December 30, 2005

• related: Mark Allen's Top 10 things he accidentally ate in 2005.
• More good Mexican food! More casual places with great food (dress-down upscale). An end to Southwestern cuisine! Less chain restaurants! Waiters and waitress actually capable of making a decent recommendation when I can't decide what I want!
• Goddam you fes I was gonna fucking link that, you beamgurder.
• What's truffles, precious?
• I'm reasonably happy with the restaurants I frequent, with one exception: about six weeks ago a group of us went to a popular local hangout. I have never, ever been treated so rudely by a waitress in my life. This girl yelled at me and the other girl in my party at two different times, for trying to order. And not in an unusual way - she was at our table. She was very polite to the guy in our group who was ordering a lot of alcoholic drinks, but be female while asking politely for a coffee refill after 20 minutes of an empty mug, and she'd bite your head off. Try to order an appetizer when it's your turn? "I'm too busy for that right now." She still works there. We take pains not to sit in her section. So, Naomi: I have my eye on you, and it wants your ass GONE.
• verbminx, why not complain to the manager? If she gets enough complaints, I'm sure the establishment will ask her to shape up or ship out. Unless she's the boss' daughter or something.
• An end to the wanton use of tomatoes as an ingredient. Good lord, people, don't you know they make your brains explode?! Also, the eradication of tomatoes in Italian cuisine, for similar reasons.
• I could ask for fewer stupid people cluttering up the process on both the service and patron fronts, but doesn't this really apply to life in general?
• More cheese. I can't have enough. Also, more old-school bartenders, the kind that remember your drink and have it ready when you walk in the door, a generous pourer with a quiet, knowing smile on his or her face. And not afraid to beat you into chowder. More dry rub. More restaurants that know how to cook ribs, that don't automatically drown them in sauce. Also, more crawfish.
• 1. The return of bean sprouts. E-coli, schmi-coli. 2. The return of mayo to hot dog vendors. Salomnella Salminella Food Poisoning, schmood-poisoning.
• I just hope that the famine in Niger doesn't claim the lives of too many innocent little children. *as a single tear traces a line down his cheek, quidnunc sighs and tears another claw off his lobster*
• I would like the sushi restaurant down the street to come up with a better take-out solution. I can't find a babysitter and spend an hour waiting in a crowded restaurant for a chef to prepare my meal, so I call for take-out instead. But then I get home with my order, and it all looks a lot smaller, for the same price. What the hell, people? and after quid's comment, now I just sound like a petty whiner.
• Drinking at lunch went away?
• no more overcooked fish let's have bigger tables, with cloth tablecloths eliminate the booth! coffee/tea served in cup with a saucer, not a mug! no steenking plastic dishes or utensils! throw out the television sets no obtrusive music, so that people who want conversation with meals can hear one another more extranational/international cuisine more mango ice cream! more mango!
• I just hope that leaf rot in Fiji doesn't claim the lives of too many innocent little mangoes. *as another tear falls from quidnunc's now-misty eye*
• More knowledge of food allergies and dietary restrictions. And, waitstaff more interested in the continuing health of their customers than with convincing them to buy that specific item on the menu. That they do not, in fact, know all the ingredients of. And I want my favorite Thai restaurant back. They're closing tomorrow night... with no plans to reopen. It is a terrible tragedy.
• More disclosure of stuff that's got animal products in it for us vegetarians and vegans. It's become such a chore to eat out and try to find something on the menu without gelatin, fish-bones, rennet or the like that it's become easier to stay home.
• P.S. Not saying there should be more vegetarian stuff. I don't expect the world to cater to me because of my choices. I'd just like it if the stuff that is vegetarian be marked somehow to make it easier (or waitstaff were more aware and less derisive when you asked).
• I just hope that vegetarians will stop their vengeful pogrom against the plant kingdom and go back to eating dirt like the rest of us. *as a trickle of sap dangles from quidnunc's main trunk*
• More knowledge of food allergies and dietary restrictions. Yes, this would be good. Not that I have any myself, but a coworker has a slight allergy to garlic so she needs to avoid it, and I know someone else who is allergic to onions. A good waiter and chef will make something special if nothing on the menu will work, but there have been times when they've been met with blank stares. Food allergies don't begin and end with peanuts. And I want my favorite Thai restaurant back. Yea, I want my favorite Vietnamese place back. They closed suddenly a year ago and now there's a Chipotle in the same space.
• More desserts. Less calories.
• You can hire the best cooks, spend thousands on decor, and have the greatest service. But if you make me stand in line to pay my check like I'm at the post office, you won't be high on my list next weekend. Yes that's you, Austin Mexican restaurants.
• 3. And I'd really like it if those two waitresses at my cafe would begin speaking to me again. Ladies, I'm sorry. I turned down the one because I was hitting on the other. And I didn't know that she had a boyfriend, but I swear I asked around. Please take it as a compliment. And I know I shouldn't have gone from that rejection to hitting on the first one again. Particularly as you're sisters -- but I didn't know that at the time. And had I known that, the whole mess wouldn't have started up anyway, seeing as how I struck out with your other sister last spring. My bad. I'm very sorry. It's been a couple of months now, can we please end the silent treatment?
• Yeah, mango ice cream.
• More truffle milkshakes.
• Man go, I scream too, Chy. But that's the beauty of the civil partnership - we'll always be together. Yes: I will marry you.
• EQUAL RIGHTS FOR HOMOPHONES!
• I gotta stop eating those weird mushrooms.
• and what's with the chef ripping on Rachel Ray in the FPP? She may be a lousy tipper when she's cheating through 40 dollars a day, but is she really any kind of threat for top level chefs? Don't hate her because she's perky!
• Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring, homophone...
• Most chefs that I know just want a line of coke and a shot of whiskey.
• It's just chef snobbery, sys7girl. I've heard someone (I think it was Anthony Bourdain) complain that she's not doing any real cooking on that 30 Minute Meals show. Which is hilarious, considering Bourdain is just a media whore these days himself.
• 
• Capt., I think it's time you found a new restaurant. Where they don't know you. And then eat very quietly and carefully and don't make any eye contact with the waitstaff. And stop leaving condoms as tips.
• More tangerine and vodka. Eggs Florentine served always, everywhere. Mandatory fleur-de-sel, even at Burger King. Saucers. Lots of superb lobster bisque in airports. Veuve Clicquot for all.
• Lara, I've never left the tip of my condom once. Not ever. It's just that too many of my stories now have the ending "and now I can never go back there again."
• My food is salty with Quidnunc's tears... More disclosure of ingredients good. (I hate finding unexpected bacon in my salad) Overworked/not enough staff bad. Local seasonal produce good. Cold toast bad. And for Mothra's sake, put some damn fresh lime in my margarita!
• more really good salads, particularly caesar salad, and salad with beets in it. and more bacon (sorry panty monster, but I belong to a bacon-worshipping cult) more wild mushrooms (death cap, schmeath cap!) more champagne! more simple and elegant and sublimely delicious!! more tater tots!!!
• more tater tots!!! Ooh! *points*
• Less loud music in the dining room... this is what concerts are for Better seafood at more reasonable prices More kosher establishments (Austin gripe) Less snobbery - from chefs, wait staff, and patrons No more over use of expensive/rare ingredients No more mass produced, flash frozen, and then reheated in an industrial microwave meals Later hours... at least on Friday and Saturday nights
• i want it supersized everytime, without wasting my precious seconds dealing with that question. i want it my way. i want fries that. i want it to go. i want it in less than 15 minutes or else i'm not paying for it. i want half the usual amount of caffeine, a blend of genuine and fake cow juice, and an artificial sweetner.
• 1. Sommeliers everywhere. 2. Get rid of that horribly annoying practice at chain restaurants of waiters sitting down at your table when they take your order. 3. Nicer employees and nicer patrons.
• How about Les Tots Grands, a restaurant that serves only gourmet tater tots all the time? I think if we each threw in a few bucks, we could open our own place and give the people what they really want.
• Throw in some deep-fried cheese sticks, and I'm in.
• I would like everyone to cook for themselves more. After some hard-won culinary consciousness-raising, maybe they wouldn't put up with the cynical and poorly-executed crap that passes for restaurant fare in this country. Get - or share - some food skills. Prepare and serve meals to your friends and family. Enjoy!
• Who was that masked lurker?
• My guess, it was some lurker. A lurker who was masked.
• Going back to ye olde beginning of the thread: Alnedra, I thought about complaining, I meant to complain, but I was going to call and keep neglecting to. I don't want to do it in person because I worry about someone messing with my food. I much prefer the passive-aggressive method of glaring at Naomi's back whenever I'm there and she's working. =/ (Apparently the waitstaff at this place were notoriously rude a few years ago, but it was mostly an issue of sheer neglect rather than yelling at customers. The owner supposedly sent them off to waiter bootcamp, and things improved; that was before I lived here. I've had a few SLOW waitresses there, but never one who yelled at me before, there or anywhere else.) As to the rest of it - Oh Em Gee! The sitting at the table by the staff! It must end! I am super-nice to waitstaff, I always say please and thank you and sound apologetic if I have a problem with my food and all that, and I tip well, but you know, if I don't know you, get the heck out of my booth. And Word to the food allergy thing, too. If you are stuck not eating wheat and/or sugar for a while (which is not uncommon in terms of food restrictions), there's actually very little you can eat in terms of stuff you haven't cooked yourself. Mexican places are the best bet, but invariably something like the black beans will inexplicably have wheat flour in them, and tortillas are usually a no-go (corn tortillas = too much natural sugar).
• Waiter bootcamp? "On the ground and give me fifty spoon-pickups, worm!"
• I just gorged myself on some fine-n-tasty tater tots (with dijon mustard--the only way to fly!) I like the taterant idea---I have some connections in Boise, ID so I can probably hook us up on the potato end...
• and i'm fed up with the lack of vegan and vegetarian plates in my neighborhood. they used to have a good selection, but nowadays, no. speaking to my favorite condescending waiter, jacues, about it, he tells me that veggie and vegan food is harder and harder to come by in france. at a general level, they're fitter and they can run faster, it seems.
• Who was that masked lurker? posted by middleclasstool at 09:53PM UTC on December 30, 2005 My guess, it was some lurker. A lurker who was masked. posted by Capt. Renault at 10:02PM UTC on December 30, 2005 Best comedy duo in a MoFi thread of 2005!
• And we can call it "Tot-al Recall." Or if it's French, "A Bien-tot."
• Or we could staff the restaurant entirely with scantily-clad hot girls and call them Prosti-tots.
• and what's with the chef ripping on Rachel Ray in the FPP? yeah, that was really uncalled for. but it was michael franks of chez melange, a place where "small plates" are $13 a pop and truffle oil is required on everything. so fuck him. if i get depressed, all i have to do is watch rachael ray for a few minutes. that smile of hers is some kind of magic. although, i got depressed when she paraded her boyfriend around on her show one day.
• Someone needs to teach Rachel Ray how to tip. If I was her waiter she'd be eating loogie lunch.
• I suspect that there may be some additional tipping when the cameras are turned off. Because there's no way she'd be that darn chipper if she'd eaten as much loogie lunch as those 8% tips have earned her.
• The end of hollendaise sauce poured on everything. The arrival of tip entitlement culture being stopped in its tracks.
• Yeah. Service compris all the way!