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TheFoodTutor

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  1. About a week ago, my boyfriend went through a drive through window to get a soda, and he ordered a "medium." When the girl at the window handed him the drink, it was so huge that it would not fit into the cupholder of my car (I drive a 1991 vehicle). He actually had her take the drink back and give him a "small" which was still more soda than one of the bottles that I grew up drinking, which used to provide 2 to 3 glasses of Coke back then. I really don't understand how portion sizes have gotten so out of hand. But then again, I do. People want to get their money's worth when they dine out, and that means first being satisfied by the eye appeal of great mounds of food on a plate, and then being satisfied by the stuffed sensation you get when you eat a large mound of french fries as well as a sizable meat main dish. Restaurants are partly to blame for increasing portion sizes, but this is also a really customer driven trend. I've seen lots and lots of people who are served huge plates of food, only to hear them say, "This isn't as big as it was last time I was here. Can you get me some more?"
  2. So it would seem that the one definition that we could hold as standard for a dumpling is that it has to include a starchy dough, and most likely a flour-based dough? Odd, because while I'm thinking of it now, with as many different types of dumplings I've tried, I don't think I've had a dumpling I didn't like.
  3. I really like this post, for its forthrightness and devil-may-care attitude. As far as Sam is concerned, I don't know him, and I'm sure he could be a very nice fellow, and he could know all the specifics of this restaurant, and rightly know that a hand-written check for his food was simply not entered into the financials of this restaurant, and the food that was tossed out was simply figured into the waste for that P&L. Or the server was possibly written up for a walk-out, and maybe had the total amount of the tab deducted from his or her pay, with a strong warning that letting others walk on their tabs would result in termination. Or maybe the server was charged the tab and also fired. Some of these things are illegal, technically, but since servers are transient, due to the nature of their pay scale, and other aspects of the work they do, laws do not have to be followed to the letter when dealing with $2.13/hour employees. Dat's just da nature of da way tings woyks. At any rate, I'd have spoken to someone before walking out on my tab. I've never walked on a tab, and I don't think I ever will.
  4. Pierogies. Spaetzle. Gyoza! Boy, do I love dumplings.
  5. Well, there lies a big question. What is one person's idea of "lukewarm" food versus another's? Not trying to say that Sam is unreasonable, but having worked in restaurants a good bit, I've seen cups of coffee sent back, described as "ice cold," and when I looked at the cup, there was steam rising from the surface of the liquid. And I've seen people order steaks medium-rare, "but cooked through." So all I know is that the food was reasonably good, but the wrong temperature, and he took it back and nothing was apparantly happening to rectify it. And I think that if he couldn't eat the food, he shouldn't have to pay for it, but a manager should be notified before leaving the restaurant. Just talk to the manager, tell him that you can't eat the food, and why, and it will be comped. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've gone to a retail store, gotten less than standard goods and services, and it took forever and a day to even get someone to ring up my check so that I could pay, much to my own inconvenience. By comparison, the service I get at restaurants is immeasurably better. But here's another thing where I admit that I'm definitely a weirdo: I have never, ever gone to a sit-down restaurant with the thought of being back at my desk in less than an hour, even when I have held a desk job. Never, not once, and I never, ever would. If I go to a sit-down restaurant, I go to relax, and I make sure I have enough time to do so. If I only have a half hour or an hour, I pack a lunch, period. I know that must make me a weirdo, because I see people all the time who actually bring an 18-top from basically their whole office, walk in at noon on the dot, expect to be seated immediately, want to order everything with heavy modifiers, and then complain if they're not out in less than 45 minutes. So I guess I am a freak in that way, so I'd never be in a situation where I was trying to talk to a manager or pay my tab, and couldn't wait long enough to speak to someone. However, I consider setting aside a couple of hours to eat in a sit-down restaurant to be nothing compared to setting aside basically my whole day to get my car serviced, which costs at least 5 times as much and takes forever to get the bill rung and paid. I guess it's all a matter of how you look at it.
  6. I find this discussion very frustrating. I can think of many, many times and many different situations that I've purchased goods and services and not been satisfied. For instance, I had diagnostic work done on an older vehicle to see if the air conditioning could be repaired. In one case it took me several days of driving back and forth to the dealer, hours of sitting in the shop and hundreds of dollars in labor cost, only to find out that my air conditioning could not actually be fixed without replacing a part that would run about $1400. Did I pay for the labor, in spite of not reaching a satisfactory result, and in spite of the fact that a certain amount of incompetence had cost me a great deal of time? Of course I did. If you walk into a convenience store, pick out a bottle of soda, open it and take a sip, then find that you don't like it, are you allowed to leave without paying for it? How many other situations can you think of where you'd be prosecuted for receiving goods and services and leaving without paying? I have been in a position to have people arrested for "theft of services" for walking out on their tabs. It is just as much against the law to walk out on your tab in a restaurant as it is in any other business. If you leave quickly, but the manager gets you license plate number, he can call police and have you tracked down. Now, the thing to do if you are at a restaurant and are dissatisfied with your food is to talk to someone, and hopefully that person will fix the problem or comp your meal. Until that happens, you are still obligated to pay for what you ordered and what you were served. The restaurant has a legal obligation not to serve your plate of food to anyone else, and you have a legal obligation to pay for it. Only in restaurants is it so easy to get goods and services for free, simply by talking to someone, and that's why it aggravates me so much that some people don't want to even do that.
  7. Soba's posts really hit a note with me. My first job was as a Whopper Slopper. Got hired at a BK after accidentally plowing my car into the house next door on the way to the interview. It took me about a year to get that whole "driving" concept under my belt. 3 collisions with stationary objects at the age of 16 nearly cost me a whole lot of mobility. Anyway, my biggest problem with BK is that they franchise, and the owner of the one where I worked was a magnificent dickwad. The manager must have at least minored in sexual harrassment, if he'd ever gotten any higher education at all, and he was always insinuating that my best friend and I were lesbian lovers. Not the most pleasant place to work, but at least I learned how to time how one steps on a ketchup packet just right, so that you can squirt someone red in the face. I think the burger production at Burger King has an advantage over McDonald's, prominent in my memory. The frozen patties are placed on the conveyer belt into the broiler, and they come out completely cooked on the other side. Whopper Sloppers put together the finished product either directly from the broiler, or from the steamer, and microwaves are certainly utilized. All of my friends who worked at Mickey D's, however, can remember at least one time that they accidentally flipped a burger onto the floor, then picked it back up, tossed it back onto the grill, and served it to someone. Because we didn't flip burgers at Burger King, that didn't happen, and I was really familiar with the degreaser that we used to mop the floors about every 20 minutes, so the thought of flipping a burger down into that chemical, then picking it back up and grilling it a bit more on the flat top was more than a little disgusting. At any rate, I was a non-red-meat-eater at 16, and my shift meal was always a Veggie Whopper - condiments and vegetables on a bun for a normal cost of 80 cents. 40 cents at half price. Sometimes I got a side salad bar, too. Man, those were good days. I have to stop myself from writing all the memories.
  8. I wish I could agree with you here. Unfortunately, where I live and work, the parents with rotten kids waaaaay outnumber the ones I see who have well-behaved children. In fact, it's so unusual to see good children that I always praise the good kids publicly, letting them know that I appreciate their behavior. And this particular restaurant is apparantly not what people in this area think is nice enough to hire a babysitter for. However, people in my city dine out so often that only restaurants that charge in the neighborhood of $100 per person or more are likely to be "babysitter" type destinations.
  9. Last week, I had a table in the "pit" - a recessed area of the dining room that contains our most requested booths, and the couple in the booth had a very young boy with them who was standing up on the seat and jumping up and down, making a good deal of noise in the process. While I was taking the order, the boy jumped over and over, and he eventually smashed his lip into the wall behind the booth, injuring himself enough that he made a hurty face at his mom and started into a little wailing fit. I mostly ignored it, but I did notice that his parents sort of admonished him for jumping around and hurting himself like that. After the family was served their meal, he went back to jumping up and down on the seat again, and his parents seemed to think there was nothing they could do to stop him from standing on the booth seat and jumping like that. At that point, I went around behind the booth and spoke directly to the little boy. "Now, you're not going to hurt yourself again, are you?" I asked. "Because if you hurt yourself again, I'll feel very bad, do you understand?" Upon being addressed by me, he immediately sank down to sit in his seat like a proper person. It gave me the feeling that no amount of discipline at all is administered, for a waitress to have that much authority, much more than the parents have. Is this the current state of parenting? Was I wrong to speak to the child? I felt really uncomfortable doing it.
  10. Wow. I had totally forgotten that my mother did that, too. It was actually recommended to us by our family doctor. The only difference is we called it "jello water." I seem to remember that it worked pretty well, too. If we had bad stomachs to the point of dry heaves, we'd have nothing other than jello water and ginger ale ice cubes for at least 24 hours. One time, when I had particularly bad dry heaves, I was whining about how hungry I was, but I couldn't eat anything. So my mother asked me, if I could have anything I wanted, what would I eat? I said I wanted ice cream, and she let me have it, knowing I wouldn't be able to keep it down. Not a bad idea either, since ice cream is easier on the throat coming back up than almost anything else you can eat.
  11. I find it somewhat interesting that everyone in this thread presumes that the more food oriented people are likely to snob the ones who only eat to live. I've found that "eat to live"ers are perfectly good at snobbing you right back, and it's certainly happened to me. My second husband and my in-laws are people who will gladly eat just about anything. Black-eyed peas come out of a can and go into the microwave without a hint of seasoning, to be placed on the dinner table. Food is bought in the cheapest vat-sized tubs, always generic. Vanilla "ice cream" is actually generic, fat-free vanilla frozen yogurt, absent of even the slightest hint of vanilla flavor. "Going out to eat" involves a trip to the local cafeteria for a plate of watery steamed cabbage, watery steamed crowder peas and some watery collards. Dinners at home include 1 can of Milwaukee's Best Light, split between mom and dad-in-law. So when I started dating their son, I took him out to a sushi restaurant, where I introduced him to a variety of offerings, taught him about how to get the most enjoyment out of raw fish and properly prepared rice and shared my enjoyment of this particular type of food with him. He really liked it, and sushi was one of those rare things we treated ourselves to, when we did eat out. But what did my in-laws think of this? They thought I was downright despicable for turning him on to an expensive habit like that. On and on, they would talk about how they'd never had sushi, but they were sure they wouldn't like it if they did. Every time I visited them, literally, they'd bring up the subject again. Until finally, one day my mother-in-law said to me, "I finally tried sushi, and I didn't like it." Where had she had this sushi? At one of the world's crappiest Chinese buffets. Incidentally, they also liked to use this as an example proving some crap theory they read in Reader's Digest, that says you can never try anything new past the age of 30 and like it. Don't get me started on that one. And you know, these weren't idiots, my in-laws. These are highly intelligent people. Both of them professors who retired early with enough money to travel in their time of leisure. Not poor people or stupid people. Simply people who think that food isn't worth spending money on. If I'd really thought about that one point, I might have saved myself a lot of grief.
  12. I can't really tell what kind of cat food you're serving them, but that's pretty nice plateware for cat service. Do they have other accoutrements, such as bibs and silver, for dining? I must confess, my cats get served right down at the point of their bowl, and when I start dishing the wet food, they usually get a few drops on their heads, because they can't wait to start eating. Perhaps I should plate on the counter, instead. Do you think you'll show a picture of the cats? Other than the one in you avatar?
  13. My goodness! What a topic! I was just thinking of this subject today, by the way, and I'm so glad this thread was started. In answer to the question about cleanliness and straws, in most restaurants, the inside of the glass is exactly as clean as the outside of the glass, so if you're worried about your lips coming in contact with the rim of the glass, you shouldn't be drinking its contents. As far as saliva from previous customers, that glass should have passed through a dishwasher that sanitizes with heat or with chemicals, either way a testable and verifiable fact that your local health department keeps tabs on every time they visit. As for the server's hands, most restaurant employees I know and work with wash their hands so many times per day that the skin on their hands actually becomes quite dry. We handle the glasses we serve where I work by the very bottom of the glass, but even if we didn't, I can guarantee that our hands are generally cleaner than those of your dining companions. And many places where I've worked don't have wrapped straws, but only unwrapped ones, so asking for a straw in one of those establishments defeats the purpose, as the server will have to grab the straw with his or her hand. This subject came up today because I asked a co-worker about some of our patrons who ask for a cup of very hot water, then unroll their silverware from a napkin and drop the fork and knife into the hot water before eating. Why do they do this, was my question? He said that certain folk think all people are unclean, so they perform this ritual, along with asking for straws, to protect themselves from dirt and germs. "But," I interjected, "if the silver is dirty, then so are the plates that went through the super-heated dishwasher, and for that matter, the cooks who work here might have been picking their butts (pardon me) or rubbing their noses while preparing the food. If you don't trust people to serve you things that are clean, then I'd suggest not dining out at all, right?" He laughed and told me that he had once eaten at a Waffle House, asked for a straw for his Coke, and his companion asked him, "Why you drinkin' wit' dat Sissy Stick?" He's never used a straw since. I don't generally use straws, with very few exceptions. For takeout beverages, yes, and in one restaurant I know, the sodas are served in gigantic, vat-like cups that no normal human would feel comfortable drinking from. And I hate the ice problem as well. No one likes to get a face full of ice and liquid while trying to enjoy a meal. But here's the real puzzler: I work in a restaurant that serves filtered water in cute little chilled glasses with no ice. For the most part, I despise the reactions I get when doing this, because it's something the restaurant does as a special service for our patrons. You see, we don't push bottled water on anyone, and serve everyone free ultraviolet filtered water in chilled glasses with no ice as just a little special "extra" for eating there. But many times, when I set down the glass, the patron looks at me, disdainfully, and says, "Excuse me! I need some ice!" As in, "I can't believe you're such a stupid server that you don't know I need ice with my water!" And then I explain that the water is filtered, but we can't possibly filter all the ice we use, so that's why we serve the water in chilled glasses with no ice, but I'll gladly get them ice, if they need it. But then, even people who don't want the ice ask for straws. How can that be? If you put a straw in a beverage that has no ice, it bobs to the surface, hangs out of the glass, drips everywhere, and is a general nuisance. And yet they still do it! Why? I wouldn't ask this, if it didn't happen more often than not, so why? And here's another question for you: If you do like to have a straw in your iceless glass of water, would you ask for one from your server? And if you could easily see that in his or her long, pressed, black bistro apron, she was not carrying a bundle of straws, as servers at very casual restaurants do, would you ask her to run and fetch you one? Would it be that important to you? Whew! Sorry to rant. I run and fetch a lot of straws, obviously.
  14. Marvelous blog, Pan. You're looking very sly in that picture. You did a wonderful job at showing us a slice of what's available in the Big Apple, with all of the different ethnic foods. Thank you for all the lovely photos.
  15. How are bialys different, in flavor and texture, from bagels? I've eaten a bialy or two, but not enough to know how the recipes might differ, or if there's a difference in the cooking. And I can't really even get a good bagel around here, much less a bialy.
  16. Stop picking on the blogger. Not every foodblog can involve someone bringing tons of food over to your house, you know? I love the pierogies, Pan. This may be the first blog to feature pierogies, if I'm not mistaken. Excellent choice for ethnic food, and a reminder that ethnic foods up North include more than Hispanic and Asian cuisines. We don't get nearly our fair share of Eastern European food here in Georgia. As for the Metamucil wafer, I'm just going to presume that you're keenly attuned to the heart protective and cancer preventing benefits of getting a daily requirement of fiber, as opposed to eating them for any other reason. And people drink prune juice because they like the taste of it. Really.
  17. Oh, I love Manhattan! This is going to be wonderful. Very expensive dining there, so I'm sure you must be quite resourceful. On the occasions when I've visited, I've enjoyed street bagels and hot dogs, but not known the best places to try ethnic foods. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing pictures of the city.
  18. I probably don't need to get another compliment for the rest of my life, as this one means a great deal. Thank you.
  19. Excellent guess! But it's a side of B + R, and a side of Asparagus, the first being beans and rice. My handwriting's crap, I know. Wow. You're good at this. The Biltmore is a chicken sandwich, but you'd have to know where I work or know something about the menu to know that, but that's excellent. There's also a /Q, for a side of BBQ sauce. Everything = Butter, Sour Cream, Chives, Bacon, Cheese This doesn't make immediate sense unless I consider the fact that "C" likely stands for cheese (because it's such a common thing in restaurants, though I'm pretty amazed that anybody would get all this stuff on a baked potato, but never mind that), and "B" could be either butter or bacon, but butter's the most common thing on a baked potato and there's no "A" in butter, so "A" must be bacon. Chives is the only word (other than cheese, already taken) that contains an "H". Close? [Edit to add that I see that "A" has already been defined as bacon. This restaurant sells a lot of bacon, doesn't it?] Excellent, but transpose the cheese and chives. It's in the order it would be placed on the potato, so chives are last, and they earn the all important C that cannot be used elsewhere. And yes, lots of bacon. You can get you some bacon, with a side of bacon, if you want. Terrific guess, and this one wasn't fair anyway. Ribs, in most restaurants, are abbreviated as Back or Babyback, though Babyback is stupidly long. And you're correct that there would be a temp if I'd been abbreviating prime rib. But "Platter" is short for the "Flying Chicken Tenders Platter" (or Tender Splatter, as I'd rather refer to it) that we sell a bajillion of. No longer on the menu, for years and years now, but that doesn't keep thousands and thousands of people from asking for it. You guys did really, really well at this game. I'm impressed! Now, it's time for this woman behind the curtain to take a bow, and celebrate my birthday with a day of rest. God, this was so much fun I can scarcely believe it.
  20. Dennis the Menace knocked me out, damnit! Actually, you cannot imagine how shocked I am to find the cable and internet back up this morning, because the hurricane damage across the city was quite severe, and they're usually not that good about this sort of thing. Thank you, everyone, for waiting for me to get back, and I'll get to the wonderful guesses - you guys did really well! - after these last few photos. As usual, I don't eat a lot when on a double, working at both of my places of employment (busy but more casual place for lunch, fancy schmancy place at dinner), and since the hurricane made things even more hectic, with bad traffic and downed trees, breakfast and lunch were cold cereal, a few tortilla chips and a piece of mozzarella cheese. Then, after a quick change from my black server uniform into my black suit, I had family meal at Eugene: Meatloaf again, though a fresh batch and not leftovers. This time, I had a meatloaf salad. Meatloaf salad is really good, you know. The plate is actually sitting on the podium at the front, as I had to work the door. These next 3 are from Sunday night, from lambfries' experiment with making a demonstration video that he wanted to include in the blog. He's asleep right now, and I don't know if the video is finished and uploaded, so I can't link to it, but I'll just show you what he made. We can probably show the video later as part of a plate presentation thread, I think. This is a tartare of salmon with cucumber foam, foamed in the handy dandy contraption with nitrous cartridges. When he stopped at the Viking store to pick up a few extra cartridges, the woman at the counter looked at him funny, and recalled a stocky young gentleman with spiky hair who used to come in and buy boxes and boxes of those every day (that person being Richard Blais, referenced in this thread, who is no longer "stocky.") Anyway, this was very tasty, but I pointed out that the daikon skin around the tower was a little difficult to eat as part of the presentation. So, we tried it this way. And this way. And that's what I had for dinner Sunday. As promised, my birthday cake last night, made by Kristia. I was very surprised to be getting one, and when they asked me what kind I'd like, my choice was obvious: My favorite combination is raspberry and chocolate. Anyone want cake? No, seriously, do you want some? Because I've got leftovers. Time for the last picture: Home from work now, and this is the last picture of me at the age of 36. I have no idea how Nancy got in the shot, and I didn't notice her until I was editing the picture. You see her there, behind the faucet, don't you?
  21. A Pot-E is a loaded baked potato. E = BSHAC.
  22. Very close, and a bright guess. Soup and Sal, no bacon, buttermilk garlic dressing, add avocado. You win a smiley.
  23. Diced mango. Those gyoza went really fast. I'm glad I planned on more than just 2 per person, even though this was a tasting menu, meant to serve several courses of small portions. Blini prep, with squeeze bottle. That strawberry soup actually looks pretty tantalizing, even though the presentation in this shot isn't perfect. Duck fat. Mmmmmm. Too cute for words.
  24. Oh, yes, "S + No A, Gar, + Avo" is a common lunch item. Old timers, like myself, simply eliminate the second abbreviation for the combo, and just list the modifiers. And No A is because B is used for something else.
  25. Well, clearly you do have a slight advantage, because you got that correct. And thanks for pointing out how crappy my penmanship is. It can be better, when I'm not scribbling madly to take an order. And I will point out that, while this seems hard, the abbreviations are actually standard to a moderate sized chain of 50 restaurants, and I could have actually handed off this chit to any of my co-workers, or any of the managers, or a good number of people who work at the other locations, and they'd probably be able to work the first round and ring the order for me. Even with that crap handwriting.
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