Last supper at Indian Mantra

On March 5, I took eight friends to dine at the Indian Mantra restaurant in Pasaraya Grande. When I ordered some food, I started to wonder why the menu offered a far shorter list than usual, with only three waiters compared with five to eight earlier.

Ordering five dishes, two breads and three portions of rice as a start, we waited for over an hour -- usually the food is ready in about 15 to 25 minutes. I checked and found there were only two cooks compared with five during my previous visits.

When I asked the manager how much longer we would have to wait, he said the food would be served in five minutes. It did appear shortely after that but there was no rice, even after we ate for 10 minutes.

I told the manager that this was unacceptable, but he just replied, "It will not happen next week". I said I was a regular customer and very disappointed. I brought my friends and was humiliated in front of them. Still, the manager responded, "Next week we will operate normally".

Angered by this brush-off, I tossed my Indian Mantra membership card before other guests and said, "I've never had to wait for more than an hour to get my order". Then a waiter brought in boxes of rice he had bought from another place.

The manager was pretending not to hear when I complained that he should not have treated his customers like this. When cancelling my order for other food, I had to pay a complete bill, including a 10 percent service charge, although I got no decent service and was entitled to a 10 percent discount as member.

SISWA RIZALI, Jakarta