waking up

So today was Ike’s birthday. The man came back for Thanksgiving to chill w/friends, and we were blessed to be in the company of the Divine Master once again.

To celebrate the glorious event, we went to a restaurant none of us had ever been to before in Berkeley, called T-Rex. It looked like a really cool bar with some good, down-home barbecue food. In the entourage were Nate, Josh and Joe, Teresa and Georgiana, Jon Tse, Cyrus, and Joe Ho.

Nate Chan reclining.

Cyrus contemplating the social dynamics of pork ribs.

Georgiana. The Ngs came to the party. How random! And Josh is blurry.

Josh, Jon, and George.

“A girl looked at me today!” -Nate

The Ng girls seem to like their fingers near/in their noses.

My attempt at being artsy.

We had some good Mac-n-Cheese.

***

So, when we got there, only half of us had arrived. They were nice enough to seat us anyway, which was pretty cool. But the waitress came early to our table, before we were ready to order (since our party hadn’t completely arrived). We asked her to come back. She comes back in fifteen minutes (no joke).

After she took our orders, we all chilled for a while as she went back and forth with her other tables. She visited the table next to us several times. But to our table, she only came once. And when she came, she was only asking if we needed anything without really giving us the sense that she wanted to take care of whatever needs we would have expressed, kinda like, “Do you need anything… or no?”

We waited about twenty minutes after we were done eating before we actually got the check.

Anyway, the food was pretty decent, but the price tag was a little painful. It didn’t help that they included 18% gratuity, for the waitress’ horrible service. I told the manager nicely that we appreciated everything except the waitress, and that she dropped the ball. I gave him the opportunity to make it right, or to at least say sorry, but he did neither. He just said, “Thanks for telling us.” LAME. Other people would probably just leave and never come back, but I gave him a chance to redeem the situation, and he left us hanging.

There was a cute server that eyed Nate Chan once… very niiiiice.

Anyway, I feel like a lot of times, maybe it’s because I’m asian, there is this pressure to just keep quiet, to not say anything, to just fit in and not threaten the status quo. It’s seen in our ability to assimilate, I think. But I thought that speaking up about the waitress was the right thing to do. I wanted to give the guy the opportunity to own up to what happened. Other times, while we may feel more inclined to just never come back, I think we rob the restauranteur of the opportunity to right the wrong, per se. To point out what is wrong regardless of what the manager will say.  To not let how optimistic I feel about whether or not it will work out to my favor dictate how I act.

I think everyone gets disappointed in the way things turn out every now and then. But something I find that is kinda strange is that when there are specific people responsible for the lameness, asians like to just avoid conflict and passively skirt around the issue the next time it might arise, just avoid the next time completely. Perhaps it’s because we’re afraid to speak up, and not fit in. But it’s weird, because as Christians, speaking out is a part of it all.

Anyway, I don’t know where I’m going with all that.

Joe Ho says we got poor service because we weren’t dressed that nicely, and we were asian. The restaurant was mostly white. Kinda sad, but I think he speaks some truth. So, moral of the story… sour experience with T-Rex. But maybe if you are white or dressed really nicely or wanna have some confrontation, I guess it will be fine.

So we were talking about how girls sometimes don’t get it, you know, how awesome we are…

me: eff girls and not seeing it until it’s too late
rob: it’s all good
i’m safe and secure
me: sure you are
rob: jc baby
me: jc baby
hahahahahahaha
lol
rob: hahaha
me: jc baby
that is money
rob: you can use that one
i give you my blessing
me: i will
rob: hahaha
me: that’s goin up on the blog