Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Kenyan service - Not!
Kenyan's are an extremely hospitable bunch of people. Visit them in their homes and you will be overwhelmed by their attention and desire to make you feel at home, offering you whatever they are able to. Without any research into the matter, I would guess that similar to the Arabic culture it is something to do with their traditional regard for guests.
Unfortunately this hospitality does not seem to transfer into the service industry, in particular the food and beverage service industry, of which I had a particular acute reminder of today.
A new restaurant has opened up next to the Internet café I frequent. Quite nicely fitted out, it would have to be regarded as the nicest establishment of its kind in Thika in terms of decor. Perhaps the first place in Thika you could go for a "nice", quiet dinner. So, lunchtime today, I thought I'd check the place out with a friend of mine up from Nairobi, Nevin.
Menu was of pretty standard African fare - beef stew, chicken curry, fried chicken, chips, ugali - all the usual suspects. Nevin ordered the beef stew and rice, I ordered the chicken curry with chapatti, both meals that would not need to be made from scratch so wouldn’t take too long.
Or so I thought.
No problems with the beef stew, came out in about 10 minutes, looking (and tasting, according to Nevin) quite nice indeed. Another 10 minutes and still no sign of my meal. Nevin was trying to be polite, eating as slowly as he could waiting for my meal, but I told him not to bother. Finally, my meal came out.
Or so I thought.
My plate of "chicken curry" turned out to be fried chicken with some curry sauce on the side. I asked if this was supposed to be the curry, as it certainly wasn't what the menu had described. The waiter told me they had made a mistake, and picked my plate up to return to the kitchen. I asked him if the curry would be any more than a couple of minutes (presuming, I would expect, that it was just a matter of serving from a pot of chicken curry), and if so then I would order something else. He said no, it would only be a minute or so.
Ten minutes later, Nevin finished with his meal, I had still not received my curry, and had no update on when to expect it. So we left.
Did the manager apologise as we left, obviously unhappy with what had happened (and me very hungry)? No. And that seems to be the general practice in bars and restaurants. It almost seems that as the guest it is a privilege for you to even be in their establishment, with customers often treated almost with disdain at times. I am sure it has an effect on the level of success of their hospitality industry overall.
And with their culture of hospitality to visitors to their home, it does seem a little incongruous and extremely unfortunate. And perhaps something that adds to Kenya in general not making as good use of its natural resources as one might hope for - including the hospitality of their people.
Unfortunately this hospitality does not seem to transfer into the service industry, in particular the food and beverage service industry, of which I had a particular acute reminder of today.
A new restaurant has opened up next to the Internet café I frequent. Quite nicely fitted out, it would have to be regarded as the nicest establishment of its kind in Thika in terms of decor. Perhaps the first place in Thika you could go for a "nice", quiet dinner. So, lunchtime today, I thought I'd check the place out with a friend of mine up from Nairobi, Nevin.
Menu was of pretty standard African fare - beef stew, chicken curry, fried chicken, chips, ugali - all the usual suspects. Nevin ordered the beef stew and rice, I ordered the chicken curry with chapatti, both meals that would not need to be made from scratch so wouldn’t take too long.
Or so I thought.
No problems with the beef stew, came out in about 10 minutes, looking (and tasting, according to Nevin) quite nice indeed. Another 10 minutes and still no sign of my meal. Nevin was trying to be polite, eating as slowly as he could waiting for my meal, but I told him not to bother. Finally, my meal came out.
Or so I thought.
My plate of "chicken curry" turned out to be fried chicken with some curry sauce on the side. I asked if this was supposed to be the curry, as it certainly wasn't what the menu had described. The waiter told me they had made a mistake, and picked my plate up to return to the kitchen. I asked him if the curry would be any more than a couple of minutes (presuming, I would expect, that it was just a matter of serving from a pot of chicken curry), and if so then I would order something else. He said no, it would only be a minute or so.
Ten minutes later, Nevin finished with his meal, I had still not received my curry, and had no update on when to expect it. So we left.
Did the manager apologise as we left, obviously unhappy with what had happened (and me very hungry)? No. And that seems to be the general practice in bars and restaurants. It almost seems that as the guest it is a privilege for you to even be in their establishment, with customers often treated almost with disdain at times. I am sure it has an effect on the level of success of their hospitality industry overall.
And with their culture of hospitality to visitors to their home, it does seem a little incongruous and extremely unfortunate. And perhaps something that adds to Kenya in general not making as good use of its natural resources as one might hope for - including the hospitality of their people.
posted by Dave | 12:11 PM |
1 Comments:
this made me chuckle. i had the same sort of thing happen last year in tanzania. we were eating as a group some had ordered chips mayai (a chip omelette) and some had ordered beans and rice. the food came out after about an hour and it was 3 chips mayai and 2 beans and rice instead of the opposite. we said there had been a mistake and they took away ALL the food and didn't come back with the correct order for another hour!
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