I want my spaghetti and meatballs hot and fast.

Not too long ago, my uncle Butch and aunt Carole from South Pasadena came over for their annual homecoming visit to the Philippines. In a break from tradition, they took their children (my cousins) along for the ride as well. When Mabie and I had the opportunity to take them out to dinner in Greenbelt, we were pretty undecided as to where specifically we should be dining in. My cousin Czasha spotted the nearby Italianni's and we thought maybe that was a good option. It had also been a while since I had eaten at Italianni's myself.

How wrong we were.

The dinner started out in the usual manner, with a lady taking our orders at 8pm, as other patrons came in and sat down after our party of six did. Noticeable was her lack of a notepad. Instead, she was reciting our orders off the top of her head, as if to impress us. In the back of our minds Mabie and I smelled a potential point of failure, but kept our silence out of respect. When she went back, we had plenty of time to entertain our guests.

As the night went by and the hands of the clock passed the 9:20pm mark however, we began to notice that we had too much time on our hands to entertain our obviously hungry guests, still with no prospect of dinner arriving on our table.

We must have followed up our orders at least three times. Failure point number two: Noticeable too was how the waiters and waitresses kept their heads down, as if to ignore us. I have to wonder: How is it possible to ignore a seated party of six, when the other outside tables don't number more than three patrons each?

Even worse, remember the other patrons that got their tables after we did? Despite having ordered later than our party, they got their food first!

When our food finally came to our tables, disappointingly it no longer had much of its appetizing heat. Something had obviously gone wrong within the magical process of getting our orders, processing them and getting them to us. Now, I love Italian, and Italianni's food isn't bad, nor is it especially mind-blowing, but the lousy customer experience we had basically tarnished the whole evening more than any particular fault the food may have had.

Fried Calamari

Shrimp and Mushroom Linguine

Spinach and Artichoke Formaggio

Uncle Butch was being generous; he thought maybe it was a bad night for them and we just got the short end of the stick this time. This occurrence is not without its consequences, though. My other cousin JB will bring home memories about Italianni's being a byword for bad service when he goes back to South Pasadena. He was wondering why the service crew acted like they were on holiday - or being more generous, if it was the first night on the job for all of them.

Bistro Group of Restaurants, I offer you a tiny slice of my brain.

1. Let's not try to reinvent the wheel here, just for the sake of impressing our clientele. Human short-term memory is infamous for failure - this is why it's customary for waiters to carry notepads. It's expected, it's efficient, and it just works. Why would you fool around with a formula that works?
2. Be attentive to your clientele. Sometimes all this entails is checking the entire area if you have any clientele to serve, and checking up on the status of their orders (here's a hint: computers are not enough). Make them your priority - it is your obligation as service crew to do so.
3. To finish this post off, I offer you a quote I picked up from my days as a marketing management student, taking up service marketing: "If a customer gets good service, he/she is usually quiet, or will tell one person. If a customer gets bad service, he/she will tell ten people."

Food for thought. We may have kept quiet and not escalated this matter to a manager, but we will protest by taking our pesos and dining elsewhere.

Starbucks VIA: A review - and some musings on the upscale coffee shop industry

Mabie and I decided to treat ourselves to Starbucks Coffee yesterday and we got something extra to go along with our two grande Cafe Mochas and slice of Mango Yogurt Cheesecake. The friendly baristas threw in a sample of the coffee giant's latest product, VIA Ready Brew. Essentially it's the closest Starbucks has ever had to instant coffee.

Does VIA have an uphill battle against frappuccinos?

Three steps to genuine brewed coffee

I decided to try it this morning. According to the sachet, you just empty the contents into a cup or mug, add 177 mL of boiling water, and drink. The barista gave me the Colombian variety, although there are at least three others to choose from for retail sale.

It's patently amazing how such a small, thin sachet, with barely a handful of "microground" coffee beans, can release such a strong, full-bodied mug of coffee. Drink VIA Colombian as black coffee, and it's as if you ordered a Cafe Americano (essentially, an espresso shot with added hot water) from the baristas themselves. It's that strong. 

Adding a teaspoon and a half of sugar cuts the bitterness more than it would in a Cafe Americano, though, purely because there's less water for the sugar to saturate. Still, given how much smaller the sachet is compared to most instant coffee out there, VIA is strong stuff, and great for real coffee enthusiasts.

There lies the rub, however...

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From my narrow point of observation, Starbucks and its competitors have split personalities. They have made coffee-blended cold drinks their bread and butter. They may offer exotic coffee variants from around the world, but I don't exactly see people my age enthused about the nuances and flavor notes of, say, Guatemala Casi Cielo beans vs. Ethiopia Sidamo beans. People my age, they're more likely to just order a Java Chip Frappuccino or a Caramel Macchiato - and maybe add more whipped cream or caramel syrup. Beans and brews comparisons, I'd usually hear about from my mom or my aunt Hedwig, because we're fond of tasting different kinds of wine, beer, or other similar-looking drinks and picking out how they differ from each other (e.g. "Carlo Rossi's red wine is very sweet, while a Napa Valley Racehorse Red is very very dry").

Mango Yogurt Cheesecake at Starbucks

VIA seems to fly in the face of the "blended drink" model that upscale coffee shops, Starbucks itself included, have made their millions from. I think it's more in the "exotic coffee" side of things, meant for enthusiasts who may be interested in saving a buck or thirty while still getting a variety of strong coffee to choose from. (A 12-pack of VIA is ultimately cheaper than buying a Cafe Americano every day.) The casual frappuccino-drinking Starbucks patron, on the other hand, may find it too bitter or "hardcore" and steer clear of it altogether. 

Which is a shame. I hope I'm wrong. I'm hoping there are more coffee enthusiasts my age than I think there are, who are open to tasting new roasts, brews, basically everything beyond the ubiquitous blended-coffee drink. Openness to new things is always good - especially in VIA's case, where you can have your premium coffee fix and save some money in the process :)