Several things your customer wants to tell you...but won't (part 2)
Essentially the kitchen staff must have the culinary potential to, at minimum, satisfy the discerning diner who orders any of the listed items on offer. Merely stacking everything on the menu to satisfy everybody and everything on paper because you believe you can make an extra buck will only unmask your kitchen brigades’ in- competencies.
Waiters and waitresses, (and I refer here to those few who have learnt to properly communicate), usually stick to a very narrow range of phrases. Hence, I love hearing the Special(s) of the Day. That’s because the waiter executes the description from memory with such precision and real effort. Except there is always one important detail missing … the price! Waiter: “For today’s special, the chef has prepared a seared red mullet that rests over a bed of cauliflower gratin, accompanied by a pomegranate reduction.” Me: “That’s interesting, so how much is that?” Waiter: “Rs.2650+++.” Me: “Uh…Is that a special price?” Waiter (looking fazed): “Ha Ha”. Please brief waiters to just tell me the price up-front. Don’t embarrass me by making me ask the price.
Encountering cutlery that fulfils the functional aspects of ergonomics is a rarity, no matter where you eat - be it at a casual or fine dining restaurant. It's the little things that really start to bug you after awhile: the uncomfortable hold, the too wide or too narrow wells, the unsharpened edge, the unbalanced weight. The dull forks do an awful job of spearing food. The knives are blunt and bottom-heavy and invariably fall off the plate, and the wells on the spoons are too deep, which makes it hard to actually eat with them. Forks should have four tines (three turn it into a trident). Unfortunately most restaurants in the mistaken belief that it is ‘trendy’, horribly mismatch cutlery - including crockery such as the square plate, where one’s elbows are stuck out at uncomfortable angles, The sauce gets lost in the corners and – if you’re unlucky enough to be given one of those flat plates, boards or platters without a rim – half your meal will end up spattered across the tablecloth. Who knew table and silverware could be so troublesome. Imagine how torturous it can be for kids!
Every restaurant needs a dummy waiter-if not many. It is a sort of cupboard with a number of different types of shelves to stock the required cutlery, crockery, glassware and table linen and is an essential piece of equipment. A ‘Lazy Susan’ is really not a server who is work-shy. It's actually one of those useful things that you put in the middle of the table and spin around so that you can easily reach different food. Both these inanimate objects serve a purpose. What drives a diner crazy however is being ignored by the ‘walk-by-with-no-eye-contact waiter who pretends not to see you or your frantic yet discreet wave for attention. Nothing can be more frustrating than a waiter who is never around or a group of waiters huddled obliviously in trivial conversation whilst you impatiently wait for your glass to be re-filled.
I find it difficult to come to terms with servers responding to a request with ‘No problem’. Like many, I enjoy my Spaghetti Bolognese with lots of cheese and recall when dining at a 5-star hotel restaurant, where my dish was served minus any cheese. Upon asking for some parmesan cheese the waiter replied ‘No problem’. I would hope it is not a problem to bring me Parmesan cheese – especially when the restaurant erred in the first instance. Ask for some toothpicks - you guessed right, the reply is “No problem”. Gets even worse, when servers who, when you say “Thank you’, reply “No problem”. You see where I’m going with this problem?
A couple of years ago, I dined at a newly opened boutique hotel in Colombo. The seared chicken breast flavoured with pesto and layered with mozzarella and cheddar cheese with grilled vegetables, was made to perfection. The portion was just right and all-in-all; it turned out to be an enjoyable dining experience. Three weeks later, I invited a few friends to dinner at this same venue, where for our ‘mains’, I recommended the chicken dish I had eaten previously. All of us ordered it and to my chagrin it turned out to be an utter misadventure. The chicken breast was moist not seared, was a little rare and blood appeared on the plate after the third cut. The portions too were smaller than what I had, during my earlier visit. I guess this hotel follows the small gulp theory where the basic laws of restaurant economics state that meals keep getting smaller because food is getting expensive - you pay for less food (even when uncooked), and the restaurant makes extra profit. End result: You have one good experience, you go back: you don’t get it, you don’t go back.
Once a course is served, be it one of two courses or one of four or fourteen; never ever clear the plates until everyone at the table is finished. I find it extremely rude to have my plate whisked away when my fellow table companions are still eating. The proper etiquette is to wait until everyone has completed their meal and clear everyone at once. So, Mr. Server, please leave the plates on the table until everyone is done.
In 2012, researchers from Michigan State University discovered that a mere 5% of people wash their hands long enough to destroy infectious germs after using the bathroom. Even more alarming, the survey revealed that 10% skipped washing their hands altogether, while 33% used no soap at all. That’s really scary! You go wash your hands under the sensor-activated tap, hold them under a sensor-activated soap dispenser, grab a paper towel from the sensor-activated dispenser and then have to pull the ordinary door handle - which everyone before you, including those that did not wash their hands, did, to leave. Dear restaurant owners, I am not Adrian Monk…but why must you do this to us? Thinking outside the box (metaphorically)…lets install the soap dispensers outside the restrooms? Diners can then see who doesn’t wash their hands after using the toilets!
Be wary of restaurants where management in fancy attire, wrapped up in their importance, stand at a distance with arms folded, gaze into nothing and fight shy of speaking with guests. – They are nothing more than dust jackets for books, of no significance otherwise. I often wonder why restaurant operators hire such ‘deadwood’ and why I should carry their cost of employment on my check.
Ilzaf Keefahs
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