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Kaliwa and a Diner Involved in Hair, Raising Altercation


Ericandblueboy

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"This DC Wharf Restaurant Called the Police on a Diner For Alleged Hostile Behavior. She Says It Was Racially Motivated" by Anna Spiegel for Washingtonian.

All I can offer is that when I've found a piece of hair in my food, I just take it out and toss it.  I'm not fond of other people's hair in my food but it's not really something worth whining about to the management.

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5 hours ago, Simul Parikh said:

Those customers sound awful. People that just can't take "yes" for an answer.

I had no intention of going there, but now I kind of want to now...  

I enjoyed an absolutely incredible meal at Restaurant Eve last year when they still offered the Filipino-Asian tasting menu. I can't wait to see what Kaliwa has to offer. 

Accusing an Irish man who is married to a Filipino woman of racism seems like a bit of a lost cause. 

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Q: Kaliwa, Really?

Tom, you may want to take a harder look before recommending Kaliwa, after all of the recent controversy. Hair in food, rude manager(s), cops called on patrons, etc. Here's some background- https://www.popville.com/2018/04/how-not-to-deal-with-hair-in-an-entree/ It sounds like the patrons were a nightmare, but also like the restaurant has some systemic problems. Either way, plenty of better, casual options at the Wharf.

A: Tom Sietsema

There are always two sides (or more!) to these stories. I haven't talked to the parties involved, but the diner who was escorted out by police, and subsequently copied me on her Facebook post, more or less lost me when she went into this diatribe about (and I'm paraphrasing here) chefs watering down their food for an audience who might not appreciate the real deal and turning a service dispute into a racial incident (when the staff involved includes non-whites). I wish I had more time to address this, but I don't.  Maybe we can take it up again next week.

So this disgruntled women really wanted to share her story.  Why did Sietsema spread the story if he didn’t really believe her?  And the poster is encouraging others to avoid the restaurant...this is why I don’t think people should get into other people’s business.  

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20 hours ago, reedm said:

I enjoyed an absolutely incredible meal at Restaurant Eve last year when they still offered the Filipino-Asian tasting menu. I can't wait to see what Kaliwa has to offer. 

Accusing an Irish man who is married to a Filipino woman of racism seems like a bit of a lost cause. 

I know nothing about this event, or restaurant, but did want to say that just because you're ok with one person  who's asian definitely doesn't mean you aren't racist towards people from other races, particularly African Americans. Also, given the description of the event (customers who are pissed off, but not yelling or throwing things, etc) calling the police seems ridiculous to me and i am 100% willing to believe that they wouldn't have done it so quickly if it'd been two white women. And Tom's statement seems particularly inane as the non-white staff seemed to be on the customers' side. 

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If someone won't voluntary leave and is harassing staff per what Mr. Armstrong says happened (and they say they have video of the event- smart, unfortunately in our modern PR world, I expect more places will do this) then you would need to call the police to get them removed, as touching them or trying to remove them could be assault or battery.  They admit they wouldn't leave because they didn't want the restaurant to say they didn't pay their bill (the restaurant says they told them they were not charging them).  So it seems perfectly logical that the police would have been called in this situation.

My personal two cents- Mr. Armstrong works with a group I am apart of every year to put on a benefit which his company caters and works with POC, including African Americans, to do it, and the benefit raises money to serve all sorts of people, including many POC, and has never been anything but gracious, supportive and really wonderful in working with any of us, and so have his staff.   I would never, ever think of him as racist.

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1 hour ago, sandynva said:

I know nothing about this event, or restaurant, but did want to say that just because you're ok with one person  who's asian definitely doesn't mean you aren't racist towards people from other races, particularly African Americans. Also, given the description of the event (customers who are pissed off, but not yelling or throwing things, etc) calling the police seems ridiculous to me and i am 100% willing to believe that they wouldn't have done it so quickly if it'd been two white women. And Tom's statement seems particularly inane as the non-white staff seemed to be on the customers' side. 

Oh brother. I think that anyone who had the temerity to say ‘We’re not leaving, you’ll have to drag us out of here.’”, could reasonably expect to have authorities called, regardless of race.

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 I've never seen police called at a place in this price range. Nor have I ever seen them called on people unless they were very intoxicated or apparently suffering mental health issues.  

And I absolutely stand by my statement. If they had been white, other measures would have been tried first-maybe higher level managers would've come over, perhaps bigger, burlier stuff would've come over,  maybe an attempt would be made to mollify them with a free drink, or just something.  And then, as an absolute last resort police might  have been called. It's easy to say you have tapes,  and I'll believe it when somebody on affiliated with the restaurant verifies the show what they say it does.   And  in any case the tape seem to have played no part in  The behavior,   Because it doesn't seem like they were looked at until after the police had been called. 

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2 hours ago, sandynva said:

 I've never seen police called at a place in this price range. Nor have I ever seen them called on people unless they were very intoxicated or apparently suffering mental health issues.  

And I absolutely stand by my statement. If they had been white, other measures would have been tried first-maybe higher level managers would've come over, perhaps bigger, burlier stuff would've come over,  maybe an attempt would be made to mollify them with a free drink, or just something.  And then, as an absolute last resort police might  have been called. It's easy to say you have tapes,  and I'll believe it when somebody on affiliated with the restaurant verifies the show what they say it does.   And  in any case the tape seem to have played no part in  The behavior,   Because it doesn't seem like they were looked at until after the police had been called. 

[sandynva, respectfully, we *all* know there is a problem with discrimination in this country - there are so many racial incidents that sheer chance will cause them to crop up from time-to-time. What none of us know, is whether or not other measures would have been tried first if they had been white in this particular case (and it sounds to me like other measures *were* tried first - the free drink, for example) - I don't mean to minimize your point - which is perfectly valid in the general case - but we can't say for sure that it applies here: It sure sounds to me like a *lot* of effort was made to satisfy these diners, and Cathal himself said that this is the first time in 14 years that he's ever had to do this. Regardless, your point is well-taken - there's probably no additional benefit to be gained from hammering it home. Cheers (and your concern for equality is duly noted and much appreciated), Rocks]

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