, it feels like you are in a different country even though you are still in Japan. The atmosphere looks very exotic.
They have a salad bar with fresh vegetables, rice, fried potatoes, soup, sauteed vegetables, pasta and more, which we can help ourselves anytime. It's buffet-style.
When we ordered our dinner that day, we were the only customers. We still don't know why, but all a sudden, very noisy music we'd never heard before started playing. There were four Indian staff members, and everybody was excited. Some were humming with the music, while others were dancing around.
Then, one male customer came in, and a couple followed. We all had to listen to the music. I tried to speak to my husband, but because of it it was hard for us to communicate. We had to speak out loud if we wanted to talk.
I started complaining about the noise to my husband even though it wasn't his fault. He joked we could imagine we were in India. I didn't enjoy his joke and eating food in such a circumstance. I guess the other customers probably felt the same way, but nobody complained directly to the staff. We all were typical Japanese.
We love this restaurant because they always serve delicious curry, but we don't like the music. In this situation, what would you do?
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I would tell the waiter that the music was too loud and would request that it be turned down. If the waiter made no effort to see if the music could be turned down, and the music continued being loud, I probably wouldn’t give a good tip and would leave a bad review.
I had an unpleasant experience at a restaurant once. I saw a waiter walking through the restaurant absentmindedly picking his nose in full view of diners. I spoke with the manager, who didn’t believe that I had seen this nose picker. It made me sick to see this. I wondered what the waiter would do when no one was looking. I was so turned off that I couldn’t even eat my meal. I refused to pay for it. I left a very bad Google review. I’ve never been back to that restaurant.
Thank you for sharing! There are culture differences between the States and Japan. We don't have a tip culture here, and the shop hasn't registered any websites to advertise their shop. I don't like the tip culture and couldn't get used to it while being in the States, but I really support it in this case.
Once I also had an unpleasant experience at a Vietnamese restaurant in the States. A waitress was really grumpy all the time, I mean she was bitchy and I didn't like her. When my American friend tried to give her 15% as the tip, I was surprised. I gave only 5% for her, lol. I thought that was enough. I wish I could do that for the restaurant.
Your unplesand experience sounds really disgusting! I wouldn't have returned if I were you as well. I really hope he won't spit on the orders!!
I would definitely tell the waiter to turn the music down. I've actually had to do that in an Indian restaurant. We used to go to a place called Saffron that also had an excellent all-you-can-eat buffet, but they music was deafening. One time, I went to eat lunch with my brother and I just wasn't in the mood for that music. They were playing a particular long song, really loud, where the girl sounded like she was singing Oh my God! over and over. After about five minutes of that, I called the waiter over and said Please turn that down, to which he made a strange face, but then the woman at the table next to us said Yes, please! and he went right away and turned it down. In English we say "the squeaky wheel gets the grease," which means that you'll only grease your bicycle tire if it starts to squeak; similarly, if you don't complain in life, you won't get what you want or need. Great post!
I come from Egypt, which is similar to India in this aspect, and maybe much more than that. Everywhere is noisy and crowded, especially in big cities. Most cafes and restaurants play music, or turn on TVs for football matches at full volume.
It irritates me, first and foremost, because I'm hard of hearing and I struggle to hear with background noise. Once I was in a cafe and asked them to turn down the music, they did but after a couple of minutes, they turned it up again. :DD And I did mention that in my Google review for them.
The curry looks delicious! It's interesting that there is an Indian restaurant that serves noodles. I have never seen that in any of the Indian restaurants in the US.
I probably would be more on the don't-bother-anyone Japanese side of the spectrum in this case--not saying anything and maybe coming to this restaurant less.
I would've had the Italian Food Police SWAT team raid the whole place. They use frozen pizzas as shields and rolling pins as batons. You do not want to mess with them.
@CocoPop I wish other diners would support me in the case. Thank you for sharing your experience. It was fun to read.
Thank you for teaching me the phrase, and I agree. Without saying, we won't get anything. That's so true.
@Double-Zee Now, I'm very curious about Egypt! I don't like noisy places to go, but I'm curious how much noisy Egypt is. I think it's a part of their culture, and if they are in their places, they can do whatever. But they shouldn't bring their culture into other countries. When in Rome. Majority of Japanese people don't like loud places to eat, so they should learn it. I can't tell it to them, though, hehehe.
@Ersatzjello Welcome to the team Japan!!! Yeah, our Indian restaurants serve noodles, fried rice, and more. I've been Indian restaurants in the States, but I've never seen those either. I also visited a Indian restaurant in England. Yours and British one are less sweet than ours. For some reason, our curry taste sweeter than yours. I'm sure they research each country's taste well and try to make the food closer to the countries' taste.
@Simone- Haha, I love your comment! I can imagine how the Italian food police team do against the Indians, lol. It's so funny!!!