Sarcasm is a dish not found on the menu.

Posted on Mar 21, 2016 by headinablender

On Saturday night my wife and I attended the Purple Reign tribute act at The Westgate in Las Vegas. It was awesome and definitely worth a visit, especially if you’re a Prince fan like me.

Anyway, beforehand we had booked a reservation at an Italian restaurant to make it a proper date night.

Upon arrival we were shown to our seats and handed the largest menus I think I’ve ever seen. These things were like windsurfing sails. Looking around the restaurant I could see people struggling to keep their chairs in place as they fought against the air conditioning.

At one point I saw a crying child fly overhead.

After a few minutes the waitress came over to our table.

“Hi, my name is (I genuinely can’t remember); are you ready to order, or do you have any questions?”

I looked up at her with a wry grin and replied, “Yes actually, I do have a question; is it possible to get a larger menu? This one isn’t quite big enough.”

She smiled back and said, “Yes, I know. The print is just so small and difficult to read. We really need to make the whole thing bigger, sorry about that.”

At last, someone that gets it! She knew I was joking and ran with it, commenting on the size of the text on these huge, wobbling cardboard monstrosities. At last I had found someone that picked up on the subtleties of my English humour and gave as good as she got.

I was so happy.

After she had left, my wife (seeing my smile of satisfaction) leaned in, and said “You realise she thought you were serious, right?”

Fuck.

It’s all a matter of choice.

Posted on Nov 15, 2015 by headinablender

Yesterday, during a drive from Las Vegas to Riverside California, my wife and I stopped at the famous Peggy Sue’s diner for lunch.

We took a seat, ordered a couple of drinks,and perused the laminated menu full of 50’s puns and references to see what took our fancy. Soon enough the waitress came over in her 50’s diner uniform and asked us what we wanted to eat.

Mine was easy; I wanted a cheeseburger.

When my wife ordered it highlighted another big difference between the USA and the UK.

Below is an almost exact word-for-word account of the conversation my wife had whilst ordering her meal.

Waitress – “What would you like?”

My Wife – “Steak and eggs”

Waitress – “How do you want your steak?”

My Wife – “Medium”

Waitress – “How do you want your eggs?”

My Wife – “Scrambled”

Waitress – “Do you want hash browns?”

My Wife – “Yes”

Waitress – “Toast, biscuits and gravy or English muffin?”

My Wife – “Toast”

Waitress – “White, wheat or sour dough?”

My Wife – “Sour dough”

If that had been in the UK, the conversation would’ve gone something like this:

Waitress – “What would you like?”

My Wife – “Steak and eggs”

Waitress – “OK”

America 1, England 0.

Waiter minute!

Posted on Sep 12, 2014 by headinablender

I’m a fast eater.

I always have been.

I’m not sure where it stemmed from, but I’ve never remembered a time when I ate slowly. My brother is the same. Maybe it was due to having Italian relatives (on my Father’s side) who loved to feed us whenever we visited, or maybe it was from our time spent in prison.

I’m joking of course. There’s no way my relatives are responsible.

I suppose I began noticing my accelerated eating pace when I became an adult and started dining with other adults. Whenever I go out to a restaurant with anyone I’m usually the first to empty my plate.

This isn’t an issue for me as I’m happy to sit there having a conversation as they painstakingly take an age to eat their meal that probably went cold an hour ago.

Really, it’s fine. I can always lick my plate if I get bored.

Or can I?

You see, my big issue with finishing first is the fact that the waiter/waitress inevitably comes to the table and does the unspeakable; they take away my plate.

Why?

Are they so bereft of crockery in their restaurant that they need to relieve me of mine as soon as possible?

They’re like sharks, circling the table and watching.

What makes it worse is when they quietly ask “are you finished?” whilst reaching for my plate before I can answer “yes”. And let’s be honest, the only answer I can possibly give is ‘yes’ because my plate is empty. I can’t say no because, well, my plate is empty.

“Actually, I’m not finished yet. There’s still a pattern on this plate” is not a well received answer.

And once I’ve been parted from my plate I’m left sitting there watching the others eat. I realise I was doing this beforehand, but somehow I now feel less involved. I’ve now become an outside observer like a scientist with a room full of chimps.

I really hate this behaviour in restaurants (from the waiter/waitress, not my chimpy friends). I’m sure the waiting staff think they’re doing the right thing, but I find it intrusive, unwelcoming and a bit rude; and they don’t even have the decency to leave a copy of Watchtower magazine to keep me occupied.

To me it’s the same as saying:

“Wow, someone was hungry weren’t they Mr Piggy McOink? Look everyone! This guy has finished before anyone else at his table! How Fatty-Boombatty is this jelly-belly?”

This is all made worse when it’s only two of us having a meal. Now they’re not only mocking me non-verbally with their smile, they’re piling the pressure on my fellow diner (usually my wife):

“One down, one to go. Come on slowcoach, you’re wasting everyone’s time. Pay up and get lost; I need this table for another couple.”

A while back I went for a meal with a friend who is the slowest eater in the world. And when I say slow, I mean s-l-o-w. Usually, by the time she approaches the end of her meal, the restaurant has become a bank and cobwebs have formed on her plate.

As frustrating as it could’ve been, I didn’t mind. We were so busy catching up on old times that it didn’t matter she took an additional 20 minutes to finish her food.

Seriously, 20 minutes. Time it. That’s a long time on a single plate of food.

The worst part was when the waiter unashamedly cleared my plate and cutlery after I was finished (5 minutes, tops). My friend, who was now feeling the pressure, apologised to me.

It can’t be a good thing when the person you’re eating with feels the need to say sorry for being ‘too slow’.

I didn’t care. I was there for the company and the conversation…and dessert, but there was no way I was seeing that for at least 2 hours.

My point is, don’t take plates away until everyone has finished.

In America they get it right. And here’s why

They don’t usually take away your plate until everyone has finished.
If they DO take your plate away, they replace it with something else (free refills on soup in Olive Garden anyone?).
Usually the meal is so massive it’s almost impossible to finish it anyway.
Sometimes the meal comes with more than one plate of food (breakfast at Denny’s for example has one plate for your massive breakfast platter and one plate for your massive stack of buttermilk pancakes).

Sometimes a waiter/waitress will also attempt to take your plate after a period of inactivity, despite how much food is still on your plate. It’s like some kind of evil computer screensaver with a plan for world domination through malnutrition.

If you stop eating for a period of time (I estimate this to be about 2 minutes), it is assumed you’ve finished and they will attempt to wrestle your food away from you.

I will stab you. Be warned.

This behaviour wouldn’t translate anywhere else would it?

For example, whilst writing this post I’ve stopped a few times to re-read paragraphs, check my splellnig and make coffee. This means I’ve left the keyboard for small periods of time. By their reckoning I’m finished with this post and they’ll simply attempt to take it away from me, even if I’m in the middle of a

Can I do any better? Surely there’s something I can do?

Posted on Jul 17, 2014 by headinablender

Here’s a little story…

A man walks into a busy restaurant on a Friday night and requests a table for himself and his wife who isn’t with him. He is shown to a table and handed a couple of menus. Before the waitress can ask what he’d like to drink, he asks “Is there anything you can do with these prices?”

The waitress looks at him a little confused; “I’m sorry sir?”

He points to the menu in his hand, “These prices, they’re a bit more than I wanted to pay. Can you do anything with them?”

“But these are the prices of our food sir”, the waitress replies, a little taken aback.

“It’s just that I didn’t want to pay more than £20 per person and I’ve seen cheaper prices at other restaurants. Can you do anything?”

“What do you mean sir?”

“I just want to know what your best possible price is”, persists the man.

“I’m sorry sir, but we can’t reduce the prices; these are our prices.”

The man pauses for a moment before continuing, “Ok, it’s just that I’ve had the price of £20 per person at another restaurant and if you can beat their price then my wife and I will eat here.”

The waitress, who relies heavily on tips, starts to get anxious because she has a lot of other tables to wait on and a very long queue of customers outside waiting to get in.

“What other restaurants have you had these prices with sir?” she asks, not that it matters.

“I’d rather not say” says the man, defensively.

“We would need to see a copy of their menus to make sure the dishes they’re offering are like for like.”

“They are” the man insists, “but I’d rather eat with you, so if there’s anything you can do on the price we’d seriously look at eating here”.

The waitress thinks about it for a second. “If you don’t have dessert after your meal it will reduce the price to £19 per person, how about that?” she asks.

The man thinks about it for a minute before he replies “No, we want to have dessert at the end of our meal. What if my wife and I choose not to have one of the sides, like chips or coleslaw; will that bring the price down any further?”

“I’m afraid not sir, they come as part of the meal”, replies the waitress, “but let me speak to my manager and see what we can do. Are you ok to wait for a couple of minutes?”

The man nods and she promptly disappears into the kitchen.

After a few minutes she returns, “I can offer to discount your meal by 10% if you eat with us right now”, she says triumphantly.

The man pauses again, “Ok, let me think about it. If I take your name I’ll go and speak to my wife and we’ll come back to you later on.”

The waitress, not wanting to lose a tipping customer, says “We are very busy tonight and this is the last table we have free. I can’t guarantee this table will be available later when you come back. Why don’t you give her a call now?”

“I can’t”, says the man, “she’s driving”.

“Ok”, replies the waitress “Tell you what; I’ll hold the table for you”

The waitress suddenly seems oblivious to the ever growing queue of hungry tipping diners eager to get a table.

The man smiles, “Thanks, I really appreciate that. If we decide to eat here we’ll come back later”

“Great” replies the waitress, “My name is Darcy. I look forward to seeing you later”

The man leaves the restaurant unfed.

This seems a bit unlikely, right?

Yet somehow it seems to be completely acceptable to do this when buying other things like cars, houses and heroin…HOLIDAYS, I meant holidays.

I work in travel and believe me; customers try this on all the time.

What they’re essentially saying to the sales agent is “I don’t believe you. I think you’re trying to rob me with overly inflated prices. You sound nice but we all know, deep down, you’re a thieving bastard; give me more free shit now!”

We wouldn’t do this when buying clothing, or getting a haircut, or at the supermarket checkout, or with a pimp.

I would love the waitress to say something like: “If you’ve had such a great price elsewhere, then please feel free to fuck completely off to some shitpit and do that. Clearly there’s something about the other restaurant that’s stopping you because you’re sat here, in front of me, giving me shit about our prices.

“So no, you can’t have a discount. This is the price of our food; deal with it.

“Look at the queue at the door.

“Check out the lack of empty tables.

“If you want to eat here and find out what good food is really all about, pay the price we’ve printed on the menu and shut the fuck up.

“Now, what would you like to drink, sir?”