dmorin's Journal: Mmmmm, free sushi

So my wife and I have a regular sushi restaurant we go to about every Friday. The manager knows us, asks about the baby (who was with a babysitter this night) and so on. We're seated and put in our regular order, but to a new waiter. Now, our regular order includes 2 orders of salmon sushi, which would be 4 pieces. Well, the waiter comes back and says, "Do you like salmon?"

"Ummm....I guess....we ordered.....huh?"

"The reason I ask is that you ordered 2 but I screwed up and put you in for 4." Which would be 8 pieces.

"That's too much, we don't want that much."

"Ok, I'll take care of it."

He then, get this, comes back with $4 cash, sticks it under the menu on the table and says "We're all square." Eh?

Manager comes over to bring us our food and chat. He looks at our order sheet and asks, "Two orders of salmon, right? Not four?"

"Right. I guess there was some mistake when he put the order in."

"Ok, don't worry, I fix."

A few minutes later over comes the waiter to actually scold us! "Guys, that was my manager. That's why I gave you the cash so we'd be all square."

"Oh. You want your cash back? I never asked for it."

"No, keep it."

Manager brings out the 8 salmon, as well as an additional order of shrimp for our trouble, and tells us our drinks are free too. I wonder if we'll ever see that waiter again. :) The thing I find funny is that the only real inconvenience was them bringing us more food than we ordered. It's not like they got our food wrong or didn't bring something. My guess at what happened is that rather than tell the chef his mistake, the waiter put the burden on us to keep it quiet with his $4, and thats what pissed the manager off.

For the first time we actually ended up leaving sushi on the boat.

So now I have a question (for my few fans that will read this :)). You're in a sushi restaurant where the staff all knows you. They've poured free food on you (we also often get samples from the chef, and at the very least extra tea when coming in for takeout). While leaving and saying thank you, they're all bowing like crazy people. Do I bow back? How, exactly? Is it better to not bow at all or to do it incorrectly (and possibly offend)?