Not quite the solution I was looking for

Do you ever get the feeling that you inadvertently caused the wrong solution to the right problem?

Allow me to explain. Singapore has a lot of great restaurants, but for reasons I haven't quite been able to figure out, service here is the worst of any major city I've ever been to, consistently. I've thought of a number of possible explanations - it's an extension of the local culture where people tend to act like robots and not pay much attention to anybody else; some wait staff are nervous about using their English with a native; I moved here from Paris and that's an impossible act to follow - but really, it's anybody's guess why. In any case, I've never experienced more cases of waiters hearing something other than what I really ordered (as I discussed here, or waiting on some people before others who've been waiting longer, or just plain ignoring hungry patrons. Along the way, I have also discovered that "Are you ready to order?" and "Have you already ordered?" sound just about the same with a Singaporean accent. I do know one unlucky waiter who will never make that mistake again after he asked me the latter and I heard the former and answered "yes". When he walked away, I got up and followed him and made very clear what I had heard!

But I digress. Among the numerous "good food, bad service" experiences I've had was a bratwurst place here. If you know me well, you're probably thinking I don't like bratwurst at all. And you're right, I don't. But this place also has - or at least had - the best pancakes in Singapore, as I discovered one morning when I was at that particular mall waiting for some store to open. Since the pancakes were terrific and that's hard to find in Singapore, I made a note to come back and have them again next time.

And I tried to. Oh, how I tried to.

But on my return visit, I placed my order, paid for it and went back into the seating area and waited. And waited. And waited. After about ten minutes, some other people turned up in the dining area. Ten minutes or so after that, their food came. Mine still hadn't. I asked the waiter where my food was, and he said he'd check on it. A few minutes later, he returned and said it would be out shortly. Around that time another party came in. We're now talking at least fifteen minutes after I had arrived. Next time I saw the waiter, he had their food. He once again said my pancakes were on the way. That was the last straw: I got up and went back up front, and politely asked for my money back. I got it, with apologies. That at least was nice. This is one of those places where you can see the grill right by the register, and - you guessed it - they had just poured my pancakes on the grill, after having served everybody else first! The sad thing was, I wasn't surprised.

This is where the wrong solution comes in. Last week, I had occasion to walk by the place again, and I happened to glimpse the menu. Something wasn't quite right, so I stopped and read the whole thing. Sure enough, I hadn't misread it or overlooked anything.

They no longer carry pancakes.

Well, that's one way to avoid repeating a mistake, I guess. But it doesn't really get to the root of the problem, does it?