Dining Displeasures

Does Karma have a moral consciences? Is it possible to build up the Karma bank with good deeds, knowing full well that a premeditated bad deed was on the horizon? Are there rules to Karma? We let me back up a few days and fill you in.

Whilst cruising and shopping in the fine city of Amsterdam I was getting hungry. I figured a cone of go fries would be the perfect snack for me. Perfect to stroll along with and watch the world go by would be great. So we looked and looked and looked but no chip shop, but we did see a Pannekoek house. Andy B-lined it for the front door and in we went. What we did not realize was that our meal would turn out to be our biggest rip off of this entire trip. Two pints of Heineken and two cheese and bacon pannekoeks cost us 30 farking Euros, that is approximately 45 CAD. I was pissed, fully taken advantage of by the local pancake jerk.

Fast Forward 30 hours and again we were hungry and looking for a feed. We did manage to find a Argentinian restaurant with a few specials on so in we went.

Dion: What are the specials we saw on the board on the way in?

Waiter: We have a 200g Sirloin on special, ribs and lasagna, the chicken and fish are done for the night.

Andi: I'll have the steak.

Dion: I'll have the ribs.

The food comes a few moments later and on we ate, the steak was nowhere near being cooked correctly. I asked Andi if she wanted to send it back but she shrugged it off not wanting to be an inconvenience. The bill arrived as we went to leave and the steak was listed as 16 Euro. I knew something was not right as I remember the specials board outside did not have anything that expensive on it. So I went out and checked and sure enough the steak was listed as 11 Euro.

Simple mistake I figured and took the bill up to the bar to sort it out. When we presented the issue to the man and he instantly put up a defensive stance as i how dare I question the tab. He kept on stating that we had ate a very good sirloin steak on special and it cost 16 Euro. I told him about the sign outside, the 200g steak for 11 Euro etc. This went on for a while until I took the man outside and pointed at the sign and said "Look 200g steak, 11 Euros you're ripping me off."

The man then pointed to a tiny sign way up in the back corner of the patio, out of the way which said 200g sirloin steak, 16 Euros and then stated the 11 Euro steak was a "Rump steak" not as good.

Well the major stand off started here, as we were obviously being screwed with and we weren't happy, especially with the pannekoek incident still fresh in our mind. We then started to argue back in the restaurant and he offered, very kindly as he put it, to lower our bill by one Euro to 30. We rightfully owed him 26 and then offered to pay 27 being the change we had in our pockets. It was a matter of principle at this point knowing full well that he was trying to snake us.

After 5 minutes of heated arguments Andi said thats it and left the restaurant. Well the fat man behind the counter lost his mind and ran out to try and block her. I have never seen a fat guy (think George Costanza from Seinfeld) move so quickly. Andi got out the door so the bastard then gets up in my face and starts to threaten me. He pushed his face with beatty eyes pulsing to the beat of his heart inches from my face. He was not going to let me leave until he got his 3 Euro. Then he shouts over to our waiter and tells him to call the cops. At this point I was so pissed, I threw the extra 3 Euro at him just so I wouldn't hit him and left. I was shaking for a couple of hours after the incident.

We had been ripped off and it wasn't fair, so I went back 2 nights later after they closed and threw 3 eggs at restaurant, symbolic of the 3 Euros he was ready to fight and call the cops for. I hope it takes him three days to get the yokes off of the front door. He deserved every bit of it. We left Europe the next morning.