It was an unfortunate day in the office, all internet connections were down and the employees are agitated as they can't do any work. The funny thing was, all of our services, be it data, voice or internet were carried through one-single local loop carrier,which is Bayatel. Although, we subscribed to different service providers, like having 2 T1 lines with Verizon and an E1 line with Asianet, both of these companies are using Bayantel to connect us to the world. This is a class act of stupidity - where we ascribed to the fact that we wanted different service carriers for redundancy purposes, but was held hostage by one single local loop carrier.
In an act of tryng to hide its fault, Bayantel initially told us that the problem was not in the local connection, but in the Philippines-Taiwan line. It was even told that, some shark bit off the fiber optic cable bringing the service down. This explanation was so lame, I dismissed it simply as "passing the buck". Later in the day Verizon and Asianet tested their lines, and it was found out that all their connections are up and running from the Philippines to Taiwan to the US. So, it must be a Bayantel's faulty local connection that's causing the problem. We never had a restored service until the following day. We were given a temporary back-up line later that day, but the service was very intermittent, it's almost useless. That's one day lost in man hours and productivity.
We wait at Azure Cafe, me and Mimi. Maidette begged off as she was scheduled to visit the doctor for her son's consultation on some coughing. Rene was found nowhere and Chay had her packed lunch.
I ordered the special lunch for the day which was the Red Snapper with marsala wine sauce. I always liked fish, hence, whenever I saw one on the menu, if it's not priced exorbitantly, I would always take it. I thought, I saw it bony when an order came out for another customer. Nonetheless, this did not convince me to change my mind.
When Mimi's order was served (we ordered the same fish), we could smell the fishy taste. Mimi was ready to return it to the kitchen and order another meal instead, but I told her, the staff will probably not like us anymore. I was able to convince her that we knew that at some point, the fish may really smell fishy. But we knew, that the fish was not a fresh catch, hence, the fishy smell.
I was not as excited anymore to get my order. When it came, it did smell fishy and tasted fishy. The saving grace was that the marsala wine sauce was great. We ate half satisfied that Mimi suggested we need some desserts to wash-off the fishy taste from our pallets. I ordered the Rhum Cake which was heated a little thereby warming the rum and giving it a kick that almost always, is pleasant to the taste buds. We devoured the cake and had at least one good ending to our Azure Cafe dining experience. Don't get me wrong, I love Azure Cafe, and its menu. The fish today, was just not right.
I paid Php330.00 for this meal, including a can of soda and the rhum cake.
