I just love this week's Gulf News article entitled 'Insects in your food can get you discounts'. Not only is it an interesting, insightful look into our community and the clumsy establishments imposing on our growing five-starred reputation, but I happen to think that this piece of journalism sheds a light on just how differently the people of Dubai seem to react in such horrific situations, compared to the citizens of other cities.

So, what happened exactly? Well, seven diners sat down to dinner in a restaurant that chooses not to be named, and found not one, but four creepy crawlies disguised as croutons. Or were they still suffering in the spaghetti, or perishing on the pizza… who knows? We're not told, obviously.

So, after these seven people had completed their meal, (that's right, they all sat there in relative silence, politely eating around the insects), they finally saw it fit to mention these crunchy added extras. After a minor scuffle in the kitchen, they were promptly issued a bill, which offered a 25 percent discount. Next to the deduction, someone had scrawled "bug on food" as the reason.

Well, quite clearly, these diners were outraged. They were outraged at the audacity of the giggling restaurant employees, making a joke out of their need to offer a discount. They were not, however, enraged enough at the bugs in their food to stand up, scream for the manager and storm off without paying.

On noticing his customer's displeasure at the offensive comment on the bill, the Operations Manager said:

"I agree that the 'bug on food' detail on the receipt was an inappropriate detail. It was a misunderstanding from our side - the guys thought being friendly and having a joke about the environment would relax the diners because it was a birthday, but unfortunately it didn't.

"It was a misunderstanding in the way it has been managed, it's not mis-management."

I'm not entirely sure what those last two sentences mean, exactly. If you find yourself feeling angry about a misunderstanding in the way something's been managed, it pretty much means to me that something's been managed quite badly, but still, the main issue here is that these seven friends, on one person's birthday no less, sat through a meal after finding bugs in their food, and still stuck around long enough to listen to badly-worded attempts at justifying the whole thing.

If that was my birthday party, I'd have cried like a baby and thrown a tantrum before hightailing it out the door to the next place. A waiter making a "joke about the environment" is one thing, but if I've had my hair curled and my bikini line waxed and donned a new frock in preparation for my special annual day, the last thing I'm going to find funny is a bonus floating bug in my starter.

This Dubai based insect incident could well be an absolutely genius concept devised either by the unfortunate restaurant to generate PR, or by the hungry, impoverished group of unnamed students looking for a clever trick to bag a discount.

But it's probably not.

Here in Dubai it seems there's no deceit involved; no trickery; no blatant play on the restaurant industry's shrinking portions in relation to their extravagant prices. It's just an honest, and quite frankly, disgusting accident that was handled quite badly.

Perhaps, thanks to existing in a world of sunshine, we're just not as bitter as New Yorkers. Thanks to having a multitude of friendly, laid back people willing to share their jokes and different dishes in places they're as proud of as their own homes, maybe we're a nicer nation in general. Or at least not as angry as Londoner's. Perhaps, when we really think about, a few bugs in our food really isn't that much of a big deal; especially when elsewhere in the world, people have a lot more than deep-friend insects on their plates.

And anyway, now that the Gulf News has quite clearly stated that such additions can score you discounts, I'm sure I won't be the only one carrying crickets round in my fake Chanel purse.

Posted: 27 March 2008