Canto Canto — Restaurant in Waitematā

I never expected to encounter discrimination against mainland Chinese people by overseas Hong Kong people in today's world.

Key points: Discriminatory treatment towards Mandarin speakers, which is completely different from the way they treat Cantonese speakers and foreigners. No apology was given afterwards, and even after reflecting this to other staff, there was no response.

The incident:

On August 1st, I went to dine at [restaurant name and address in Picture 2] with my friend. We had a lot of stuff with us, so we sat at a four-person table (located opposite the counter).

The restaurant operates on a "pay first, then eat" model. After choosing our seats, I went to order. As I'm also from Hong Kong, I initially ordered in Cantonese. From ordering to paying, there was no indication that we should move seats.

I then returned to the table to wait for our meal. In the meantime, I got some chili oil, as I can eat quite spicy food. I took about three or four spoonfuls and used a small bowl to avoid spilling. While waiting for the food, my friend and I chatted in Mandarin. Shortly after, the staff member in Picture 1 brought our food. She approached us with a very hostile tone, speaking broken English (one word at a time), asking how many people were in our party. She held our food in her hands and pretended not to understand when we replied in Mandarin. She continued in broken English until we responded in English that we were two people. She then placed our food on a nearby two-person table and ordered us to move without any reasonable explanation. Her behavior made it clear that two people should not sit at a four-person table. Given the restaurant's "pay first, then eat" model, she essentially used our food to force us to change seats. She also complained that I took too much chili oil, with an aggressive tone and attitude throughout. My friend and I were stunned and quietly moved to the other table.

At that time, the restaurant wasn't busy; there were a few empty large tables, and another couple occupying a four-person table. There was also a six-person table that hadn't been cleared, and no new customers had arrived. The staff member's attitude and behavior were definitely not due to the restaurant being busy or crowded.

Had it been busy, we would have willingly moved to a different table.

After we moved, a single customer (a foreigner) sat at our original spot, and no staff asked her to change seats. When we complained about the staff member's attitude and behavior, the staff politely talked to the foreign customer about the seating situation but still did not apologize for the earlier incident.

Later, as more customers arrived (all either foreigners or Cantonese speakers), the restaurant simply split the four-person tables into two-person tables. There was no longer any rude behavior asking customers to move.

Questions: Why was the lady in Picture 1 so rude to Mandarin-speaking Chinese people? If there were concerns about space, why not clear the tables instead of forcing customers to move? Is the restaurant's "pay first, then eat" model designed to allow staff to hold customers' meals hostage and control them? Regarding the chili oil, if you don't want to provide it for free, why put it out? What's the point of getting angry when customers take more?

I've visited this restaurant a few times before, mostly alone, and communicated with the staff in Cantonese. This was the first time such an incident occurred, and it was my first encounter with the lady...

I went to have dinner with my wife and my 3years old son and 4month old baby. I have to say the food was really nice. Obviously my son made a mess as a 3 years old boy usually do and we try to encourage him to eat by himself.

After the meal we try to tidy up as much as we can. I turn around and say 'thank you' to the staff at the counter. He was not very nice. He make an unhappy face and say nothing back to me. Then my wife also say the same thing to him. He still silent and was unhappy.

I guess he is not happy with how my 3 years old boy was not tidy???

Good food but service is the opposite. Definitely not going back again. I recommended you guys learning more about service mind. I want to use the word rude but I think it is to polite to use...

First time coming here and we weren’t disappointed. Really great flavours and kids enjoyed it. We ordered the fried rice. My husband is very picky about his fried rice and this was light, not oily, and great portion with prawns and meat etc amongst it. Also ordered the gravy rice noodles with beef and couldn’t get enough. Still craving more as I write this. The wonton noodle soup was perfect, not too salty like other places. Noodles were great texture. Spring rolls and pork buns tasty as well. The drinks were also good (red bean and ice cream, Ribena and Hong Kong style milk tea). Service was fast on a busy Thursday night. Will...