Within Reason or Out of the Question? Rules for Restaurant Employees

100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do, from the New York Times, November 2009.

Never will you ever find a more thorough list of no-nos for restaurant employees. 

This list is for the nit-pickers, the fine-dining frequenters, the self-proclaimed VIPs to cite all the reasons why they had a bad service at dinner the other night.  

As someone who works in a restaurant, there are a few things on this list of musts that I find unrealistic and verging on ass-kissing.

“97. If a guest goes gaga over a particular dish, get the recipe for him or her.”

What’s the point for them to come back to the restaurant?  

Ask me what is in the dish, I will tell you every ingredient.  But to get the chef to recite the exact recipe and cooking method to me to scribble down so that I can pass this on to a customer?  Fat chance. 

“23. If someone likes a wine, steam the label off the bottle and give it to the guest with the bill. It has the year, the vintner, the importer, etc.”

Now this. Is. Ass-kissing.  

Look, there are a lot of people who believe that paying and tipping means they are entitled to anything they want, including treating restaurant staff like they are below them, or expecting that unreasonable demands be met.  Trust me, it is difficult enough to maintain professional and composed when people are not treating you with respect. For people like this, I don’t even want to say goodbye to you when you leave the restaurant.  I do anyway.  But I am sure as hell not going to steam the label off your wine for you. 

The Baddest English in China

The New York Times just did a hilarious photo essay on translated English signs found in China.  

I remember being in China, and one of the first things I noticed were the horrendous English translations.  I was in a five star hotel, where my bedroom had a private hot spring and other luxuries galore, and there was still terrible translations on the restaurant’s menu.  Want to be taken seriously, China? You gotta do something about this. 

Now I won’t refer to what is going on here as “Chinglish”; in my opinion, Chinglish is the special kind of half-Chinese half-English dialect spoken by CBCs.  The poor English found on the signs in China imply more a sense of laziness and lack of research, rather than “Chinglish”.  

Some of the most hilarious examples from the photo essay: “Smart Hoshery Makes You Slobber” found on a restaurant sign and “The jew’s ear juice” found on a beverage can.  

Share in what has fully made my week here.  Ten extra points if you can read the Chinese too.

Food Critic’s Food Journal

NY Times food critic, Sam Sifton, recently released a food log of what he ate during one week’s time, along with a total calorie count.  

24 560 calories in one week, with only about 4000 calories burned through exercise – about 7000 calories too many for the typical middle-aged male.  

Ooh, the “dark side” of being a food critic.  Please.  His log still makes me drool with envy. 

Cilantro = The Bane of my Existence

Last week when the NY Times published a piece on why cilantro is feverishly despised by a huge population, I got excited. 

I used to be a picky eater when I was a kid: I liked my steak well done so I don’t see blood, no seafood please it’s squidgy, and I don’t even want to attempt raw sea-critters aka sushi.  Took time but I grew out of most of these things: today, I like my steak medium-rare, I love seafood (with the exception of oysters and clams which I am allergic to), and sushi has become my version of comfort food.  Today, I’ll eat octopus like it’s my job and sweetbreads like it’s my middle name.  I’ve tried alligator, snails, frogs, sea urchin, chicken cartilage, mirugai, boudin noir, foie (of goose, duck, and monkfish), and many more delectables that would have made the nine year-old me shudder. 

But the one thing I still hate is cilantro. 

My first cilantro-tasting memory is also the first time I had pho.  I wasn’t a fan of the smell, and didn’t want to have to eat those slimy noodles with thinly sliced, boiled chicken.  Come to think of it, I have never learned to enjoy pho, either.  

The article touches on how our taste perceptions are tied to memories.  Associating cilantro with an unpleasant experience will forever make cilantro unpleasant to me.  This also explains why pho is forever tainted in my memory – even when I eat it without cilantro.  Apparently, the makeup of the smell of cilantro is similar to the smell of soaps and bedbugs.  If your brain has already put a big nix on cilantro, one whiff of the stuff will just register as “nasty soapy bedbugs” instead of “beloved herb”.  And for me, one whiff of pho, regardless of how cilantro-less it is, causes me to think cilantro! and stop!

Cilantro lovers around the world have not taken lightly to this acknowledged cilantro-hate writing going on.  A “FUCK YEA CILANTRO” tumblr group can attest to that.  

Sorry guys, but cilantro-hate cannot be helped.