Before I forget, may I just pay tribute to my worst restaurant experience ever? Mermaid Cafe in Cox's Bazar is the worst restaurant I've ever encountered in my various travels to 22 countries and 72 cities. If you go to Cox's Bazar, avoid this at all cost!Here's what happened, Deneb made reservations, but warned us that last time it took them 4 hours to serve food. True to form, we got our food 2 and a half hour late, with no apologies. We ordered three pasta dishes (two hours in advance), once we got there and waited for so long, they served two, with no explanation other than it wasn't available. Every other table yelled at them for their lousy service, and they were completely nonchalant. I went home hungry and pissed, which has never happened in my entire lifetime (I even forgive the Korean Restaurant Sura, which I dubbed the rudest restaurant in Dhaka, and Suza Lobo of Goa, the most over-hyped restaurant with such a lousy service that I, moi, left without leaving a tip, the only time in my life-- after this encounter). Finally, at the end, the table next door started screaming for diverting their pasta to another table (apparently ours, otherwise we would have gotten nothing), and the maitre d' explained that they have only one burner, and each item is cooked one at a time.
We ordered two fishes and two pastas (three, but what the heck). The pasta dishes were cold, the tuna smelled, and someone forgot to clean the fish properly so it stunk.
In a twist of irony, the next day, when we were hiking towards Himchari, we were passing by Mermaid Cafe, and the owner waved us down, ran toward us, and politely handed over a flyer, and said, "we started this new cafe, and we'd like you to come and try it out."
I wanted to say so many things, like "you ignored us last night", "I'd rather be thrown to the wolves than have to set foot in this restaurant", "can I get a large mallet so I could instantly smash your face so you could never lie again?"
But I politely accepted two flyers, looked him straight in the eye, and said, "we were there last night" and without a smile, just walked away from him.
And I threw one of the flyer in the drain next to the restaurant, and stashed the other in my bag so that I could warn others.
After paying Dhaka's top prices, receiving lousiest service and below-average food and staying hungry all night, it was the only polite thing I could do.
