Restaurant Review: Suzhou Zen, Cantonese Restaurant

Suzhou Zen has for a while been one of my favorite places to eat in the Suzhou SIP. However today I had an experience of customer service with distinctly Chinese characteristics that left me somewhat confused and more than a bit upset.

We arrived to a near empty restaurant, later in the day and waited 15 minutes for a menu, no problems there, though a little irritating give the number of times we had to ask.

45 minutes after ordering our food had not arrived so we asked the waitress who politely told us it was 10 minutes away, not a problem, though 10 minutes later 1/2 the order arrived and they informed us that one of the remaing dishes had run out and the other they had forgotten but in would be another 10 minutes.

Having just waited almost an entire hour to be told that they were out of stock and the food we had been told was on the way had been forgotten we decided to complain to the manager as the table next door to us (a Hong Kong couple) had moments earlier. The manager came over and briskly told us it was our own fault for arriving late to which we said we would not require the remainder of our order which we had waited over an hour for already. At this which point we were surrounded by the waitstaff in the now empty restauant and forced to pay the entire bill for food not delivered under implied threats of violence. And to top it off no “thank you” or “man zou” one of the waiters yelled “fuck off” as we left.

The most annoying thing about this experience, besides being manhandled by waiters, the managers explanation for the whole ordeal and their resistance to give us the benefit of the doubt is that, i quote in english: “we are Chinese and we have pride”.

I doubt the situation would have been handled in this manner if it had been their London or even Xintiandi branch.