Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Le Carre--the Art of the Impossible--Adventures in VAT battles--or For Your Convenience

This is not a restaurant review.  If it were I would say that Le Carre is stylish but missed the mark with fishy tuna sushi.  I would add what I call the #madacaveat: we have plenty of friends that have had great sushi at Le Carre (even salmon sashimi on occasion--although there were out of it the night we were there), indeed, great meals there but like nearly every restaurant in town--it's hit or miss.

But again, this is not a restaurant review.  This is about getting a receipt with your VAT.  Now if there's one thing that the French influence has left imprinted on the 'hospitality' industry here (aside from some truly great cuisine) it is a 'no can do' attitude:

Willing to pay extra for a plate of salmon sashimi instead of the mixed sashimi plate on the menu? Sorry sir, that is impossible.
For your convenience, we don't allow any changes to the menu

Happily--Le Carre proved an exception.  The facture that we were presented with did not break out the Value Added Tax (VAT) which, for the uninitiated, is a 20% tax that diplomats are eventually refunded by the host nation (contrary to popular belief it is NOT part of Vienna Convention but rather is an international reciprocal courtesy).   Anyway, while the server was dumbfounded when I tried to explain to him that I would like a receipt that showed the 20% VAT, he complied when I asked him to check with the manager to see what they could do.  As you can see in the second picture--they figured it out.

Bravo Le Carre--we will return!

This is what they can give at Le Carre:


No comments:

Post a Comment