Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The Chinese Room Captain

There is this restaurant in Pune called Chinese Room, which serves good Chinese food. The restaurant is on East Street in the Cantonment area. The first time I went there was on a Saturday all alone and had roasted duck chicken (you guys have to try this in Chinese Room) and I met this amazing captain who was really courteous and gives you a feeling that his job is not all about taking the order and passing it on to the kitchen but to delight the guests.

He was talking to all the guests and checking if everything is fine and helping them with deciding what to order and stuff. Everyone does that, what is so great about that, you might ask. May be, everyone does that, but how they do it also matters, I guess. You got to visit this place and experience the service first hand. Seeing him at work, you can t stop wondering how come this guy is so pepped up about his work, from where does he derive this enormous amount of energy and how come he gives the feeling that you are his first guest and his day has just started. There is lot of cheer and smile is always there on his face.

Sample this, the other day when I was dining at the restraunt there was a group of people who belonged to the muslim community and this guy was personally shaking hands with the male guests and thanking them for considering to dine at Chinese Room and also wishing them belated Diwali (the incident took place right after the diwali weekend). One may argue about his choice of greeting (giving diwali wishes to muslim guests) but look at it this way, despite knowing that they don’t belong to the community he warmly welcomes and wishes them.


During my first visit after I was through with my lunch I couldn’t stop asking him how come he is so pepped up and passionate about his job. He answer was “I like interacting with people”. I really don’t if he really liked interacting with people or he could not think of better answer but this guy gives 200% to his job. As a token of appreciation I gave him a wonderful review and a good tip.


When I see people like this I feel passion is something which is inborn which comes through liking and love and and you cannot make people become passionate with incentives or perks. If he wants to do it he will do it but if he doesn’t want to he won’t even give a damn about it.