Cracking the soup code

I found this out by accident -- you get free food if you speak Chinese at this particular Chinese restaurant near my school.

I've been eating at Chinese restaurants for years, and I've never really noticed any major difference in service speaking in English or Chinese. Sometimes you get a friendlier waiter if you speak in Chinese, but that's almost a natural response to speaking to anyone in their native language. Then, I went to this restaurant that I've ignored the past couple of years for no particular reason four times.

Visit 1: received free dessert of red bean soup.
Visit 2: received free soup, and free dessert of red bean soup.
Visit 3: no freebies
Visit 4: received free soup, and free dessert of red bean soup.

After Visits 1 and 2, we postulated that it was either the dish we ordered -- we had noodles the first visit, and a couple of main entrees the second visit -- or (unlikely) the time of the day -- visit 2 was rather late. Our 3rd visit there, we had noodles and there was no free soup. We also went during the regular dinner hours.

On the 3rd visit, we were wondering about the difference between receiving the starting soup and the dessert soup. While waiting for our dishes to arrive, I took a good look around the restaurant to see whether anyone else was getting free soups (and the answer is yes), and who was getting the free soups.

People getting free soups:
1. old white people who looked like they were regulars coz they had special attention
2. Chinese people who look like they speak Chinese (let's call them real Chinese people).

Of the people who ordered noodles, the real Chinese subpopulation definitely received soups.

We did not receive our free soups that 3rd visit, and I thought that I knew why. Analyze this:

Language used when talking to waiting staff:
Visit 1: Chinese
Visit 2: Chinese
Visit 3: English

Yeah, I thought it was a language thing. Naturally, the next thing to do is to test it out. For visit 4, I will order in Chinese.

Day of visit 4

The greeting staff that day was a young girl. She immediately spoke to us in English -- Argh! Foiled? I was worried about my experiment.

Fortunately, someone else served us water, and I made it a point to thank her in Chinese. Then I ordered dinner. I was slightly nervous about this because there were a few words that I couldn't read off the menu. I tried to fudge it, and I guessed the first 2 words right, but got the 3rd one wrong. The waitress corrected me, and I immediately felt extremely embarrassed and tried to mumble something in Chinese about not being able to read too well. It was so awkward that my non-Chinese speaking friend could tell I was totally bluffing at this point.

I sat nervously in my seat, wondering if I'd screwed up, trying very hard not to stare at the waitress. Then she appeared with 2 bowls of soup. But where was she heading? It was a heart-pounding moment. But I gave the answer away at the very start, so you know that those soups were for us. Score!

And we got our dessert soup too.

I haven't gone back to that restaurant since that time. Now that I know that it makes a difference what language I use, I'll feel cheap if I deliberately talk in Chinese to get free soups.

But what is in it for the restaurant that discriminates among their customers? Clearly they try to reward their regulars, so that might keep those regulars coming. I guess the Chinese customers (if they noticed) feel more welcome, so they may also return more often. But what about the people who notice the freebies, and did not receive them? I don't know if it makes a difference in terms of tips though.

In any case, I will be going back to the Chinese restaurant simply because it's the only real one in the area. The freebies certainly do help though.