Restaurant Pet Peeves

[Pastor Gary]

• I like the taste of food. Really. Food tastes good. If you can't cook without totally obliterating the flavor of the entree (beef/pork/chicken/fish) with so much garlic, salt, onion or foofy sauce that you an no longer even taste the protein, give up.

[dolfan]

I have not seen a "Smoking Section" in years except when I travel. It's 2008 people -- insist on some laws in your area to ban smoking inside ANY place public accommodation.

Where I live, you can't smoke with 20 feet of the entrance of any public building, or inside. It hurt us big-time with Japanese tourists who smoke a LOT, but we have held our ground. You can't even smoke inside Aloha Stadium during a football game! HOORAY. (Now if they could ban beer sales during games we wouldn't have to deal with obnoxious drunks, fist-fights, groping of girls who walk past, and staggering beer drinkers sloshing beer on other people.)

I once had a different view of that, but now I appreciate it more after Decatur, AL has held fast on its smoking ban for a year now. I came very close to representing a business to fight the ordinance, but the case law is clearly on the side of the government on this. They changed their minds, and I think rightly so. Would've been a waste of money. (Keep in mind I don't WANT people to smoke indoors, but I do believe it is their right to do so, and that it is everyone's right to choose to eat or not eat where people smoke.) Now, with the new "electronic cigarettes" that you "smoke" and exhale a vapor that has no smell and evaporates within a foot of your face, people who MUST smoke indoors have an option that actually isn't smoking at all.

Drinking in stadiums: Well, because there's only one place to see that game live --- in the stadium --- I'm in favor of a 100% ban on alcohol sales in any sporting venue. Drunk fans are the worst.

[Paully_44]

•piece of meat bleed over over my plate like a wounded water buffalo because it is merely seared on the outside/still raw in the middle.

you had me at bleed. rare / med rare for me.

[crispfin]

• I like the taste of food. Really. Food tastes good. If you can't cook without totally obliterating the flavor of the entree (beef/pork/chicken/fish) with so much garlic, salt, onion or foofy sauce that you an no longer even taste the protein, give up.

I'm with you. I can't stand when they do that.

[TW]

It annoys me when they "refresh" your coffee and leave two more of those little containers of creamer (if you want to call a concoction of chemicals that), even though the original two are sitting there unopened and the coffee in the cup is black. What could possibly be their thought process? "Hmmm, black coffee in the cup . . . . creamers unopened . . .he must need more creamer!"


TW

[forestwalker]

- birthday singin by the wait staff
- eating with (or near) someone who's treating the wait staff poorly
- having to go to any of the terrible and overpriced corporate chains
- music so loud you have to shout to be heard
- folks bringing their ginormous baby strollers (when and why did these things become the size of SUV's?) into the restaurant
- a/c too high
- too much salt (in everything)
- ridiculously large portions
- very few restaurants serve veggies with their meals any more
- when you're at a conference and your (higher ranking, better paid) workmates decide to go to an expensive restaurant and think it's natural to split up the tab evenly even though, unlike everyone else, you ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, drank water, didn't want six different appetizers, and didn't have a couple of ten dollar drinks with the meal (sorry, that one's fresh in the memory )

[rjc]

The mandatory tip that is included in your bill - I refuse to pay it, I mark it out and deduct it from my bill. If they insist on trying to get me to pay it I simply tell them no and suggest they call the police if they wish. I have never had them call the police but they tell me that I am not welcome there again and I let them know that I had no intention of spending my money in their place of business. I usually tip quite well for good service but I will not be blackmailed into tipping for poor service.

Other issues are:

Cold food
Too many tables jammed into small spaces
Loud background music
Light so dim you have to have a flashlight to read the menu, what are they hiding?
Being rushed by the staff to eat, pay and leave

[forestwalker]

forgot one...

Eating with a girlfriend who has developed the habit of picking all the choicest bits off of your plate.

[Pastor Gary]

forgot one...

Eating with a girlfriend who has developed the habit of picking all the choicest bits off of your plate.

This must be a universal female food issue; the women we dine with have access to the exact same menu we have, can make the same choices we make, but -- way too often -- order some odd, exotic menu item and then, once the food arrives, want "just a bite" of whatever the guy ordered. Of course they generously offer to share their dish with you, but it is a dish you REJECTED as a choice when you were ordering, so why would you want to taste it now??

[Susie Hamilton]

I went out to eat last night at my favorite mexican restaurant. We were immediately seated. There was mexican music in the background at a low level. We were given menus and within 3-5 minutes the waiter came back for our order. About 1 minute later the chip girl came by with nachos and dips. 2 minutes later we had our tea. Within 10-15 minutes we had our food, hot from the oven. The waiter came back twice for drink refills. It was a nice experience and a good tip was left. Good food as well.

[forestwalker]

forgot one...

Eating with a girlfriend who has developed the habit of picking all the choicest bits off of your plate.

This must be a universal female food issue; the women we dine with have access to the exact same menu we have, can make the same choices we make, but -- way too often -- order some odd, exotic menu item and then, once the food arrives, want "just a bite" of whatever the guy ordered. Of course they generously offer to share their dish with you, but it is a dish you REJECTED as a choice when you were ordering, so why would you want to taste it now??

I don't mind sharing (I did complain about portion size, afterall), but it's kind of annoying to look down and see that all the scallops or all the mushrooms or all the whatever I like best are gone from my plate.

[Pastor Gary]

forgot one...

Eating with a girlfriend who has developed the habit of picking all the choicest bits off of your plate.

This must be a universal female food issue; the women we dine with have access to the exact same menu we have, can make the same choices we make, but -- way too often -- order some odd, exotic menu item and then, once the food arrives, want "just a bite" of whatever the guy ordered. Of course they generously offer to share their dish with you, but it is a dish you REJECTED as a choice when you were ordering, so why would you want to taste it now??

I don't mind sharing (I did complain about portion size, afterall), but it's kind of annoying to look down and see that all the scallops or all the mushrooms or all the whatever I like best are gone from my plate.

I HATE sharing -- not because of the portions or anything... just because I order what I want, and can't understand why others didn't do the same thing. Why does my plate suddenly look so appealing when the food arrives??

[Sherry]

- Wanting to enjoy a meal and conversation but end up hearing someone's kids screaming non-stop and they do nothing about it.

- Along that line, parents who allow their children to run around the tables, in the aisle, up to other peoples tables, and they think it's cute. I don't want to entertain your children while you eat. (This has happened in some very nice restaurants which is disturbing!)

- Waiting....once seated, it should be moments before our server greets us.

- A snarky waiter.

- If I ask the pronunciation of a dish, don't look at me as if I'm an idiot and sound it out to me like I'm hard of hearing. (And then look at me shocked when I shoot back with a snarky comment! )

[forestwalker]

I went out to eat last night at my favorite mexican restaurant. We were immediately seated. There was mexican music in the background at a low level. We were given menus and within 3-5 minutes the waiter came back for our order. About 1 minute later the chip girl came by with nachos and dips. 2 minutes later we had our tea. Within 10-15 minutes we had our food, hot from the oven. The waiter came back twice for drink refills. It was a nice experience and a good tip was left. Good food as well.

Eating Mexican food outside of California has been very hit-and-miss. The funniest experience was probably in Cleveland when I was back for Chris Payne's wedding. My brother and I went out to a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint there and weren't very impressed with what we were seeing on other diners' plates so just got drinks at first and talked. The funny thing was all the kids working in the place were speaking to each other in Spanish, apparently used to noone being able to understand them. They were cussing and telling off-color jokes and such, teasing each other, bad-mouthing some of the customers.

Anyway, we decide to stay and eat but call over the owner and ask her if she could cook up some real Mexican food for us off-menu. She didn't understand what we were asking and started to call over her son to translate but we just went ahead and asked her in Spanish. She froze and turned white as a sheet. Then she started yelling at her kids and gave each one a little slap on the arm. Too late! She gave us some of what they were cooking up for their own dinner and was so embarrassed we were out the door for just 10 bucks.

[soulsearcher]

I HATE sharing -- not because of the portions or anything... just because I order what I want, and can't understand why others didn't do the same thing. Why does my plate suddenly look so appealing when the food arrives??

DITTO!