1. Bad website music -- Hello, I am trying to secretly surf the web while I am at work and your bad website music is totally blowing my cover. Okay, I get it, you're multi-culti, you're brown (but not too brown), you're exotic, your place is swingin', baby. It's bad enough I have to listen to whatever pap you decide to throw down on your turf. Turn off the assault on my computer speakers. You're drowning my Mariah out and that's not okay.
2. Small plates -- To hell with you and your so-called tapas! I am so tired of spending exorbitant amounts of money only to go home hungry because I am supposed to share my little serving of finger food with everyone at the table. I want to eat a meal and not have to grab a slice five minutes later. I want my protein entree to come with both a vegetable AND a carb-filled starch. Yes, I mean included in the price.
3. Waiters who ask if I want the bread -- Yes I want the bread and yes I want two pieces and don't make me feel guilty for asking for it. All those fools who have vilified the west's greatest starch contribution will cry when they realize that the decade they spent avoiding carbs didn't help them avoid their fat fate. What, people have been eating bread for centuries and NOW all of a sudden it's making them fat?
4. How would you like that cooked? -- I am of the opinion that there is only one way to cook a steak (rare) and one way to cook salmon (cooked through, no raw center). But when I'm at a restaurant, I want to know how the chef likes it. If s/he thinks it's better another way, I want to try it the chef's way. So, steak I understand -- there is a long tradition of asking for steak to be cooked your way. But duck breast? Fish? Pork chop? Dazzle me with your way, chef.
5. Disposable chopsticks in sit-down Asian restaurants -- Deforestation is real, and there's no reason to be throwing out wooden chopsticks every day when you have to wash the plates and silverware anyway. I keep a normal pair at work and refuse the chopsticks whenever I remember to.
you can always respond with 'Chef's Choice' for 4. it tends to confuse the waiter, but once you explain it once... it catches on.
That's true. And I do ask for chef's choice. It's more a complaint about the fussy people who don't trust the chef enough to know how to cook the food.
I felt guilty about taking from the big jar of wooden chopsticks at Momofuku last week. Carrying around your own is a good idea.
I wish restaurants had more fun and different nonalcoholic drinks. That's my trend wish.
Ganda: to you post above: "AMEN!"
Vehemently agree to 1 and 2. Affably agree for 3. My theories are either that waitstaff are tired of being snapped at by Atkins dieters to remove the bread in a crazed bread-deprived shriek, and therefore try to prevent the abuse by pre-emptively removing the bread. Or altneratively that restaruants have found that when Atkins eaters "indulge" in bread, they deprive themselves of dessert to atone for their sins. And since bread is free and dessert is at least at least $7, the saavy restaurant industry mags advocate removing the bread. And finally, 4 and 5 have inspired me to order "chef's choice" and carry sticks on my person at all times.
1) Right
2) So don't be adventurous and continue to live in your 1980's meat and 2 veg diner world. You can eat in the 90% of restaurants that still prepare food that way.
3) Don't hate the players, hate the Atkins game.
4) As I tell my waiters, if the chef is buying my customers dinner, then he can cook it the way he wants, otherwise the customer can have it anyway he or she wants. It can be phrased in a way such as "the chef will prepare that medium rare unless you would prefer it another way..." but the customer usually wants their food coked the way THEY like to eat it. And by the way, the best way to eat BOTH a steak and salmon is MEDIUM RARE. But you are welcome to specify that you like your salmon overcooked.
5) Watever ... Aren't there like 30 things that are more annoying in restaurant than chopsticks?
Re: 2.) Since when did small plates = adventure? I'm not trying to advocate for a side of baked potato and steamed broccoli with everything. I just resent having to pay for my meal in expensive modules.
Yesterday I went looking for a birthday present for a friend of mine. The tag said $59. I went to pay, but when the girl rang my purchase up, the total was $118. I said, but the tag says $59. She said, no, it's $59 EACH.
Did I miss the memo about earrings being sold individually? This and the small plates thing are examples of capitalistic excess, New York-style. What's more 80s than that?