Indian meal - stop moaning and eat!

[IGetWeak]

I need to know if I’m going nuts, because I’ve been told I overreacted, whereas I think I was actually pretty restrained!

My dad is the kind of person who won’t say something once when five times will do. Like if you go for the weekend and he’s heard a new joke, for example, he can’t just tell you it - he’ll have to find a way to throw the punchline into several other conversations over the weekend. It’s usually a mild irritant, but sometimes he does it when he’s moaning about something; in which case it just starts to feel a bit relentless.

Anyway, I was visiting this weekend and had noticed an Indian restaurant we all like has started doing a Sunday buffet. I suggested I treat us on the Sunday to save my mum cooking. Everyone was happy to go.

It ran from 12 - 4, so we decided to go at 3, as we all like a late breakfast and late lunch on Sundays. However, it turned out this was a mistake, as it seemed like it was already winding down. Empty trays were being taken away and not replaced; there were no vegetable side dishes, only a new broken poppadoms left etc.. A bit disappointing, but no big deal - we could either go earlier next time or just not go again, right?

My dad would not let it go, ALL through the meal. Everything was a complaint. “No side dishes? It’s supposed to be a buffet!” (I’m vegetarian, so the absence of vegetable side dishes should have been an issue for me if anything - for him, the vegetable main could be a side dish.) He asked were they bringing out more poppadoms; when they said they’d finished them for the day, he looked like a child whose favourite toy had been confiscated. He kept saying, “No more poppadoms? No sides? There wasn’t even any sauces or mango chutney!”

My mum and I were both getting fed up now; she’d told him to leave it and that we just wouldn’t come again. He was still muttering and I said, “Look, I know you’re not happy, but I thought I was doing something nice, and there’s nothing we can do, so let’s just talk about something else.” He said, “Well what do you want me to do? I can’t pretend I’m enjoying it.” By this point I’m properly grinding my teeth and say, “You don’t have to pretend - just stop going over it.”

My mum and I tried to ignore him and carry on with our conversation. He starts AGAIN, saying in this sort of bewildered tone, “The poppadoms, the sides, the extras… that’s what makes an Indian! There was hardly anything! No mango chutney!”

Well, something about that sodding chutney made me snap. I got up and said, “Right, that’s it. I can either go to Sainsbury’s and BUY some mango bloody chutney, and you can have the whole jar, or we can just finish our meal in peace!!”

I’m sure you can imagine how this went down. On one hand, it had the desired effect - he did actually stop moaning. But now he’s barely talking to me at all, and my mum is doing her usual thing of making it about my reaction instead of the cause of it. I’m sick of it. Why am I being made to feel like I pushed him to “pretend” he’d enjoyed a meal, just because I didn’t want the entire event to be one endless running commentary about how awful it had all been? Most people would just say thank you, but not him.

I’m not even expecting an apology, because I know I won’t get one. But I’m certainly not giving one. And I feel like yet again, it will just end up as “let’s forget it” with nothing changing.

Would you. You wouldn't have let the person paying run the situation the way they wanted to. You'd have leaped in and started trying to negotiate the price, even though the price was nothing to do with you, to the possible embarrassment of your host.

Why do you say "most people wouldn't just pay up" when the person who was complaining wasn't paying? Don't you see that is the whole point? The question isn't "is it right to complain about not having all the options at a buffet", the question is "is it right to moan constantly about the quality of a gift in the presence of the person giving it to you."

I guess I don’t tend to go out for meals where it’s a ‘treat’. We just tend to take it in turns, so no, I wouldn’t really consider a close family member to be my ‘host’ and quietly put up with bad service because I was getting a ‘free’ dinner.

I take your point though, if it was a business dinner then I would keep quiet. But the organiser would seriously drop in my estimation if they didn’t ensure that everyone was happy. Using your terminology, in this case the host was happy but wasn’t bothered that her guests weren’t, which is not good manners.

The host was not particularly happy, but nothing could be done. How would her getting a lower price make her guests happier?

Because they could go and spend the rest of the money on cake*. And not feel like their family had been ripped off.

*Insert other desert or even healthy option of choice.

It's not their place to decide how the OP spends their money. "Their family" isn't being ripped off, if anyone is the OP is, and it's none of their business whatsoever.

You may not mind your parents interfering in this manner. I can assure you a lot of people do. So while you can of course handle that situation with your parents in whatever way you choose to, it's not incumbent on anyone else to do so. I show the same courtesy to my parents I show to other people and I expect the same in return. And I wouldnt dream, if invited out by my adult children, of behaving any differently than I would if invited out by a friend.

Next time I go to a buffet I'm going to keep an eye out for all these buffet inspectors surveying the buffet to make sure they're fully informed before they sit down.

Seriously @IGetWeak you are not at fault either for going to a restaurant at a time they were still serving (they should feed you at the same standard as others or do a reduced charge) OR for getting annoyed. I cannot stand it when people get stuck on moaning about one thing and force an entire group conversation to trundle endlessly round the same route again and again. It'd be even worse with the ingratitude in the mix. Take out your anger on a Google review and maybe they'll fix the buffet...

I take your point though, if it was a business dinner then I would keep quiet. But the organiser would seriously drop in my estimation if they didn’t ensure that everyone was happy. Using your terminology, in this case the host was happy but wasn’t bothered that her guests weren’t, which is not good manners.

But what would you have had me do? I am not the poppadom fairy. I cannot magic side dishes from thin air. We’d sat down, we’d ordered, we’d started eating… then we realised this was it. No replenishment.

No one was served anything undercooked, burnt or that could have given them food poisoning. It was a mildly disappointing meal. They happen in restaurants globally every day. How I’m a “bad host” or have “bad manners” because of something I could not control is beyond me. What IS bad manners is to spend the entire meal complaining, even when your fellow diners have told you more than once to leave it.

Dishes, not dish’s! Flipping auto!

Normally in that sort of situation I'd have got up and asked to speak with the manager to one side to see if I could persuade them to cook something else for us or to get a significant discount (with which I could then promise to take Dad out for a beer/ice cream/box of chocolate frogs after). I promised a treat and it wasn't so I'd try and save things somehow.

I understand that you don't like the repeated whinging and if your dad has form in other scenarios I see why you were primed to want to immediately shut him down. But I don't think just nodding grimly and changing the subject is a particularly good way to handle a disappointment like that that's ongoing. Especially if you and your mum were chatting away and he was a bit of a gooseberry with nothing else to focus on (which I realise may not have been how things went, but it sounded like a possibility from one of your posts). I have been in restaurants where it was supposed to be special but was actually spectacularly shit and we've generally coped by indulging some shared outrage and making fun of it a bit. Not getting annoyed at people being annoyed.

I promised a treat and it wasn't so I'd try and save things somehow.

You're taking “treat” the wrong way (as have some other posters). It wasn’t meant to be a special event - it was literally just “my treat” in the sense that I suggested it and was paying.

I have been in restaurants where it was supposed to be special but was actually spectacularly shit and we've generally coped by indulging some shared outrage and making fun of it a bit. Not getting annoyed at people being annoyed.

It wasn’t supposed to be special and it wasn’t spectacularly shit.

I feel some places are massive rip-offs these days with not advising of food shortages or why a menu item has changed but still charge the full price.

That place should have these popular items on hand at least to 10 minutes before the end of lunch service.

OP, I feel for your frustration with this thread.

You ask one question and people answer another.

YANBU about your father.

Try and have some sympathy with the multitude of posters who have failed to understand your not particularly complex post and are advising you to develop psychic abilities, criticising your for paying or, particularly unfathomably, explaining that they agree with your father.

Some people are stupid and they can’t help that.

My mother was like this and I feel the OP’s weariness! If she wasn’t happy with something we’d have to hear about over and over until someone sharply told her to let it go because she’d drag everyone else down and ruin whatever we were doing. She simply HAD to be heard. Most frustrating esp when it’s a simple lunch or dinner, not a special/expensive occasion.

If you don’t want to use any refund on your parents, that’s up to you. But you asked what you could have done.And if you’re paying, you’re the one who can negotiate with the restaurant and are in a position to try and insist on better treatment. Not your father.

An Indian curry buffet with no poppadoms, sauces or side dishes sounds pretty shit and from this thread that’s clearly not a niche position. Quibbling about the superlatives is just avoiding the point.

Seriously? I used to go to a buffet every Sunday, there was just as much food at the end as there was at the start. If a buffet finishes at 4 pm there should still be enough food left for anyone arriving up until 4 pm - you don't start winding down over an hour before the place is due to close the doors.

I agree the continual moaning would be annoying, but I would have been complaining to the owners.

I agree. I think going at 3 was risky as that's really the last 'serving'

I think you and your dad are both a little bit in the wrong here. It's not clear from your posts whether/at what point you complained to the restaurant. I would have said to them that if I'm paying for a full buffet I expect to receive one and that would include sides, chutneys, etc. I would have asked them what they intend to do to make it right. I would have told them how disappointed we all were. Did you say any of these things? And yes actually I do ask to take a look at the buffet before I sit down at a buffet restaurant.

But your dad shouldn't have kept going on and on about it. As your guest that was very rude of him. His behaviour was worse than yours and he's more in the wrong, but I don't think any of you handled the situation particularly well. And when people are hungry it's even more likely they'll get ratty and annoyed.

Also your dad has form for this kind of behaviour which means your annoyance and resentment has built up over time - over your lifetime, pretty much. It's not just a one-off which makes it that much harder to tolerate.

Did you pay full price for the buffet? Maybe that's the issue he is frustrated at being treated with contempt by thr restaurant. I wouldn't have paid full price for a buffet that's winding down an hour before the offer ends. You should have been warned by the waiter when ordering that what you see is what you get.

I get the feeling you don't want opinions other than your own, but I do think you should have pressed a bit harder - upgraded from 'asked' to 'insisted'. They might have run out of hot dishes but there was nothing stopping them bringing out some chutney for you and cooking a few more pappadums.

I'm not suggesting you should have gone full rage mode on them, but IMO you should have raised it as a problem you expected them to fix. Unfortunately I think that difficult conversation does fall to the organiser/payer of the meal so your DF was probably frustrated that you were happy to let it go and have everyone eat a substandard meal when a bit of assertiveness almost certainly would have improved things.

Common sense would tell one that restaurants shouldn't seat a table of people and charge them full price if they're not going to serve what has been advertised.

How do you know they aren't still in the kitchen preparing for dinner service? It's really up to them to manage expectations of their customers, not for customers to know the ins and outs of how they operate.