Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valentine's Day In Dubai

This year's Vday is super special...

As it is a school holiday... and we are in Dubai, instead of just celebrating with Max, I will have to celebrate together with Ace...

Since Ace is at home, we thought we can make a trip over to Sino Chai for lunch and try their lunch sets since they say it is cheap and good...
Tadah, I was wondering if my hubby will get me flowers and he did:) A single rose... But to be honest, I wasn't expecting any flowers so when i saw the flower, I tot he may have recieved it in office or wat. wahahahaha....

Anyway, he says supermarket also sell roses on tat special day lah.. but hor actually Vday is quite a tamed down affair over here in Dubai as I think the religious views here do not seem to quite approve of Vday...

Since it is V day, I also wear a Tshirt tat says "True Love" when I go and eat with my true love lah:)




Ace thinking which tea he should drink...



Me posing with my rose:) Ace says he also wants to pose with my rose.. so let him pose lor...

Second half of the day, after Max knocked off, we went to Mirdiff City Centre cos he had a soccer game there.. why would pple arrange for a soccer game on V day right? i think these people are all here without their families or are single lah... hahahahahah


So while Max played soccer, me and Ace entertained ourselves in the mall.. Ace was happiest in Hemley's... it is a toy store and because there were not many kids around, he got play and try all the different toys and could play with them for as long as he liked:)

Ace learning to do the chinese yoyo:)

Anyway, after the soccer game, Max tot he will make it up by giving us an ice cream treat.. and also, while we were walking around in the mall, I told Ace he can have ice cream if he manages to use the map and find the soccer place again.. as the mall is super duper big:)

Surprisingly, Ace managed to find the right place and walk in the right direction most of the time:) With a little help from me, we soon found the soccer court:) So it is also his reward...


However, what was initially a super sweet ending to a wonderful day ended badly on the account that we were totally snubbed by the staff at Chili's in Mirdiff City Centre!

When we arrived in the restaruant, it was at best operating at 70% capacity. They promptly showed us to a table and let us sit down... gave us the menu and the waiter disappeared. We decided what we wanted to order and then we waved our hands for 2-3 minutes but everyone ignored us! Finally one waiter looked at our direction, smiled at us and walked back to his counter to do whatever he was doing!

We waved our hands and "excused me" for another few minutes before someone saw us and asked us to WAIT... and only another minute later, someone came to take our order....

We were told tat we needed to wait for 15-20 min for our order and to be fair, the order arrived within 10 minutes actually. However, my complaint was tat the desserts were too sweet.. to the extent that there were no longer tasty...

PLUS, because we were sharing, we had to wait and wave our hands for another 5 minutes before someone finally saw us, attended to us and brought us sharing plates and extra spoons.... By then my chocolate lava cake already cold lor.. ice cream already melted half lor...

And then we finished our meal and had to waved for another five minutes and again, someone saw us but ignored us wor... because we had to keep waiting and waiting right.. I had alot of time to observe my surroundings..

I noticed tat they were frenly and smiley to the OTHER customers. Some of the female customers were even given roses!

THen I realized that they must have either tot I am a POOR filipino or a POOR PRC Chinese (as most chinese from china here are in low end jobs... and the pple here tend to see them no up.. you got to tell them you are singaporean if not they will give you attitude sometimes... cos they think you are POOR and LOW CLASS)

THen I really started to BOIL lor.. tamade! who walk in, who is customer.. walk in means got money to buy wat.. even i eat dessert I am still your customer... bloody hell! Even if I am a poor PRC with only enough money to eat dessert you still have to serve me cos i pay same price as everyone else!

Our friend told us this story of how the security guard in their apartment tried to give them trouble... realizing tat the cause could be tat they tot they are chinese or filipino so good to bully, she told him, "Dun think I am from China or Philipines okie.. I am a SINGAPOREAN from SINGAPORE so you dun try to be funny with me..." And then just because of tat, the security guard gave in and gave up making trouble.... Din know the phrase "SINGAPOREAN" is "BIG" (dai sai)... Hahahaha...

At this point, I started to get annoyed liao and I told Max about my observation.. and he said he agreed.. so the fires in our hearts started to burn.. finally someone saw us waiving for our bill.. he asked us to wait again.. and then asked another girl to come give us our bill..

The girl took her own sweet time and when she finally appeared, instead of standing next to Max and passing him the bill folder.. she just threw it on the table as shown in my photo... and she threw it in the corner furthest away from Max.

Max has already taken out his credit card wor.. if she had given it to Max, he would have passed her the card liao.. but she throw and walk away.. so we had to wave again and then they take their own sweet time to come.. so Max dam du lan already and threw the file on the table..

Then finally they came back with the slips to sign and Max just signed and we left... no tip... we din even want to say good bye to the lady who said goodbye to us on our way out..

But well, I decided tat I will lodge a complain... this is a little bit too much..

Next day, I wrote in to their website and to give them credit, they actually called me something like 3 hours after I submitted the complain and apologized to me. The person who called said that they were going to have a meeting on the coming Saturday about this and they will give their staff training and kept begging me to go back to their outlet and observe the staff and feedback again..

Please hor, why should I pay money to let pple see me no up?

He kept talking about how I can use the free desert I got from their customer survey program and go back to that outlet to observe them.. I got free desert i also go other outlets lah.. go there for wat.. hai.. give me free meal i consider. hahahaha;)

Anyway, if you live in Dubai and aint arabic or indian.. DO NOT GO TO CHILIS in Mirdiff.. You have been warned...

So, tat ended the super "special" vday:)

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