Sean M., restaurant critic

There's a new hoity-toity pedestrian mall nearby, and it has a P.F. Chang's, which is a restaurant my family has wanted to try for some time. So, tonight, my brother and I met my mom and dad there for dinner. The food was great. The service, however, was terrible.

When we got there, we got seated right away out on the patio, which seemed like a good idea since the weather was nice and pleasant and the dining room was packed, even on a Thursday night. They gave us menus as we sat down, and we waited for a little while for our waitress, who showed up just a tad later than I would have liked. She took our drink orders, and we didn't see her again for quite awhile. She showed up empty-handed some time later to tell us the bartender had told her he was really busy and would get to our drinks sometime in the next few minutes. When she showed up again, she had my drink, which was spot-on (it's hard to mess up a Scotch and soda), but had made a slight mistake on my parents' drinks. By then, they just decided it would be better not to send them back. The bottle of beer my brother had ordered was nowhere to be seen. When she finally came back, he pointed out that she hadn't brought a glass, which took several more minutes to appear.

We had ordered our food when the first three drinks showed up, and our soups showed up relatively quickly with no problems. But then we had to wait for our entrees. And wait. And wait. Meanwhile, everyone around us, all of whom had arrived after we had, got their food. And I don't think any of them had to ask their servers to come back with anything. Finally, three of the four entrees showed up, along with rice bowls for two of us, and no plates. That's when we asked to see the manager. She came out a little later, and we explained all the problems we'd had. My mom told her that if she didn't know what a good reputation the chain had, she'd have vowed never to eat there again. "I hate to hear that," she said, and comped our bill completely. Oh, and my mom and dad took pains to say two or three times that they didn't blame the waitress, who was a nice girl and was trying hard. My brother and I weren't so sure—while we agreed that she was nice, she really wasn't a very good server. You could tell she was inexperienced. Finally, plates showed up, and the manager brought bowls of rice for my brother and me (she still got his wrong—he'd asked for white rice, they gave him brown) and we finished our meal, nearly two hours after we'd arrived.

Like I said, everything was delicious, if not quite hot. But I think we'll wait several months before going back. Hopefully, they'll have a better trained staff by then.