Slow performance for Azure table storage queries

Question

I am launching a series of well-structured queries for Azure Table Storage that should, as far as I can tell, return a minor one. Indeed, if I run them manually (say, from the Azure tools inside Visual Studio), they really return immediately. But when I run them in production, they sometimes get the upper hand for 20-30 seconds to return.

Here is the C # code that I am calling ATS with:

public async Task<IList<T>> FindAsync(string filter, int maxRecords = int.MaxValue, IList<string> columns = null)
{
    var returnList = new List<T>();
    try
    {
        Interlocked.Increment(ref _outstandingRequests);
        var query = new TableQuery<T>().Where(filter);
        if (columns != null && columns.Any())
        {
            query = query.Select(columns);
        }
        TableQuerySegment<T> querySegment = null;
        var sw = new Stopwatch();
        sw.Start();
        while (returnList.Count < maxRecords && (querySegment == null || querySegment.ContinuationToken != null))
        {
            try
            {
                await 3.RetriesAsync(async x =>
                {
                    querySegment = await
                        Table.ExecuteQuerySegmentedAsync(query,
                            querySegment != null ? querySegment.ContinuationToken : null);
                });
                returnList.AddRange(querySegment);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                _logger.Error("Error executing ATS query; table:{0}; filter:{1}; error:{2}",
                    typeof(T).GetFriendlyTypeName(), filter, ex.CompleteMessage());
                throw;
            }
        }
        sw.Stop();
        if (sw.ElapsedMilliseconds > 10000)
        {
            var stat = new RepoOperationStats(filter, sw, returnList.Count, _outstandingRequests);
            _logger.Warn("Long-running {0} query: secs:{1:0.0}, rc:{2}, or:{3}, fi:{4}",
                typeof(T).GetFriendlyTypeName(), stat.Milliseconds / 1000d, stat.ResultCount, stat.OutstandingRequests, stat.Filter);
        }
    }
    finally
    {
        Interlocked.Decrement(ref _outstandingRequests);
    }
    return returnList;
}

And here is an example of an object stored in a table:

Everything is pretty simple. But in my logs, I see repeated errors:

AtsOrganizationEventSummaryByCookie: : 33.3, : 0, : 94, fi: (PartitionKey eq '4306.www-detail-mercury-mars-skywatching-tips.html-get') ((RowKey ge '2015.02.05.00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000') (RowKey le '2015.02.07.00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 '))

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