Dec 23, 2008 02:31 PM
2033 Views
Do you want to experience what it feels like being discrimated against in India? Welcome to De L`Orient.
To be fair most of the staff are very helpful. My wife was not feeling too well. They immediately got back with medicines from a local pharmacy.
The room we stayed in, Cassimbazar, was very nice. Note that the bathrooms do not have any door at all. We were comfortable with it. But not sure if all Indians would be comfortable with this. The beds and furniture were antique. Overall the rooms have a great look to them.
The reason for the one star review was the pathetic treatement meted out to us at the restraurant. It was Saturday evening. We liked the ambience of the restaurant. We asked for a table for two. First the waiter said that I have to go to the terrace to eat. They had only bbq there. Since my wife is vegerarian we wanted to have alacarte. The waiter told us sorry they dont serve food downstairs. This was "strange" because there were a few couples already in middle of dinner(no bbq meat seen anywhere on the tables). Another "co.incidence" was that everyone there were white. No Indians.
So I brought to the notice of the waiter that there are people who were being served dinner as we speak. I asked him to get his manager. The manager's name is Abdil(thats what he told me). Abdel or Abdil, is a white man around 35 years of age. Very curt. He said that they do serve dinner but that dinner was now closed! It was 9:15 pm at this time. I then asked him to about the sign upfront that says dinner is seved till 9:30 pm. He said it meant that the restaurant will be closed by 9:30. I asked him whether he expected all the people currently having dinner to be done by 9:30! He said yes. Again, it was a bald faced lie. Reason is that I saw a couple served dinner as we speak. There was no way they would be done in 15 minutes. Since my room was upstairs I waited to see if he really shooes away the guests at 9:30. Nothing of that sort happend. I was there till 10 pm and only one couple left. There were still 4 couples at their table(with one getting desert at 10 pm).
So I am not sure what happened there. I think some of them were under the mistaken impression that Pondicherry is still French territory.
Its very sad that one person, Abdel, forced me to rate the propertly so low. Its amazing how some establishments can get away with this.
Shame on you De L'Orient for employing a racist as your manager.
