The Upper House Restaurant, Panjim, Goa | ZOQY

Last night we went out for dinner at the Upper House Restaurant in Panjim.
Richard had walked past the restaurant a few days earlier and liked the look of it, so we thought we?d try it.
The restaurant is above street level up on the first floor, we walked up the stairs and in to the first room of the restaurant which is a large contemporary styled dining room.
The next room is the bar. The bar is decorated in a completely different style to the previous room, it?s very eighties with lots of black and silver, and neon signs above the bar.
The bar leads on to another room, also a dining room, which is furnished in yet another style, it?s still quite eighties but in more of a Laura Ashley soft furnishings way.

When we first arrived there were no other customers, which always puts us off of eating as we prefer to eat somewhere busy because hopefully the food will be fresher due to a more frequent turn over.
As we were the only customers we decided to sit in the bar and have a drink to pass the time, and hoped that more hungry people would arrive.
Richard ordered a Kingfisher beer and I ordered an iced tea. As no more customers had turned up by the time we?d almost finished our drinks we thought the best thing to do was order more drinks. Richard had another beer and I had a Vodka and tonic for health reasons ? the quinine is good for malaria. :d
It was beginning to look as if no other customers would arrive and we?d have to go elsewhere to eat dinner. But before we?d finished our second drink people started arriving in dribs and drabs, so we decided to stay and eat.

Although we preferred the look of the contemporary dining room we chose to eat in the Laura Ashley styled room because the chairs looked much softer and more comfortable, which is very important when you?re old like us.
I was feeling very hungry so I ordered a starter, king prawns wrapped in bacon and served in a tomato sauce. We don?t eat that much and usually only eat one course, so we shared the starter. The prawns were well cooked, the bacon was nice and salty and the tomato sauce was tangy.
For his main course Richard ordered Goan beef stew, with a side order of plain boiled rice. I ordered beef roulade with a side order of mashed potato.

Our main course arrived, all in separate china dishes which the waiter began to serve from. This all sounds very nice, except it wasn?t. As the waiter held the steamed rice dish and began to serve some on to Richards plate he shoved his thumb, right up to the knuckle, into the rice.
I didn?t notice this, but I did notice Richards strange expression. I was sitting opposite Richard and he looked perplexed and not his usual happy self. Then Richards expression turned to disgust as the waiter removed his thumb from the rice, adjusted how he was holding the dish of rice, and then shoved his thumb deep into the rice again.
I asked Richard what was wrong. He said the waiter had just shoved his thumb into the rice ? twice.

We told the waiter we would serve ourselves the rest of the food, so he left the table.
I?m not really sure why but we both dished up a tiny amount of our beef dishes and ate a mouthful. The whole time we were discussing the thumb in the rice.
We were just completely perplexed about what the waiter had done.
Needless to say our appetites vanished, and so did I. I went back in to the bar and asked to speak to the manager.
A couple of minutes later the manager came to our table where we explained what had happened. He offered to get us a new dish of rice, obviously we declined.
We asked for all of the food to be removed from our table, and for the bill.

The bill arrived and all we were charged for were our drinks and the starter, we were not charged for any of our main courses.
When we left the dining room we walked through the bar where the manager apologised and said come back tomorrow the experience will be much better. He also said at the waiter was a trainee. Being cynical people we expected to be told the waiter was new, but this time we did believe it. We were also served by two other waiters during our meal at the Upper House restaurant both of whom were very professional, so it was pretty obvious that the ?thumb in rice? waiter was not experienced.

We were very disappointed not to have eaten all of our meal at the Upper House restaurant in Panjim, Goa, because the starter was good and no doubt so were our main courses. What a shame our dinner and our evening were ruined by thumb in rice.

Tags: Goa, Panjim

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 14th, 2011 at 6:40 am and is filed under India, Restaurant Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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