Mike's Kitchen Alberton: Nice try, guys!

My wife and I bought a Wicount for R115 off a meal at Mikes Kitchen in Alberton. It had been about three years since we'd last been. Our last visit had been really terrible, so we decided to give it a go again. Growing up, I had very fond memories of Mike's Kitchen because we used to go there every year without fail for my birthday. So, I really wanted it to go well. But it was not to be.

The Wicount said that booking was essential, so I phoned and booked. I spoke to Jean on the phone, and he sounded like a very nice man. We arrived about five minutes late, announced ourselves and were escorted to a quaint table in the smoking section. We were then greeted by a very nice lady (whose name I cannot remember), who was to be our waitress for the afternoon. She took our drinks orders and handed us two massive booklets: magazines which doubled as menus. The menu was very complete with lots of different options.

After pouring over the menus for some time, we ordered one "Mozzarella Mushrooms" to share. These are black mushrooms covered in creamed spinach topped with melted mozzarella cheese and bacon bits. When they arrived, they were brought by a lady who was not our waitress. She had not been informed that we wanted them "to share," and so she hadn't brought an extra plate. No matter; we used the side plate that our cutlery came on and shared them out.

First of all, the spinach wasn't creamed. Secondly, instead of bacon bits as the menu had promised, there were only a few strips of streaky bacon. Still, they were quite nice, and I was surprised by the quantity of food. I felt that they could easily have served as a light to medium meal for one person!

For the main course, we picked out crumbed pork chops, served with mashed potato and gravy. I love mashed potato, and I love pork chops! I'd never had them crumbed before, so I thought it would be a nice change. When we ordered, we were each asked the standard question: "Chips, rice, baked potato or mash?"
This was a bit strange, because the menu had stipulated that they came with mash and gravy. But it didn't really bother my wife; she doesn't like mash as a rule, and only ordered them because also wanted to try the crumbed pork chops. We figured that they'd had other people in the same position, which is why they'd started offering the dish with a choice of sides instead. I ordered my mash and gravy, while my wife ordered chips. The meal took a while to arrive, but it was pork, after all.

I found the mash to be very good indeed! And I had some of my wife's chips, which weren't spectacular, but really not bad for oven bakes. It was also a lot of food! I was expecting one or two small chops. What we got were four massive hunks of meat on bones. But it was far too dry! I don't know if it's just because I'd never had crumbed pork chops, but I found myself longing for dripping, juicy, fatty meat. Oh well, it was pork, after all, and pork is notoriously dry. We each ended up each taking two chops home with us.

We ordered coffee and tea to finish off, and started chatting. We kept commenting to each other that, while we couldn't find anything specifically wrong with the place, we just weren't able to relax. Maybe it was the slightly formal upright dining chairs that we couldn't slouch down in. Maybe it was the slatted wooden place mats. We just couldn't put our finger on it.... And then, the unthinkable happened!

By that time, we were pretty much alone in the smoking section. There were a few people in the lounge on the balcony, smoking and drinking and laughing. A few waiters came in. I heard one say to the other "Jean said that all the chairs need to come out of the smoking section! No, I don't know why. Just do it!"
While they were running amok all around us, frantically trying to remove chairs, we were thinking to ourselves, "Couldn't they wait until their patrons had left?"
Then a woman came in, quite aggitated: "Excuse me!" she yelled, trying to get one of the waiter's attention, "Could we please get some service?"
One of the waiters spun around and she led him away as he asked, "Sure! Where are you guys sitting?"
My wife and I looked at each other in disbelief.

The bill came. We worked out the tip on the total amount based on the total bill, even though it had been discounted by R115 by the Wicount, and wrote the tip and total on the slip. We wish we hadn't done that. We sat for a good five minutes with the bill open on the table and the amount written on it, waiting for our waitress to come and process my card. Eventually we decided that we'd best go to the front to pay. We got up and walked to the reception desk (where we could see that they did have portable card machines, so there was no excuse for our waitress to not have come to us to receive our payment). There was nobody there. We waited and waited, and we could've easily walked out without paying. Finally our waitress appeared, but she said that her hands were full, so she couldn't process our payment, and asked if another waiter who was standing there would do it. He put my card through the machine, and handed it to me without a word, so I could punch in my pin. All the while, he was chatting away to the other waitress.

When we left, there were no smiles, no "Thank you for coming, have a nice day!" Nothing. It was as if they were happy to be rid of us.

Nice try, guys, but never again.