Free booze is always nice.

Yesterday, my boss treated us to a couple of rounds of drinks at a new wine bar at Robertson Quay called Tasting Notes. The bar also serves a delightfully light and not at all bitter beer from Thailand called Phuket Beer.

Today, it was the official opening for Q Bar. The last time I was at this particular venue was at the first Do Yourself In. I love what they've done to the place since, making it an upmarket chill-out bar, taking full advantage of its position facing the river. The upstairs room is really nice too and the DJs (Jasen and Effen) were playing some rather good house and progressive. And they have an extensive range of vodkas too, which I fully intend to partake of the next time I'm there.

There were definitely some service issues though. We waited forty minutes for our whiskey coke (part of the free flow) to arrive, reminded the waiter twice who kept telling us it was on the way and when we marched up to the bar to ask them where our drinks were, they told us we had to pay. I have no objections whatsoever towards paying for my drinks, but to pull that kind of stunt on people is just wrong. And then, there was the waitress who I had asked for the drinks menu from, and the next time she returned, she didn't even look at me and it was clear that she wasn't carrying any menu. I understand it's the opening and that perhaps the staff are very overwhelmed, so I will give them one more chance, but as a member of the incredibly demanding PMEB crowd, I do expect consistently good service, regardless of the circumstances. After all, the same is demanded of me at work and I do usually deliver. If no one cuts me any slack, I'm not going to do the same for other people, lest I be seen as a doormat.

And to top things off, when we got back to my friend's car, we found that someone had broken his side mirror, cleared up all the glass but left the broken plastic casing on the ground and hadn't even left a note. If you're going to do any such thing, be a f***ing man and own up to it, b*****d.