Zorba. It’s a name that will live forever in infamy for me; not for the famous movie “Zorba the Greek,” or the famous song from the movie, “Zorba’s Dance,” but the name of the restaurant that my friends and I went to late one night in London. It was June 19, 2004. I had just been to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in Hyde park and when I got back to the hotel, two of my friends, JR & John, and I decided to get something to eat. It was about 11 p.m. when we headed out and we found two or three restaurants that looked like they might be good, but they were closed. Then we happened upon Zorba’s Greek Taverna (http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/restaurants/restaurant-176.php). We were pondering whether to try it out or not when a guy emerged from inside the restaurant and asked us to come in. I thought that was friendly and a sign of luck (and it was, but in this case, the bad kind) so I voted we follow the guy inside. JR & John were a little more wary, but seeing how it was around 11:30 at this point, we figured we might not get another chance to eat, and we were starving. We went inside and sat down and noticed there were three other tables that had people at them, one with 7 people and one with 4 and one with 2 people. The people at the big table had their drinks but no food and nobody else had any food.
The first part of the dining experience went as expected, with the waiter taking our drink order. It was awhile before he came back and gave us our drinks and took our food order, though. When the drinks came, I was shocked. The drinks cost 4 pounds and were in little glasses. They weren’t shot glasses, but they couldn’t have had more than 0.2 liters (about 6.75 ounces) of fluid in them. I think I’m being generous. We ordered and JR ordered a plate of tzatziki so we could dip our meat in it. I was thinking that was kind of wasteful since I thought it customary to include some tzatziki on the plate with the meat. I like tzatziki, but I like to taste the meat as well.
Next, the waiter brought out some bread and put it on our table even though we didn’t order any, nor did he ask if we wanted any. (Some of you might have fallen for this trick, which was our biggest complaint, in the end.)
About this time, we were starting to get really cold. The door was open and we asked a lady that worked there if they could close it. The lady nodded but didn’t close it. We asked again. She nodded again and smiled. Still no movement of the door. One of us went over and closed it part of the way but the lady wouldn’t allow us to completely close the door. I went to the bathroom, which was downstairs. It wasn’t completely clean but it was acceptable. Also, it was a little warmer there than upstairs. I considered staying for longer than was necessary, and it wouldn’t have hurt since when I got back to the table the food still hadn’t arrived.
When our food finally did arrive, shortly after the food at the big table (we don’t know how much longer they were there than us), it wasn’t the size portions that we were used to. It tasted good, sure, but it wasn’t much. There was no tzatziki on the plate like I thought there would be and the side order of tzatziki was a small plate with just enough spread on it to bring it level with the top of the plate. It was thicker than tzatziki I’d had before and would have been enough for only one person eating a normal amount of the stuff with a Greek meal.
When we finished, our plates were cleared in a normal amount of time. We waited for the check for a little while, and then we asked for it. We waited. We asked again. We waited. Finally, I got up and went to the door the man was going in and out of and asked him for the check. He said for me to go and sit down and he would bring it to me. I said that I would wait there until he brought it to me. I think he realized I was a little upset and he got it prepared fairly quickly.
The bill. It looked like a lot more than I thought we had ordered or was justified. I was tired and frustrated and suggested to the guys that we should just pay it and get out of there. JR & John looked at it and couldn’t believe how much it was. After looking at each item, we realized he charged us for bread and a service charge. I guess bad service costs more. We decided to leave him the amount of money for everything minus the service charge and the bread and get out of there. We didn’t have exact change so we ended up giving him a little more than was fair for what we received.
You’d think that would be the end of the story. We walked out of the restaurant and started down the street when the waiter comes running after us! All of the sudden, he’s in a hurry! He tells us we didn’t pay enough. We tell him we paid him for what we ordered and we weren’t paying any more. He told us how he would have to make up for that money and how we were taking money out of his family’s pockets. We told him that was too bad and he should learn that he was taking money out of his customer’s pockets when he charges them for something didn’t order (bread) and something they didn’t provide (service). We kept walking the entire time he was talking so eventually he had to give up and return to the restaurant.
That is why we coined the term, “Zorba,” to persuade tourists to eat at a low-grade restaurant, and “Zorba’d,” to eat at a low-grade restaurant in a tourist area, as in, “We visited the Heidelberg Castle last weekend and unfortunately ended up getting Zorba’d at one of the nearby restaurants.” In a future post, I’ll explain how to significantly lower your chances of being Zorba’d.
The first part of the dining experience went as expected, with the waiter taking our drink order. It was awhile before he came back and gave us our drinks and took our food order, though. When the drinks came, I was shocked. The drinks cost 4 pounds and were in little glasses. They weren’t shot glasses, but they couldn’t have had more than 0.2 liters (about 6.75 ounces) of fluid in them. I think I’m being generous. We ordered and JR ordered a plate of tzatziki so we could dip our meat in it. I was thinking that was kind of wasteful since I thought it customary to include some tzatziki on the plate with the meat. I like tzatziki, but I like to taste the meat as well.
Next, the waiter brought out some bread and put it on our table even though we didn’t order any, nor did he ask if we wanted any. (Some of you might have fallen for this trick, which was our biggest complaint, in the end.)
About this time, we were starting to get really cold. The door was open and we asked a lady that worked there if they could close it. The lady nodded but didn’t close it. We asked again. She nodded again and smiled. Still no movement of the door. One of us went over and closed it part of the way but the lady wouldn’t allow us to completely close the door. I went to the bathroom, which was downstairs. It wasn’t completely clean but it was acceptable. Also, it was a little warmer there than upstairs. I considered staying for longer than was necessary, and it wouldn’t have hurt since when I got back to the table the food still hadn’t arrived.
When our food finally did arrive, shortly after the food at the big table (we don’t know how much longer they were there than us), it wasn’t the size portions that we were used to. It tasted good, sure, but it wasn’t much. There was no tzatziki on the plate like I thought there would be and the side order of tzatziki was a small plate with just enough spread on it to bring it level with the top of the plate. It was thicker than tzatziki I’d had before and would have been enough for only one person eating a normal amount of the stuff with a Greek meal.
When we finished, our plates were cleared in a normal amount of time. We waited for the check for a little while, and then we asked for it. We waited. We asked again. We waited. Finally, I got up and went to the door the man was going in and out of and asked him for the check. He said for me to go and sit down and he would bring it to me. I said that I would wait there until he brought it to me. I think he realized I was a little upset and he got it prepared fairly quickly.
The bill. It looked like a lot more than I thought we had ordered or was justified. I was tired and frustrated and suggested to the guys that we should just pay it and get out of there. JR & John looked at it and couldn’t believe how much it was. After looking at each item, we realized he charged us for bread and a service charge. I guess bad service costs more. We decided to leave him the amount of money for everything minus the service charge and the bread and get out of there. We didn’t have exact change so we ended up giving him a little more than was fair for what we received.
You’d think that would be the end of the story. We walked out of the restaurant and started down the street when the waiter comes running after us! All of the sudden, he’s in a hurry! He tells us we didn’t pay enough. We tell him we paid him for what we ordered and we weren’t paying any more. He told us how he would have to make up for that money and how we were taking money out of his family’s pockets. We told him that was too bad and he should learn that he was taking money out of his customer’s pockets when he charges them for something didn’t order (bread) and something they didn’t provide (service). We kept walking the entire time he was talking so eventually he had to give up and return to the restaurant.
That is why we coined the term, “Zorba,” to persuade tourists to eat at a low-grade restaurant, and “Zorba’d,” to eat at a low-grade restaurant in a tourist area, as in, “We visited the Heidelberg Castle last weekend and unfortunately ended up getting Zorba’d at one of the nearby restaurants.” In a future post, I’ll explain how to significantly lower your chances of being Zorba’d.
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