markk

Some years we'd stay at a bungalow colony, where you had to do your own cooking. 'Pinwheels' (or 'cartwheels') were big then - skirt steak rolled up then sliced an inch thick, with wooden skewers keeping the slices from unraveling. So one day we were in the butcher shop in South Fallsburg, and woman asked, "how much are the lamb chops?". The butcher replied, "$1.99 a pound." She retorted, "$1.99 a pound? The butcher in Monticello has them for $1.59 a pound!" And this butcher said, "why don't you buy them there, then?" and she replied, "they're out of them." So he answered, "lady, when we're out of them, they're $1.09 a pound."

Has nobody commented on the sign "Please Wait For Hostess to be Seated". Then, you can sit down.

Okay, so technically this story happened in Florida during early-bird in a restaurant: Lady to waiter: "My chicken breast is tough. I deserve to be upgraded to the Prime Rib. Waiter: "No lady, you get another chicken breast." I was at the next table and overheard this.

I spent every summer of my childhood in the Catskills. In those days, lunch was a 16 ounce bowl of heavy sour cream every day. You could have it with blueberries, or sliced banana. So how much cholesterol per week was that just in luch alone?

Woman to hotel manager in Catskills: "The food in this hotel is horrible. Sheer and utter poison. And such small portions!

To me, a great wine shop is one that has stocked its shelves with genuinely delicious and affordable wines in all the various "flavor profiles". I really don't care where they come from or what the grape is. There once was a time when I was collecting Bordeaux and Burgundy when I defined a great wine shop as carrying wide selection of the top producers of those wines. But now that the prices are so high, that doesn't interest me any more. Nor does a big selection of low-priced wines from that region. A great store to me is one that has found light, crisp white wines, plus 'serious', heavy white wines, and then reds in all different styles, all of which are flavorful, balanced, clean, and reasonably (circa $20 or less) priced.

Honest, I once asked a waitress "What's the Soup du Jour" and she answered, "Oh, that's just the soup of the day." Unrelated, a friend one asked what the difference was in size between the medium pizza and the large, and was told that the large had 8 slices, and the medium only had 6.

I always loved it when the diner, describing the Mixed Broiled Seafood Platter, referred to the little silver foil (shaped like a shell) thing of crabmeat stuffing, was listed in with the ingredients as "stuffed with crabmeat".

Oy, well that's a thought too. I'm not a big cookie fan, so a lot of this was lost on me. But a couple of weeks ago I was in, and one of the girls said, "Do you remember the cookies you got us last year?" and I said, "sure", and she said "they were so delicious that we ate them for weeks, and then I packed some up and sent them to my family in the Philippines." I didn't think to ask if they still knew the brand!

I was probably a guest of yours (depending on the exact year) !! I love these stories. The one I have to tell has this entire cast of characters transplanted to Miami Beach, because it takes place during Christmas week (and of course, many hotel owners had summer hotels in the Catskills and winter hotels in MB). So of course, everybody was on the Full American Plan, three meals a day. And while the menu specified "one thing" from each course, no Jew was going to accept that, and the waiters made it like they were putting their lives on the line to break the rules for you in return for an especially nice tip. So you could have orange juice and a half a grapefruit. Or, if you chose eggs for breakfast, you could also have an order of pancakes. Well, you remember. And of course, when breakfast in the Dining Room ended, you could still take it for the next hour or two at the Coffee Shop, which was on street level. But the coffee shop also did a brisk walk-in business from the street, so its menu had prices. And the note explaining what you were entitled to if you were taking a "meal plan" meal there. And the "suggested tip" was printed right there as well. So one year at the hotel, for one entire week, was a story that circulated the hotel, whipped the pool into a frenzy if you will. One guy overslept, and took his breakfast one day at the coffee shop. He ordered his usual breakfast, starting with the large glass of orange juice. When his check came, all the items were priced, then struck through, and the words "Meal Plan" were written on it. Except... there was a 25 cents charge for "large juice". The fellow complained to the waitress, who explained that he was entitled on the meal plan to the small juice, which it said (25 cent value on the menu) and had to pay the difference (25 cents) for the large juice. He explained that upstairs, he always got a large glass of juice every day. But he didn't argue. He signed his bill. But instead of the suggested one-dollar tip, he left her 75 cents. She was so upset by that (and I'm sure understandably so) that she took it to the hotel manager. So the manager went to see the guest to smoothe the situation over. They arranged that the manager would void the supplemental juice charge, and then the guy went down to the coffee shop and gave the waitress the additional twenty-five cents. Well, you had to hear him tell this story! And then, you had to hear it as it got repeated around the pool for a week! (or, maybe you didn't.)

Me? I have a deep-seated affection for Walker's Shortbread .. buttery and perfect in terms of sweetness ... ← Thanks !! A better lead, I couldn't have asked for. I have just ordered the giant tin (90+ cookies) known as "Yoku Moku Grand Cinq Delice" (!!!)

And... no, you still can't. I just got back from there (I bought some nice looking pastries) but when I saw the roast chickens unlabeled, I asked, and they're neither free range nor organic, and never were either. So if somebody told you they were free range, they mis-informed you. I only point this out because when the guy read me the ingredients in the Mortadella, he left out all the chemicals and preseratives.

I've always liked Basic Foods, but I've never compared their prices, so I didn't know if in fact GOE is cheaper. I'll make it a point to comparison shop the items I buy next time. I too would kill for whole fish. But the two times I was in GOE, the fish there shouldn't have been for sale. The skin was dry and sunken into the body, and the eyes were sunken in and very far from fresh. (For what it's worth, much of the fish I used to buy at Apicella had a faint but distinct smell of chlorine bleach, and I stopped going there.) And I was impressed by the GOE cheese selection until I got into it. Two of the cheeses that interested me smelled horrible when I brought them near my nose, and one of the cheeses I sampled had absolutely no flavor whatsoever. No, there's not a place for better cheese in Hoboken, nor is there a place for whole fish, let alone top-quality. Sadly. If there were, I'd gladly share it with you. And I did miss the fact that the chickens were free-range. But what I was saying was that I had hoped the store would be bringing things (great cheese, great fish) here, and in the couple of times I've been, I didn't find that.

They most certainly did. Three such examples are quoted below ... in a tasteless manner most inappropriate for a hostess in the hospitality industry: That may be appropriate talk for the teacher in charge of a school cafeteria. It has no place in a nice restaurant.

As I explained very clearly, I don't need 'extra' legroom. Usually, 99.9% of the tables in restaurants are just fine. This discussion was about what happens if you happen to be taken to a table that's not to your liking (in my case, a particularly cramped table), and how much justification you need for asking for another one, and it was in response to the hostess who said that it was her call whether your reason was "valid" or "frivolous". Busboy already said that the reason of wanting another table to impress your girlfriend was "valid" in his opinion, while the hostess said it was "frivolous". What happens if she decides to gauge the legroom under the table herself and find my request "frivolous" by her standards? The fact that a diner asks nicely for another table should be all that's necessary. (Whether the request can be honored or not is another story.) The hostess can apply her standards when she's the paying customer somewhere. She's clearly 'projecting' a lot of serious psychological issues (I quoted them above) in the customer requests, and that's why I don't want to subject my own needs to her standards. It's an inappropriate attitude, one that she should check at the door when she arrives for work.

I like the attitude you expressed earlier in the thread, and I agree with you here as well. To make a fuss in a restaurant and behave imperiously would be unacceptable behavior. In my own case, if I need a different table, I ask nicely. I'd have to say that unless all the tables are full, or unless the only empty ones are reserved, I'm always accommodated. And I think that being told "I'm sorry, that table is reserved and we have no others available" is a perfectly good reason to give me. But to tell me "I can't seat you there because that server has a few tables, and this server's turn is up next" isn't something a professinal restaurant would ever tell me - they'd deal with it transparently and please the customer. And I wasn't talking about whiny customers actually (and I agree that those who make a stink and get imperious are obnoxious). I was talking about whiny hostesses. I was specifically referring to the attitude expressed repeatedly by one hostess: I think that's a bad attitude for anybody in the hospitality industry to have. As I've said, I've never not been accommodated gladly and graciously, and upstream I told the story of a high-end restaurant packed to the gills who realized that they had seated me in a cramped table, and came to me and asked if I'd like to move when they saw a more comfortable table open up. That's my idea of professional service. If I'm seated somewhere that's not comfortable to me, and the restaurant can't, or won't accommodate my request, or if I'm told that the hostess has to pass judgement on whether my request is "valid" or "frivolous" by her standards, I'll just get up and leave. I do that lots. If I'm not enjoying the restaurant's attitude before the meal even starts, it's a pretty good sign to me that I should go elsewhere, and I do that. I've also been in restaurants where the first course has gone so badly that I've asked for the check after it, and cut my losses and gone elsewhere. I'm never ever rude, or loud, or nasty, or imperious, or disruptive. Those are qualities I don't like from people, and I don't exhibit them. And they're uncalled for. I'd much sooner leave than stay in an unpleasant situation, and that's how I deal with it. As to why it's offensive to me to suggest that I have to give justification to a hostess when asking for another empty table, I'm always in the unpleasant situation when I travel by air that, because of the brace on my leg which sets off the metal detectors, I'm taken to a makeshift curtained-off 'room' in the middle of an airport and told to undress by the airport security people so they can search my clothes and pass metal detectors up and down my unclothed body. Sadly, though, I understand the reason for this. But when I go to a restaurant, 99.8 percent of the time there's no problem with legroom at the table I'm given, and there's just no need to get into my medical condition when I make a reservation. And in the 0.2 % of the time when I have to look around to see if there's a more comfortable table and ask for it, I just don't feel that I have to give medical justification to the hostess (as I must to the airport screener) to get a different table. I ask nicely "may we please have that table there?", and if it's available, she should give it to me. As I say, it's offensive to me to suggest that the hostess will then decide if the nature of my medical condition outweighs her need to give one server an additional table versus another. These things should be transparent. And as you said earlier, you feel that the guy asking to move to impress his girlfriend has a vaild reaon (to you, at any rate). So what's with the imperious and psychoanalytic attitude of the hostess anyway? If you're/we're talking about Chili's, then sure, they've got to give out the tables in a specific rotation. But that's not the kind of restaurant I was talking about.

I think I got them on-line (because I haven't been to a Costco or similar store in a few years, at least not at Christmas-time for sure). The only Walker's I can find on-line now are small tins, and the last one was certainly at least a foot deep and a good 18" to 24" wide (as I say, it may not have been actual Walker's), the point being that it was a very impressive size, one that said "I really appreciate you all", and even after many days of searching the net, I can't find a similar presentation, and not only would I like it to be large, I'd also like it to be good cookies. Are the Danish ones good cookies? These gals just raved and raved about the quality of the cookies, which I never actually tasted.

A customer has no right to yell at you, or to be rude and in your face. You certainly could have excused yourself and gone to the bathroom until he left. If you were polite in your explanation, and it sounds like you were, you did the right thing. He was clearly in the wrong, and you didn't have to take that. When I'm in a restaurant, or store, and hear somebody being abusive to an employee, I always butt-in and tell the offensive person that he's being rude and is out of line. I don't want to hear it either. I've done that more than three or four times in my life.

Last year as a gift for the staff at my doctor's office, I bought a big, festive tin of shortbread cookies - the name seemed to strike a bell with me (though it may not have been Walker's) but it was a gigantic tin that looked really nice. Well, to say that they loved it was an understatement. They raved about those cookies for months. I'd love to buy them another tin, but I can't find them because I don't know what brand they could have been. For a while I thought maybe Walkers, but they simply don't offer a giant tin of them anything like the one I got, and I can't find any others in an impressive, or large tin. Can anybody suggest a good brand of butter cookies that might come in a several pound, festive box? A million thanks for your help !!

Well, it's their problem then. When my customers ask for something, no matter how much it's going to inconvenience me, and no matter how much it's going to disrupt the planned workflow that I've mapped out for the day or the week, I automatically answer, "your wish is my command" - I really do. If I've asked to be moved to the only table left in the whole place, and it's a four top, and the one that they've seated me at is a two top that happens not to be satisfactory to me for some reason, they will tell me: "I'm so sorry, but that table is reserved for a party of four that's coming in a few minutes", and I'll just have to accept that. But I have to digress and tell a quick story. Some time ago at a company where I worked, we had a gigantic mailing to get out, and instead of using a mailing company, one of the other execs (who was here on a visa from a socialist country, which I'm just saying because it explains a lot of the story) talked us into letting his teenage kid do the project with two friends for their "junior executive" program at school. So I explained to the kids that the materials had to be folded, and stuffed into the envelopes, and then the envelopes had to get address labels, be sealed, and run through the postage meter, and that the thousands of pieces had to be in the mail in two weeks time because they contained a dated offer. They said, "no problem" and took the job. So the kids seemed to be dilligently at work after school every time I peeked in. The day before the mailing had to be sent, I found two kids working, and several thousand stuffed and sealed envelopes stacked by the wall. I asked when they were planning to postage them and get them to the post office, and they told me "Oh, the third guy (name withheld) will do that when he gets back from family vacation in two weeks", and I explained that they had to be in the mail by the next day, or else. So one of the kids explained proudly that he was the "project leader", and that they had divided up the work at the beginning, and that two of them drew stuffing and labeling, and the third one, who was out of the country, drew postaging. I told them that it didn't matter, they had better get them in the mail by the next day, and the kid told me "but we've already divided up the money!" And I told him that if the things weren't in the mail by the next day and a few thousand dollars in printed materials were rendered useless, there'd be hell to pay. And as I said when I hopped into this discussion, the hostess who said that she had to know my reason for wanting a different table so that she could decide whether it was 'valid' or 'frivilous' struck me as both offensive and unprofessional. While we mostly think of the chefs as the celebrities in restaurants, the people who slave over a hot stove to thrill customers with great food, it's also the FOH people who have to do a similar job (not over a hot stove but in a crowded dining room) to please customers there as well. If a customer's request for a different table is less important to her than being sure that each waiter has an equal number of tables at any given moment, then she's letting down the chef. He's inside having dishes re-made when one has come up a few minutes before another one, so that everything will arrive to a table at the peak of perfection, and she's treating the dining room as if it were a theoretical project for a restaurant-management class, forgetting that the name of the game is pleasing the customers so they'll leave glad they came, and come back another time. And so, if I ask for a different table in a restaurant, and it means that one waiter has an extra table for a few minutes while another waiter has one less table, I expect them to do what all professional restaurants do - move me gladly and graciously, and deal with it as just another part of doing business. As far as the table I don't like - the next party seated will get it, and no other diner is inconvenienced. (edited for clarity, I hope)

I do very much understand that special request can't always be accommodated, and I promise you that I never get pissy. All I was saying was that if I were taken to a table that I didn't want to eat at and saw anonther one available where I'd rather dine, I'd say to the person seating me, "could we please sit over there?" without feeling the need to give the reason, especially in light of the post that said that the hostess would need to know so that she could judge if it was "valid" (she may have said "legitimate", or made to "impress my girlfriend". And that I think hers is a bad attitude for a restaurant person to have. And if the waiter has left me without a fork for my main course, I'm going to ask for one no matter how busy he is. Like you, I get up very early and work very late to please customers who have requests, and nobody knows or is inconvenienced. Neither is anybody inconvenienced if they move me to another table. The next people that they go back to seat will get the table I didn't want, and nothing about the dinner service will be affected.

Well, I'm not from Dixie (though I love your cups), but I wanted to add that I grew up with a Jewish grandmother who cooked (heavily) in NYC in the 50's, and though she made all the traditional Jewish foods from scratch, she did regularly make Salmon Croquettes, from canned salmon, of course. Why, I don't know.

That's very interesting. I ruin your dining experiences not because I ask to have a different table and explain to the hostess that I have a bad knee, but because I ask to have a different table by asking "could we please sit at that table instead?" and don't feel it necessary to tell her my medical condition. If by asking like that, I "screw up the service for other customers" like you, I think that makes you the biggest whiner of them all, no?

Honestly, I don't. I'm a perimeter shopper - I don't eat packaged or processed foods, so I usually only buy things that come from the refrigerated cases around the outside of the store, and there are many aisles, including the one with the juices, that I never go in. (I go in the natural and organic aisles, but it's surely not there anyway.) When I bought it, it was on a special display somewhere else in the store. If they had moved it to the juice aisle, I wouldn't know.

I just got back from Miami, where I ate in two hot restaurants whose specialty is sweetbreads (and I did my best to try to eat my body weight in them). And inbetween, I had tongue for lunch one day.