phlox

Obviously pouring without asking is bad form. However, when you are waiting on a larger group of people especially, you sometimes have to politely butt in or people will never even get to order. You know what I'm talking about - that six top where there's this one guy who won't freaking shut up, and everyone wants to order and get some food already while he seems blissfully unaware than hours have passed! When you have four, five, seven tables going at once, you don't really have time to stand in the corner and listen to peoples' conversations and wait for a good time to go to the table. Obviously some level of finesse is required to be a good server, but at a certain point you just have to assume that while guests want to enjoy each others' company, they have to talk to you at some point in order to get food, which is presumably the reason for being at a restaurant in the first place. This dude is such a delicate flower. Why didn't he just say something? I once brought someone the wrong dessert, and she waited until she'd eaten almost the whole thing to mention it. WTF? I would have been more than happy to have brought her what she ordered (she actually called it by the wrong name, which was the source of the confusion, but either way, mistakes happen), but when I offered, she refused. People do this all the time, just silently stew about something at the restaurant and then repeat the story about how they were SO appalled by x, y or z to all their friends. I like gossipping as much as the next person, but I wish that more people would just speak up at the actual restaurant. I work in restaurants because I love food and wine and love people. I'm really outgoing and love talking to people and honestly enjoy helping people have a good time. I know there are a lot of bad waiters out there, but we're not all jerks, especially at nicer restaurants where there's a bit more competition. If you don't like something, tell me! As long as people aren't hostile, I want to hear feedback about everything. The chef can't go to every table, so she or he relies on the foh staff to relay feedback about the food. I can tell you that nearly every day the chef where I work asks, 'do people like the new crab dish? How about the new mignardise? Do you think they like the chocolate more or less than those sugared walnuts?' We want to know!

I don't think the servers themselves should be cleaning the tables. I notice in some restaurants they have different set of people cleaning the tables, who never touch the food on the way out of the kitchen. Servers should bring the food out from the kitchen; there should be busboys or whatever you call them to bring the dishes back to the kitchen. ← This isn't always possible, but in restaurants where they can have enough staff to do this, if you are a good busser, you are everyone's favorite person! I made pretty good money doing this because almost every server would palm me cash at the end of the night on top of the tipout I already got. It made me an obsessive hand-washer, though. When you unload a buspan full of nasty dishes and are up to your elbows in half-eaten ice cream, it's not enough to run your hands under water and glance at the soap, you've got to get in there with a nail brush and everything! Nothing worse than someone waiting on you with dirty fingernails...shudder...

← I worked in one of these restaurants for about a year and a half and spent most of my down time watching the kitchen. It was really fun and I learned a lot from just watching at a slight distance (you could see the kitchen perfectly from the host stand). During the mid-afternoon dead periods I would ask questions, and usually the same people who'd snarl at you during service were happy to talk to someone interested in what they do. I'd watch the sous-chef break down fish and meat, learned all about charcuterie. Now that I work in a smaller place, it's even more like that. On one of my first days I asked one of the cooks about a mushroom I'd never seen before. The next time I turned around, he had not just the mushroom I'd asked about, but all of the mushrooms they used for different dishes lined up on the counter so I could compare. Unsurprisingly, he also makes a kick-ass family meal!

I occasionally wonder about these people. Sure, they're probably just jerks 99% of the time, but do you ever muse about what *really* happened to your no-shows? Car accident? Marriage-ending fight? Fight ending in passionate make-up sex that made them forget about dinner? It's kind of weird to think about sometimes. Or maybe I'm just morbid...

Have you read The Devil's Cup? It's by the same author as The Devil's Garden and is excellent. It's sort of a history of coffee with a lot of travel writing and philosophical/historical musing from the author thrown in.

You're right, that probably wouldn't be kosher. We don't have a paper towel dispenser. It's really annoying.

I actually had Intelligentsia coffee from the Clover, too (one of a couple of places in Pittsburgh that use it - we've come a long way!). There may have been sediment in my cup as well, I didn't inspect it super carefully, so I guess I'm talking more about taste. It's not that it was bad, it just wasn't my favorite. Two things can both be technically good, but you can still prefer one over the other. This still doesn't explain the random, embarrassing, and inexplicable cravings I sometimes get for those Pumpkin Spice lattes from Starbucks. They're gross, I know they are, and yet I have to have one or two every fall. ::hangs head in shame::

Add me to the frozen thin mints camp. I always hide a few in the freezer back behind that ground beef I'm probably never going to cook, and finding them on the first hot day of the year always makes me smile.

Those mash drinks sound good! Fancy bottled beverages are my biggest grocery-store weakness. That damned case near the checkout at Whole Foods gets me every time!

The tasting menu was there when I went in January. As someone who doesn't get to enjoy New York restaurants regularly, I loved this place. Thumping music, funky bartenders, offal - what more could a girl want?

When I saw this thread that was the first thing I thought of. God I loved that show. Why are all the good ones so short-lived?

My feelings exactly. Do not SIT DOWN at my table! Do NOT interrupt the story, conversation, argument! or lament. Do NOT ASK "How does it taste?" ← or ask "Are you still working on that?" ← HATE! When I go to clear a table, I say ONE THING: "May I clear?" That's IT. Even worse than 'are you still working on that?' is, 'still picking?' Crazymaking.

Exactly. Fifteen minutes, especially with a polite call, is totally acceptable. In fact, if you're fifteen minutes late for my second or third turn on a table, I'm grateful for a little wiggle room!

I worked in a restaurant with an open kitchen for a little under two years, and watching the intricate ballet of pans and fire and plates coming up on the pass all at once never got old. The OFP system is pretty standard for good reason - it works. The place where I work now is much, much smaller and there are no heat lamps, so strategy and planning become more important. And if someone isn't there to grab food the second it comes up, chef is not happy!

I personally don't like coffee from the Clover as much as I like coffee made by other devices. It tastes a little too 'clean' to me. Know what I mean? I know this is supposed to be a good thing, but I like the microscopic bits of sediment and foam you get from using a French press.

My Time in France - I agree; it's fantastic. I read the Fitch biography of Julia a couple of years back, and though it's thorough and well-researched, it comes nowhere near the sheer pleasure of reading this newer book. ← I loved this, too! Those photos of her and her husband they used for holiday cards (especially the Valentine's Day ones) are adorable.

Tostitos Hint of Lime chips with guacamole. I'm helpless.

I solve the bad coffee at restaurants problem by downing my two shots of (good) espresso before I eat breakfast. This puts me in a better mood should my eggs take longer than usual

I just saw Bourdain on his latest tour and I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed by both the No Reservations book and his lecture. Is it just me, or has he made an entire career out of pretty much the same material? The photos in the book are pretty, but it's kind of thin on the writing, which is generally why I read and buy books.

I have the same problem as a foh employee. I'm supposed to look purdy, especially when I'm working at the front door, but I also like to wash my hands before I run food or after I help clear a table. Why can't we just have a bar towel hanging on a hook by the sink? Why? I just started at my current job so I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but this issue is really starting to bug. I hate it when things aren't set up to work efficiently.

The author of this book irritates the snot out of me, and this was only one small example of why. A few months ago I went on a date with a guy who insisted on bringing his own yerba mate setup to a coffeehouse. No. Just no.

One that irked me at the last restaurant I worked in was 'whip cream' as a descriptor for a dessert item, rather than 'whipped cream.' The other thing that drives me bananas on menus is lack of consistency with accents. If you decide to use the accent aigu on one word, you not only must use that accent on that word throughout the menu, but you should also use it for other words that require accents.

Yup, sometimes it's necessary to reach out and touch someone! In restaurants that have an upstairs and downstairs dining room, it becomes v. important to yelp 'coming up!!' or 'coming down!' when using the back staircases. Especially when you are trying to carry an enormous buspan full of dirty, nasty dishes and knives that is so heavy that you'll *just* make it to the dish station. I find myself wanting to use 'behind!' or 'corner' in my non-working life, too. Speaking of Momofuku, when I was there I noticed that instead of saying something like 'runners! I need runners!' the expiditer/chef/whoever will just make sort of a grunty yell to get people to go over and run food. I'm so accustomed to respond to this sort of thing that it took all I had not to jump up, grab plates, and ask, where am I going, chef?

I'm staying in LA for a few days out near LAX. My mom is more of a picky eater than I am, but I'm always up for anything. Any recommendations? We're here doing some kind of stressful family stuff, so I don't want to drag her someplace fancy or too crazy, but I want to eat some good food! Where should we go?

I am one of maybe four or five people I know of at work who don't smoke. After about 8 months at this job, I noticed the same thing a lot of you have mentioned - smokers get breaks, and the rest of us are SOL! I decided to hell with that, and have started taking breaks with the same frequency as the average smoking employee and will do things like eat a snack, read a magazine for a few minutes, or go out back with the rest of the staff and blow bubbles.