Food good, service medium-to-rare

There are times when you just have to shake your head and wonder about the service you get at a restaurant. Last night was one of those times.
Hooked up with Patrick, Jo, Richard and Susan for a dinner at the more upmarket steak house on the Nelson Mandela Square last night.
Having eaten there a couple of times before, and generally having been quite pleased with the food and service, I was looking forward to the evening. It didn't start off that well though. As we got the entrance, we were asked whether we had a booking, and rushed to our table. It wasn't that we were late or anything - just seemed like the reception manager was too busy to welcome us in properly and was pre-occupied with thumbing through the bookings and generally just looking flustered.
That aside, we sat down and had a bit of a wait for Richard and Susan to arrive, so had a leisurely look through the menu. Page one of the menu has about 10 rules that immediately jump out at you as if to say "hey bud, we're here to make money and that's all that counts", including:
- we didn't allow children before, but now we do if they're a certain age.
- minimum price per head is R80.
- 10% will be added to your bill.
- we close at 10pm, so hurry up and get your order in.

Ok, so nothing too serious yet. Just not your typical hospitable attitude thats all. We order some wine and eventually Richard and Susan arrive - time to take an order. Waiters all seem too busy to help out now, because we've kept them waiting for 15 minutes. Another 5 minutes and we eventually track one down. K isn't that hungry, so decides to have a salad and a starter, instead of a salad and a main. We realise that this could contravene rule number 2, so politely tell the waiter that if the salad and starter are less than R80, we'll happily put in the difference. No, can't do. You can't order a starter and have it brought to the table with the mains - house rules. More rules - just that this one wasn't on the menu with the rest of the legislation. K politely calls the manager and asks whether he could bend the unwritten rule number 11, and after a bit of hesitation, he agrees. A victory for the paying patrons - K gets to have a starter with the main meals. Not to let that put a damper on the evening, we order another bottle of the same pinotage that we've been drinking - only to have a bottle of merlot opened and put on our table. That gets sent back at the insistence that we'd like to continue with the pinotage that we so enjoyed, much to the annoyance of the waiter who neglected to actually check what the first bottle was.
Having said all this, the food was actually pretty good, but for the price you pay at a place like that, you kinda expect a little more than medium-to-rare service.