After the movie, we all decided to eat so we went to place called Zola which can be found on top of session road. It's the first restaurant there. After ordering, they first served our drinks. The dumbass waiter spilled a whole tall glass of Sprite on Darnell by accident. So Darnell was soaking wet and all of our cigarettes were drenched in sprite. But the waiter replaced the cigarettes.
After that, my order came which was Taal Rice. It tasted so bland that eating a cup of day old rice would have been better. Darnell ordered a sausage meal and specifically requested to have the eggs scrambled but when it came, the egg was barely cooked and the sausage and rice was swimming on the Yolk. He had it replaced which took what seemed like 10 years before the served it again.
Marge's order was Pesto Linguine. We all ordered at the same time, and after 30 minutes, a waiter came and said that the Pesto was not available. So pissed as she was, she tried to keep her cool and ordered Tomato Ragout on Linguine instead. There were 5 of us that night and 4 of us got all our orders and were almost done eating but Marge's Ragout was nowhere in sight.
When they finally served it, she said that she already canceled the order but did not remember which waiter she asked to have it canceled. The waitress who served the Ragout brought it back to the counter and then there was a commotion because the cancellation was not in their system.
The stupid waitress came back and asked Marge a lot of questions which started to irritate us all. I finally looked at the waitress and said, "How hard is it to get an order right? Does it need effort from all of you?" the waitress apologized for all the mishaps that night and Marge said, "Alright just serve the damn pasta if that will make you stop asking questions." So the waitress served it AFTER 10 MINUTES.
I tasted the Ragout and the moment my taste buds hit it, I said "What the fuck?! This isn't Ragout. I specialize in cooking pasta, this isn't Ragout. And the pasta isn't cooked. Jawbreakers are softer than this". I was really on the verge of loosing my temper but I tried to calm down.
So when the bill came, we were surprised because we were charged with the pesto. I called the same waiter who said earlier that it wasn't available and he asked me "Didn't you order Pesto sir?" thats when I snapped back at him and said, "weren't you the one who said that the pesto was not available?!" I think he remembered and apologized yet again. He brought the check back to the cashier to have it changed. This time it was the waitress who brought back the new check. I looked her in the eyes then took the check from her hand. She was about to go back to the counter but I told her to stay where she was.
We all brought our wallets out and payed but before giving it back to her, I told her to suggest to their manager a new wave of training or change the whole staff. She apologized again.
I know their doing their job but apologies are just words in cases like this. I would understand if they were understaffed or if the place was swimming with people that night but it wasn't. There were a lot of their staff just walking around and there were only a few people. Well I am telling you this I am never going back to Zola. The food is awful, the service is obscenely horrible, and the WiFi ir so slow that the GPRS on my phone is a lot faster.
So we all left without leaving a tip.
Here's a copy of the bill (click to enlarge):
