Downpour Dining

We were set for a night of delicious food and impeccable service. It was our monthly girls’ night out and my turn to select the restaurant and making all the arrangements.

I had read so many good reviews about Cassis, the talk of the town. It was a new French restaurant that had just opened. I thought it would be the ideal place for us to catch up, outside work.

The location was not ideal for either one of us: it was on another side of town, but we all eagerly wanted to go.

The reservation was surprisingly easy, for a new restaurant. A woman with a heavy French accent had greeted me over the phone and confirmed it. “We look forward to welcoming you at Cassis, Madame,” she had said before hanging up abruptly.  

I was very excited. No. We were excited. We were all buzzing with anticipation and excitement.

This was Chef Antoine’s fourth establishment. He was known for his expertise in southern French cuisine and this time, with a special twist. The menu was created in memory of his grandmother who taught him how to cook from his native Provence.

As the evening rush hour approached, I was running late. I had a few memos to send before leaving the office, so I asked the girls to go ahead. I would catch up later.

A good hour had passed before I was able to push that last send button. I thought, the girls, my three colleagues, must have wondered what had happened to me.

After a quick lady’s room stop, I called an Uber on my way down.

It was still raining but the thought of a night of fine dining and friendly conversation was however all the lure to the evening.

When the Uber arrived in front of the restaurant, I did one more check before leaving the car. Hair. Check. Tote. Tidy. I realized I had left the office in a rush. Umbrella. Ready to open.

From outside, the place already looked packed. I could hear people laughing. It also smelled good; the aroma of French food filled the air.

As soon as I stepped in, a man dressed in a dark suit greeted me, “Bonsoir Mademoiselle, welcome to Cassis!” He looked severe, making one feel unwelcome.

Not letting myself being intimidate by this stranger, I smiled and told him that I was meeting three friends who must have arrived already. While he looked at the reservation, I spotted Sarah a few tables away, waiving at me.

“Ah! Voila, Mademoiselle. Your friends have been waiting for you. Follow me please,” he said, escorting me to the table.

“You made it!”

“What took you so long?”

“I’m so sorry. I thought I would never be able to send that last report. And the phone kept ringing after you guys left.”

As I look around, I can’t help noticing the décor and the noise inside. It was even louder than I had initially thought. “Is it me, or this is nothing one might expect from a French restaurant?” I said to my three friends.

“Right?” replied Michelle.

“We were also caught by surprise when we came in,” said Amanda.

“Well, you chose it. Let’s order some drinks,” says Sarah, trying to make me feel bad.

The servers looked overwhelmed. They were running around frantically, trying to keep up with the orders. The restaurant was completely packed with hungry customers.

We thought it was because of the rain and people had wanted to dine earlier.

Despite this chaos, we decided to give the restaurant a chance, hoping that the food would make up for the lack of organization.

“Has anyone seen a waiter yet?” said Michelle.

“I’m trying the mocktail. It says here that it contains lavender and honey,” said Sarah.

“I’m having a---whatever this is pronounced,” added Amanda.

I was undecided. Nothing on the drink’s menu looked appealing to me.

At the table next to ours, we overheard the waiter saying that all the Chef’s choices were excellent. So, we took that as a clue.

After deciding on the drinks, we waited for a server to come to our table. Little did we know that we had been assigned a rookie server named Tom. And little did he know we were a particularly demanding table.

Tom approached us with a large smile on his face, clutching his notepad and pen, ready to take our orders. As he begun to write, his pen explodes, leaving him covered in ink. He tried to laugh it off while apologizing to us.

I found the sight funny, and we all chuckled thinking that he had a good sense of humor. Undeterred, he grabbed a spare pen and attempts to take their orders again.

“I am now ready to take your orders.”

We were more than ready. We had decided to first try the drinks before venturing into an entire three-course meal.  Everyone around the table placed their orders. When it came to my turn, Tom said, “Mademoiselle, what may I bring you?”

I was still undecided. But then I did not want to waste any time, so I pointed to the first thing I saw on the list as “the Chef’s choice.”

“Excellent choice,” he said, writing it down.    

After our orders are finally placed, Tom headed to the bar to relay them to the mixologist. But just as he approached her, he tripped over his own feet, sending the orders flying through the air.

Everyone watched the scene in disbelief as drinks and plates of food rain down upon the waitstaff, covering them in a colorful mess. The head chef himself couldn’t’ help but burst into laughter at the sight.

While the kitchen staff worked to recreate the lost orders, Tom returned to our table, to apologize profusely and promised to our drinks would soon be ready. He was now adorned with food stains and a sheepish smile.  

The girls and I we were both amused and sympathetic. We told him not to worry about it. This was all part of the dining experience, and we looked forward to having a good time.

When our drinks finally arrived, we were however disappointed. Our orders had been mixed up with another table. Seeing the agitation at our table, the restaurant manager brought us some bread, olive oil and tapenade to share to calm us down.

Amid voices talking over each other, servers running with orders, hot plates being ready to be served, the noise inside Cassis was getting louder and louder. From the kitchen, which was open for all to see how the meals were being prepared, we could hear the porcelain of the plates braking in the back and someone shouting something in a foreign language—it sounded more like a swear than anything else.  

When it came time to order our main courses, we decided to keep it simple, selecting from the chef’s recommendation. I selected a duck confit rather than the traditional salade niçoise as an entrée. For my main course, we all chose the fish stew, or bouillabaisse, and for the desert, we asked for chocolate profiteroles to share. These were safe selections.   

As the night progressed, Tom’s misadventures continued but at different tables. His genuine charm and willingness to make things right were however endearing to us all.   

When our appetizers arrived, he had a few extra jokes and funny anecdotes to share about our choices. It is however when he was approaching our table with the soup that disaster struck—again. A plate slipped from Tom’s grasp and landed on a customer’s lap.

“My bouillabaisse!” I said, seeing the bowl of seafood landing on the woman’s skirt.

Horrified, the customer jumped off her chair. The guests who had witnessed the scene were amused and laughed.

Those who were seated far back turned around to ask what had just happened. Not only had the seafood flown from the hot plate, but another server’s brown toupee had flown in the air after he tripped over a customer’s bag. The piece of hair had landed on top of a customer’s wine carafe.   

While embarrassing, the moment of laughter at our table reminding us that even in the face of mishaps and imperfect circumstances, joy could always prevail. We made the best out of it.

To do some damage control, Tom and the restaurant manager rushed to the woman’s table to present their excuses and offer to clean up her dress. Her face was scarlet, and she kept looking at her dress. The man who had accompanied her tried to comfort her but without success.  

Two servers helped Tom pick up the seafood spread on the table and on the floor, while another one mopped the floor. The one who had lost his toupee was now hiding in the kitchen.

The cleanup did not take too long because our food arrived shortly after.

Meanwhile, the couple that had unintentionally received part of our bouillabaisse left, without paying. It was clear they would not be back.

Our bouillabaisse was served cold. It also lacked the delicate plating we had expected for such an establishment. We went from one disaster to another, amidst, despite all, some funny moments.

To serve our desert, Tom did his best to make up for the evening. He was ready to impress with a performance. While serving the profiteroles, he tried to perform a fancy trick juggling the cream puffs, but he ended up creating a sticky and chocolatey disaster all over our clothes.   

When the bill came, we received the wrong one. The prices listed on the menu did not match our orders. We had come with high hopes, only to be met with disappointment at every turn.

We were done! We were also determined to share our experience at Cassis. Each one of us vowed to write a scathing review warning others about our disastrous visit to the once-talked-about restaurant.

As we drove away in separate cars, the rain continued to pour, mirroring our dampened spirits.