I’ve been to Chopsticks over 50 times since my family moved to Qatar. And I can say that I’ve had a pretty similar experience with the food and service in every visit. However, as I will explain later in the blog, this particular visit was unlike any other, due to an unfavorable event. Some of the dishes I always order at this Far-Eastern restaurant are: Hakka noodles, shrimp tempura, and stir-fried chicken with shitake mushrooms and bamboo shoots. They are always as delicious, presentation looks the same, and the portion-size is more-or-less identical every single time they are served. On Fridays, they serve a lunch buffet featuring a variety of Oriental, Japanese, Chinese, and Thai cuisine. Last Friday, I went to Chopsticks with my parents and sister. My parents settled for the buffet, and my sister and I decided to go à la carte. This visit was a good opportunity for me to observe the two types of dining services offered simultaneously (menu and buffet), while observing this small formal organization from a sociological perspective.
According to Joan Ferrante, a formal organization is a type of secondary group. These groups consist of people who interact with each other to achieve a specific goal. The relationships between these people are impersonal, and in contrast to primary groups, members of a secondary group do not have strong emotional ties among each other. Instead, they relate to each other in terms of the individual roles of people in the organization. In this context, the relationship between all employees in the restaurant are limited to a specific task or activity, such as waiting tables, cashier, sushi chef, head chef, line cooks, cleaners, dishwashers etc. The members of this group identify with each other according to the jobs they perform, not how they behave outside the restaurant (the setting in which secondary group members interact with a specific purpose).
For example, the waiter takes our order, delivers it to the chef in the kitchen, the chef tells his brigade of chefs and line cooks the order, and those chefs have to communicate with each other to complete a tables order. In order for all appetizers and main courses to come out at the same time chefs at different stations must communicate accordingly. Also, there are different waiters assigned to specific tasks; some take orders, others supervise the buffet in case something needs to be re-filled, removed, or if there are any specific requests from the customers, they need to be taken to the chef or manager.
While watching the sushi chef complete a batch of fresh sushi, I saw that a waiter comes to the chef, asks him if the batch is ready and takes them to the buffet to be arranged in a specific array by the chef responsible for arranging the buffet. The interaction between the three employees is restricted to achieving a particular goal, which is serving food to customers.
Furthermore, the four concepts of efficiency, control, calculation and predictability are exercised in order to achieve that goal. These four principles of McDonaldization can be applied to Chopsticks, although they are not as extensively implemented in comparison to the L’wzaar Seafood Market restaurant in Katara Cultural village. First, there are different aspects that can be related to how the restaurant operates in order to maximize its efficiency. By having specialized tasks where the different parts involved in the process of preparing and serving the food are broken down and assigned to different employees who are trained to perform a particular task, the customers are served faster.
One employee greets and seats the customers, another takes their order and delivers it to the kitchen, the chef shouts out the order, different chefs work on different dishes, another waiter picks up the food and serves it, one chef is responsible for preparing only the sushi, another for arranging the buffet and so on. Also, all items ordered are entered into a computer system at the cashier, where each table’s tab is kept up to date. All items ordered in the beginning or during your meal are recorded efficiently and updated systematically. In terms of control, some aspects to consider include the way the employees are dressed; waitresses, waiters, chefs, managers all have distinct uniforms according to their roles. For example, the chef wears his chef’s hat, the manager wears a tie and suit, and waitresses wear either the traditional Chinese dress or red jacket with a Chinese twist on the collar.
The dining room is divided into the buffet section (only on Fridays), non-smoking and smoking tables, controlling how customers are seated and where they line up for the buffet. The arrangement of the buffet is not spontaneous, but precisely organized according to category of cuisine: “Thai corner”, “Chinese corner”, sushi and desert. All details of the way the food and dining room is presented and arranged is controlled and planned out thoroughly; the way the handkerchiefs are folded, the cutlery, the glasses, the wet towels, the menu and the assortment of all table accessories.
Calculation can be observed mostly through the cashier station. The computer screen is not very different than the one you might see in any fast food restaurant. The cashier person selects the menu items displayed on the screen and they are automatically recorded into the system, and the bill is tabulated. This allows for accurate quantification and calculation that provides the organization with numerical indicators of their daily profits, what products (specific menu items) are in demand, and evaluation of their lunch and dinner services.
Part of why I keep going to Chopsticks, is that I know I am going to have the great experience I’ve enjoyed previously over and over again, which has to do very much with the predictability of the restaurant’s food and service. I go through the same process of greeting and seating, where after saying “non-smoking please”, I am seated in the same area. Even though almost all employees know my family and I, they keep asking the same question because they are trained to do so.
After being seated, I expect the same ambience and atmosphere created by the Asian themed furnishings and detail including the table items such as an assortment of four sauces, the same type of flower found on every table, and chopsticks wrapped in an envelope with the name and logo of the restaurant. I also expect to receive the complementary crab or chicken salad, and the food to be the same every time I order it, same portions, same time taken for food to arrive (which is usually 15-20 minutes), the same presentation and the same taste, texture and flavor.
To my surprise, this time, the shrimp tempura dish, usually the highlight of my Chopsticks experience, was a complete disappointment. Not only where the jumbo shrimps, not so “jumbo”, and the batter not as golden and crispy, but soggy and chewy…I found a hair on one of my shrimps – yes, the ultimate horror of hair in the food. Completely and utterly shocked by what I found on one of my dear shrimps, I completely forgot to take a picture, so I have no evidence to display here, and now that I think of it, I am thankful for not having any because it is not a sight I’d like to remember especially that I plan to go back to this restaurant again. This is where the drama comes in…
According to Ferrante, the dramaturgical model, developed by Sociologist Erving Goffman, is a model in which social interaction among members in society can be examined as a theater, where different people were actors, with different roles, and they perform these roles before an audience in a particular setting. From the moment I received my devastating shrimps, it came to my attention that the restaurant can be viewed as a play where the employees where the actors, the dining room was the front stage and the kitchen as well as the area covered by separating screens where the sushi is prepared is the back stage. Looking around this “stage”, all employees (actors) manage the setting (the restaurant), their dress (uniforms), their words (greetings, communication with customers, interaction with other actors), their gestures, to correspond to the impression they are trying to make or the image they are trying to convey to the audience (customers). According to Ferrante, this process of coordination in social situations is called impression management.
All members of the cast (restaurant employees) behaved and interacted with each other in order to put on this “show” for the audience, where customers receive their food as requested, up to the standards required, in the way they are trained, while maintaining the intended image of a contemporary, Far-Eastern restaurant serving oriental cuisine in an elegant setting, suitable for both business meals and family. Now back to my tragic shrimps…
When I made my complaint to the waiter, he immediately took the dish away while apologizing repeatedly, and said he’ll be right back. I expected a somewhat similar reaction to what the waiter actually said and did, but what was interesting to me was what my mom overlooked in the “backstage” while scooping second rounds of Manchurian chicken in the buffet. Sitting in the dining room, everything seemed calm, cool, and collected from my point of view. However, according to my mom, behind the dividing screens, the manager was arguing with and scolding all the waiters, and the chef, who had apparently left the kitchen to speak to the manager and waiters.
There was obviously some back-stage behavior that contradicts the front stage and therefore they tried to conceal it from the rest of the dining room. They wouldn’t want the rest of the customers to hear about hair in the food, nor do they want them to see or hear any of the quarreling and argument about it. The gestures, tone of voice, and behavior of the employees in the backstage, not only regarding the shrimp dilemma but also the situation in the kitchen is not revealed to the audience. Also worth noting, is the sushi station that is in a hidden corner as well and concealed by the screens. When I came closer to the station with my phone trying to capture a few shots, the chef became flustered and started wiping his mess away, tried to close his open mayonnaise bottle, and pick up the sliced cucumbers that have fallen off the plate and onto the counter. If this were a station that is purposely set for an audience to watch and observe, like cooking stations in many other restaurants (like L’wzaar), I am pretty sure the sushi chef would have been working more neatly, and the counter would be arranged in a cleaner, more sophisticated and amusing way, all depending on what image the restaurant is trying to project.
Finally, the manager came over to our table and personally apologized for the incident and assured us it would not happen again. He replaced my dish with a new hair-free tempura free of charge, and the waitress who’s known me for three years patted me on the back caringly and apologetically, saying “so sorry Zayeena”. I must admit they salvaged my experience and chances of me coming back with the complementary desert, and free shrimps, and extra care from the staff. This part of the service can be considered the informal dimension, or the unofficial aspect of the organization. The employees' behavior I witnessed in response to my situation, departs from the formal dimension or rules and guidelines. Given the fact that we are frequent customers, and the severity of finding a hair in the food and the impact it may have on the restaurants reputation and image, the manager made a decision of removing the charge of the shrimp tempura off the bill and giving us a complementary desert, all which may not have been part of the rules or guidelines in the restaurant. The way in which the waitress apologized to me by patting me on the back and addressing me by “name”, is a deviation from the standard procedures, and instead could be considered as an employee-generated norm that ignores the official guidelines, in which her relationship and interaction with the customer becomes personalized and not standardized.
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