The Worst Chinese Food Experience Ever

On Wednesday night after a disheartening loss in one of my basketball leagues, I get in my car and find my cell phone with 1 missed call and a voicemail attached to it.

It was my dad. “Hey Seth, we’re thinking of going out tonight, not sure where though. It’s 7 o’clock, so give us a call if you can make it and we’ll let you know where we’re going.”

I call my dad.

“Hey, sup.”

“Hey boy! We just got to this Chinese restaurant in Mill Creek. You know the old Imperial Garden?”

“Yeah.”

“Come meet us here.”

“Ok, I just got done with basketball, I’ll be there in 20 minutes. Go ahead and order without me.”

*click*

20 minutes later I arrived at Zen Garden, after getting off the phone with my cousin Nick who was telling me how “Good this place” was. Boy, was that such a nice setup. Thinking about it now, I wonder if he was joking with me? Nawwww…

I sit down, and the place is pretty empty. My family’s got the corner table, meant for 6 people but seating 4 including me.

I noticed something interesting – there weren’t any drinks on the table. Now, with most restaurants, isn’t that the first thing they get you? Something to drink? Even water?

Either way, I asked my parents if they had ordered already and they had said they ordered 10 minutes ago. That was 7:10 pm. Notice the time as I was a bit shocked by how things played out chronologically.

A few minutes later, a waiter arrived and asked if I wanted anything to drink. My dad said he was having a beer, but I declined as I had just been running for the past 30 minutes.

“Water is fine for me, thanks.”

And everything was normal up until that point. They brought me out my water, my mom and sister their cokes and my dad a beer.

At around 7:20 our appetizer arrived. It was wonton soup. My mom beat us all to the punch with the first complaint of the night.

“It’s not even hot.”

I could see from the waitress pouring the soup in to the cups for us that it wasn’t even steaming. I expected it not to be hot. It was about as warm as my typical shower water, and on top of that the wontons weren’t very good either. My dad suggested that we not complain as it would just take us another 15 minutes anyway to get another bowl of soup that was hotter, and by then we’d be eating our main courses. Or so we thought.

We finished with our soup and were still waiting. We were all filling the table with stories from the day, how work is going and reminiscing on my mom’s 50^th birthday party which was absolutely fabulous.

Finally at around 7:35 (I was looking at the clock often since I was hungry) our first entrée arrived. Fried chicken. My dad’s favorite. And that’s all that came. Other than the rice and tea (which was surprisingly hot) a few minutes later. Now for me, I rarely can just eat meat for dinner. But since I was starving I began chomping away at just the chicken.

Lucky for my sister and me, they had fried the chicken in some sort of peanut sauce and within minutes we were both having an allergic reaction. Awesome. Here we were, starving, with chicken that at least looked edible in front of us and we could do nothing but eat some rice and drink our water. What was this? Prison?

At about 7:45 another family came and sat down next to us. We heard them order their food, conversing in Chinese with the waitress who was serving us. At the same time another one of our entrees came out. Just sweet and sour pork. I didn’t know if these people were part of the “slow food” movement, or if they were just trying to piss us off. The unfortunate thing is, when my dad gets pissed (at anyone else but my family) it’s pretty funny. He gets all red in the face and talks under his breath, but loud enough so the people he is angry with can hear him (but in this situation they might not have understood him).

Here’s what got him though: Another few minutes passed, and the waitress brought out a vegetable plate for us. We all looked at it incredulously as we have never seen that kind of veggie plate before. We started to mention something as another waiter came up and told our waitress (in Chinese of course) that that dish was the table next to ours.

So wait, they’ve been here for less than 15 minutes and have already received one of their main courses? How is this possible? Soon after, the table next to ours was in full on eat mode. While we were waiting for our last two entrees. I was slowly eating the sweet and sour pork and devouring what was left of the small bowls of rice they provided us.

At around 8 pm my Dad (furious) was able to pull a waiter aside (not our waitress) and ask where our food was. Here’s what he literally sounded like:

“Wah hah yuuu wha…hmmm…ahhhh…”

That was his answer to my dad’s question of, “Uhh, we also ordered brocooli with beef and chow mein too”.

Our waitress then came over to see what the commotion was about. My dad, now obviously angry with both of them (and my sister and I giggling together) was asking where our other final two entrees were.

She apologized and at 8:10 pm we got our broccoli beef. It was good. Don’t get me wrong. Everything was mediocre up until the broccoli beef. We shoved it down our throats because at that point we were extremely starved and luckily that filled us up. There was no rice left, we never got a refill on our drinks and the only time we were paid and attention was when we said, “Excuse me” to the waiter/waitress.

While we were eating what would be our last entrée there, my mom and dad were doing their typical “terrible service” argument:

Dad: Terrible Service

Mom: Mahal, they can hear you from here

Dad: So?! We put in our orders over an hour ago an…

Mom: Well, let’s just cancel the chow mein and go.

I agreed. My dad told the waitress off and told her to cancel the chow mein and get us our bill.

My sister suggested no tip, or a tip of a few cents. I one upped her and suggested a negative time.

“Yeah, just put -$20 on the tip line dad. And put the final bill of what you would pay after a negative $20 tip.”

More than an hour and a half after sitting down, my dad was now in a rage over the bill. They charged us a dollar a bowl for the rice (all in total probably about 1 cup worth – I eat that on my own – and for added measure $4 could buy you almost 7 lbs of rice from the grocery store) and also charged us $3 for tea.

What

The

Fuck

I have never been charged for rice or tea at a Chinese restaurant. Those are just the complimentary items that come with your meal. They didn’t even ask us if we wanted rice or tea. They just provided it to us and then charged it to us! Nice!

We stood up, walked out (it took some convincing from all of us now to keep my dad quiet – he still got out some “terrible”s as we were walking out) and left as quickly as we could.

I am so surprised at how horrible my dining experience was that I am considering putting this up for everyone to read under the Seattle city search for Chinese restaurants. That would be a bit vicious because I think this could single handedly put them out of business, but with service like that, they deserve it. While I was leaving I looked around the restaurant at the other scattered patrons who all seemed perfectly happy (not all of them looked like they could speak Chinese). Was it a fluke? I’ll never know. Because I’m never going back.

F you Zen Garden.