The Sweet Service Award goes to I Know a Guy Recycling, who have sent a team of staff to help collect litter on extremely busy days at the Camps Bay Tidal Pool area, assisting Camps Bay resident volunteers to fill between 50 – 75 bags per day of getting involved. They also take all the filled bags with them to their factory in Killarney, sort the content, compress the plastic, and send it to Switzerland, so that garden furniture can be made from it.
The Sour Service Award goes to Himitsu Restaurant at the Camps Bay Retreat. As I had not eaten there before, I was excited to try it when Breakfast for 12 of us was booked. We waited for half an hour for the first of our cooked breakfasts to be served, the six ordered Eggs Benedict arriving ice cold, the hollandaise sauce being thick and stodgy, and the English muffins being tough to cut. The other breakfasts arrived in batches thereafter. Our tea and coffee orders were taken after we had finished eating the cooked breakfasts, taking at least half an hour to arrive, no tea orders taken, only coffee ones. I had to request a tea. I asked waiter Benson if Chef Cheyne Morrisby, the restaurant owner, was in the house and I was told that he had been in the kitchen and had just left. It took a whole week of communication with Chef Cheyne about the unacceptable quality of the breakfasts served. He told me that he was not in the kitchen on that day, and has not been in the kitchen for the past four months. He kept referring to a Manager called James, who was meant to call me, but he never did. I called him this morning. He was speaking about a voucher for R1000 to be given to me, but I said that they should invite everyone back. He did not even call me as promised, cowardly sending an Sms with the message he received from Chef Cheyne : ‘I discussed with Cheyne in regards to the issue of you and your colleagues getting compensated. Unfortunately he said will not be able to do that I’m sorry’. Shocking ‼️
POSTSCRIPT 28/1: Chef Cheyne tried to call a number of times this afternoon whilst I was driving, leaving increasingly abusive voice notes too, now offering an olive branch, saying that I should have just called him! For a week I messaged him daily, and he kept deflecting, saying James would call me. Like the waiter Benson was out of his depth, Manager James is out of his depth in running Himitsu. Cheyne said in one of his messages that they were still trying to find a fair way to settle this matter, yet James sent the sms quoted above, which communicated a closed door to any further discussion! Not what one expects of a 5 star hotel restaurant.
POSTSCRIPT 31 January: What a weekend it has been, this post receiving 2200 views on my Blog to date. On the Cape Town Restaurants: The Good, Bad & Nasty Facebook Group close to 600 comments debated and dissected what I had written about Himitsu, the discussion spiralling into one of abuse and disparagement. Chef Cheyne did not do himself a favour in how he acted in the Group discussion, swearing, and being abusive towards the Group Admin Christopher Mark Lowe. When commenters were out of order, and didn’t stop their attack, they were removed from the Group. One of these was Emma Jude Jackson, who was so furious about being kicked out of the Restaurant Group that she tried to defame me on a number of different forums, but as the Admin of these I could block her! Chef Cheyne has lost a number of diners who will not return to his restaurants, in only being able to deal with my complaint with abuse and swearing. A classic comment from him was the following, reflecting the lack of respect he has for his clients: ‘Holy shit we served breakfast that wad ‘(sic) cold. Apologies. Did anyone die? No. You have all wasted your evening on this ridiculous post. So sad. Get your own lives into perspective.’
The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog. Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at chrisvonulmenstein [at] gmail.com. Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog.
Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog: www.chrisvonulmenstein.com/blog Tel +27 082 55 11 323 Twitter:@Ulmenstein Facebook: Chris von Ulmenstein, My Cape Town Guide/Mein Kapstadt Guide Instagram: @Chrissy_Ulmenstein @MyCapeTownGuide