Last night, Mel Li and I decided to participate in Lovestruck's (an online dating agency) singles' event at District 10, UE Square.  The whole idea to this event was a bit like guerrilla dating where you participate by ordering drinks and asking the wait staff for a red straw.  So...you chat up anyone who has a red straw.  Sounds interesting?  That's what I thought so too...hence our enthusiasm in turning up for the event. 

Feeling pretty upbeat and hungry, we quickly ordered our dinner and drinks at 7.45pm.  Below is my dinner of wagyu meatballs with fries.

Now, let me wax lyrical about these delectable spheres of wagyu that were drenched in a delightful creamy sauce.  The sauce was unbelievably delicious!!  The secret is either mustard or horseradish  but it was very well done because any more of that stuff and I'd have a gagging effect.  Yes, I react THAT badly to horseradish/ wasabi and any mustard that tastes like those 2 offensive foods. 

The turning point of our evening came when those said meatballs were eaten.  Now...where were our drinks?  We asked 3 different waiters/ waitresses about our drinks.  After asking the 3rd one, she turned up at our table with a glass of Caribbean Breeze which we had cancelled and replaced with an 'Extreme Mojito' immediately after our 1st order.

8.45pm.  Still no sign of the 'Extreme Mojito' nor my Lychee Mojito.  Where have our mojitos gone to?  Ugh.  Parched.  Fries were left half eaten as we were not even given water.  Forget about even trying to participate in the event since we had no drinks and hence, no straws.  -_-  Couldn't take it anymore, so I went up to the bar and spoke to whom I think is the bar manager.  At 8.50pm, the waitress who had earlier arrived with the wrong drink, came up to us and said, "Your drinks are not here yet because nobody had input them into the system. They'll be here soon."  Seriously. I don't give a flying rat's ass if its your colleague's fault if he didn't put it into the system the first time.  What about the 2nd and 3rd time that we asked about our drinks?  I even mentioned the drinks' names ALL 3 times.  Instead of being apologetic, you give me an excuse. 

8.55pm.  Drinks finally arrive.  Ok...the lychee mojito was good enough to garner another one but no way would I want to order another one simply because, I didn't want to be there till 11pm.

9pm. Spoke to a waiter and asked to see the manager.  That caused him to panic a little and when he heard how upset we were with the lack of service AND that we had to wait for an hour for our drinks, he was immediately apologetic.  We told him then that there was no way that we were going to pay the service charge.  He came back a minute later, saying that he has already spoken to the manager and the manager will attend to us shortly.

How long does it take for a restaurant manager to arrive?  Apparently, more than 20 minutes.  At 9.20pm, we saw no sign of the manager and we were really tempted to just walk out.  Mel Li went up to another waiter and told him that we wanted our bill, was very upset that we had waited 20 min for the manager who didn't show up and stressed that we were not going to pay the service charge.  That waiter did come with our bill quite quickly and apologised saying that it was the 1st time in District 10's history where they had sooo many customers, which was why it seemed like they were understaffed.

I did a quick look-see of heads vs seats.  They were about the same.  If you HAVE a certain number of seats, you ought to have enough staff to handle all of them at the same time.  If clubs are able to attend to MORE customers efficiently, why couldn't District 10 do so when they call themselves a bar restaurant?  If you know that you're understaffed, why did you agree to be the event venue? Sheesh.  Anyway, due to some stupid system issue, we were given a 10% discount but was charged service charge.  The waiter pointed out that we 'saved' in this manner.  Uh huh...by 20c.

As we walked out of the bar/restaurant, yet another memory was etched into our minds.  This was really a LOL moment.  We were 'ambushed' at the exit by this guy who said to Mel Li, "Do you know my friend Lionel?" (pick up line from 'How I Met Your Mother').  At this moment, Lionel was talking to another guy friend and looked quite shocked when the ambusher delivered that pick up line.  "Uh...hi....bye," went Mel Li and I.  OMG. That was NOT well done!!! Not well executed.

This is how the pick up line is supposed to work.  Guy A sees girl and likes girl.  Guy A gets his wingman to use that pick up line on the girl.  In the case above, it's more like the 'wingman' saw Mel Li and wanted to get to know Mel Li better.  Uh...use a different line dude. 

Anyway, that's how my event went from yay to nay in 2 hours.  :P