Restaurant wrongings

You will be wronged by a restaurant at some point in your life. They will cheat on you, lie to you, and you will find out, but not before it’s too late. I’m sorry, but that’s life. You will get over-charged and under-served, and told that something is sugar-free, low-fat, and has “subtle tones of vanilla.” We can only hope that the “wronging” will not extend to anaphylactic shock due to a nut allergy.

But there are a few things that restaurants seem to do over and over, the world over. That’s a lot of over. You may think you’re just a customer, a bit o’ plankton with the restaurants as the whale, but that’s not a bad thing. Because they need you. You’ve got your place on the food food chain, you see. The food² chain. And despite this, they still somehow find a way to piss me off, for all the small reasons.

1. Once you’ve gotten the food you’ve ordered, you’re dead to your server. In fact, I’d be more content if they actually came up and said “you’re dead to me.” It would eliminate the guessing game. Do they like me? Do they not like me? Are they faking it for a better tip? If so, are they from the west coast? In any case, they disappear exactly when you’re looking to get your bill and get the hell out of there.

2. The wait staff doesn’t even know what’s on their menu. I don’t need to know if your virgin olive oil was produced by actual virgins, but some semblance of food knowledge would be nice. Soup du jour? A la mode? If you don’t know what the physical words on your menu mean, then any monetary tip from me will be a la mode of non-existence, tous les jours.

3. If something’s missing from your plate that was listed on the menu, they act like it’s your fault. Because you’re probably hiding that red onion chutney in the lining of your jacket. Idiots. You could hide tater tots and Hot Pockets in your jacket, but if you already had those you wouldn’t be in the restaurant, would you? And then you worry that they’re mocking you to the other servers, even though they’re the ones that screwed up? Well, they are. You can’t win; get used to it.

4. “Let me tell you how our menu works.” Need I say more? Ok, I will. No, wait, I won’t.

4a. Argh…fine. Does your menu come with batteries? Is that why your hostess is so chipper at her stand? I utilize my reading skills, which were put upon me largely in the first grade with plenty of Berenstain Bear-based reinforcement, to choose food I would like to put in my mouth. After overcoming that incredible hurdle, everything else seems pretty simple, no?

5. Bread & butter: The butter’s ice cold, rock hard, and unsalted, and the bread is a cold chunk that you can then use to throw back at your server, getting her to bring you some of the warm stuff. I’ve got many a steam burn from putting trays of bread into a convection oven for a scant two minutes. And I’ve learned to pull butter and let it sit at room temp before serving. It’s not a hard thing to do. So it’s irritating when you get a brick of yellow stuff that you can’t get into your mouth in smooth fashion. Now what? Do you put an un-spreadable chunk of the stuff on your bread, and eat it in one bite? Do you cradle it in your hand and speak softly to it until it warms up? No, you throw it, ninja-star-like, at the next table over and steal some cutlery during the ensuing chaos. Doesn’t it piss you off that they don’t facilitate an easier way for you to fill up on cheap, free carbs before they arrive with the food that you’ve paid for? Well, it pisses me off.

Ironically, man and restaurant seem to coexist more peacefully on the lower rungs of the food² chain. For instance, go through a Taco Bell drive-thru and buy your tacos. Then park, go inside, and say that they forgot something, anything on your order; you’ll probably get it. Try hanging around a donut shop when they’re about to close, you’ll probably be able to get yourself a couple dozen of whatever’s left, without having to perform any immoral acts in the parking lot.

Customers are certainly not without their faults, though. A request of “Can I have scallops instead of french fries on my steak?” and I’ll just assume that you have no concept of worth, and that you were probably that over-privileged single child that didn’t need to play nice in the sandbox because they had their own sandbox, complete with Zen gardener.

Scary part? I had my own sandbox. It’s where I could go to escape the culinary atrocities that occurred on a regular basis in my kitchen growing up. So following soon will be the horrors perpetuated by customers, so as not to show favoritism. For in the world of restaurants, there are no true angels.