When you are at a restuarant, do you special order your food? Do you think it's too much to ask? If you do, how often do they get it right? And what do you do if they get it wrong?20 responses total.
I really hate mayo so I try to special order things without it. Most of the time, they get it right but if they get it wrong, I just scrape it off.
I special order all the time. Most of the time they get it right and when they don't, I almost always just take care of it myself. Lately they have gotten my order wrong almost every time. It's weird, cause it's different places every time. I don't like to send food back because I really don't want any extra "special sauce" when it comes back. ;) But Friday I sent some salmon back, because it was almost not cooked at all (raw). (and it's wasn't supposed to be like that either.) and I was afraid to eat it.
Weird. FWIW, raw salmon is usually safer than raw beef or chicken or pork. But I probably would have sent it back for some extra oven time too.
I'm like Jeanne in this. I special order lke crazy, but I'll generally eat whatever they put in front of me. I rarely send food back (cold rubbery eggs are one huge exception, and a charred steak when I ordered it medium rare would be another). Most places do OK with my special orders, though my order of "iced tea, lots of ice, no lemon" frequently translates to "iced tea, no ice, extra lemon." Servers seem to have a hard time wrapping themselves around the idea of someone who would rather have less beverage and it be very cold than to have more.
I don't tend to special order all that much- but when I do I expect it to be done properly. I will send a steak back if it's not cooked enough for me (I really don't like rare meat). I've been known to insist on a totally different piece of meat (if they can't get it cooked properly twice, I don't want it thrown back on the grill - give me a new one). I've only had to do that once or twice though. :)
also, when I send stuff back, I try to be SUPER NICE, cause I don't want a lugey in it.
resp:6 Oh yeah, definitely- very nice and polite about it.
I don't special order very often. And when I am being a bit pickier, I do try to mention that I tip well.
I often ask the waitperson if there are things the cook on duty does especially well. Sometimes I get offered off-menu items. I do put in special requests from time to time, but seldom send them back if they aren't right. I've been in too many kitchens where exceptions are just too easy to forget. I do try to be clear about dressing an item or my plate. No mayonnaise is usually the waitperson, not the cook's problem. The other thing I do before I complain is ask the person I'm dining with if I was clear. Sometimes I'm the only one who understood what I was getting at. *grin*
resp:9 *laughs* Yeah, I usually do that last bit too. Especially if it's a change I usually ask for, sometimes I get so used to asking for it that I forget and think I made a special request when I didn't.
Re #6: So true! I *do* tip very well, so I don't feel too bad about special requests, as a rule. Besides, if there is a problem with food preparation, it is seldom the fault of the server.
yep, I tip well as well.
I have no qualms for asking for modifications in something that I'm ordering, especially if whatever it is hasn't be 'pre-made' [like for asking no-mushrooms or other such thing that I don't like or can't eat]. If the item HAS been pre-made, if its a big deal, and/or if they can't fix it the way I want or need it to be, I'll order something different that I *can* eat. Especially since we're usually paying more for eating out, I'd like to get something that I want and enjoy eating. If I know ahead of time that I won't find much that I'll be able to eat while dining out [or going to someone's place for a meal], I'll eat something before I go [and when I get home if I'm hungry]. I'm somewhat of a 'selective' [picky] eater, so I do what I need to do. I enjoy eating too much NOT to get and enjoy what I do want... :-)
I thought of this item last night when I was watching "Waiting", when Ryan Reynolds tells Sam from "Freaks and Geeks" (I can't remember the actor's name - I just know that's who he was there) that a woman (who was *awful* - very rude to the point of belligerance) sent back her steak: "She just broke the first rule: don't fuck with the people who handle your food."
that movie is one of the reasons I'm always nice. :)
Having worked in restaurants is why I'm always nice...because I know that "Shenanigans" isn't too far off the mark sometimes.
When I was a food service worker, I never did anything bad to anyone's food nor did I ever see anyone else do anything to a customer's food. Sometimes we talked about how we *wished* we had though ;). What I did to punish bad customers when I was a waitress was to simply ignore them as much as possible and to give them the absolute minimum about of service as I could get away with. I was always way to busy to waste my time on that sort of person. When I worked fast food, I was a teenager so I would just give them the same look I would give my mother when she chewed me out. It was that look that all teenagers seem to know instinctively which communicates: "yeah...whatever" and usually comes with an eye roll or two. It always amazed me the contempt with which some people treat fast food workers. I mean it wasnt uncommon for people to be seriously verbally abusive about really weird things.
I've always been pretty nice actually, but that movie just confirmed it. I never worked at a regular restaurant, but I did work fast food. We never did anything gross except I did see things dropped on the floor be picked up and served before, but I never did that. :)
The five second rule... :) I've worked at many, many restaurants, and I've never seen (or heard of) anyone actually dong something bad to a customer's food. Like slynne, we definitely talked about what we *wanted* to do, but actually doing it would be just too nasty. Not to mention the embarrassment of having to tell your family just why you lost your job. That's never a good thing.
I had to deal with that kind of allegation once. A spiteful co-worker told me that one of the women had spit in the food of a customer she had an ongoing boyfriend feud with. Fortunately, it was a small town, and I eventually got the truth from a neutral observer (the cook in the kitchen at the time the alleged incident took place). But what frightened me most was even the *rumor* that that could have happened. It's easy for people to decide not to come to your place based on the slightest possibility that could have happened. (To say nothing of the taking-sides in the boyfriend feud).
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