tommy

dude, it's 10 in the morning. i'm trying to get it *out* of my mind.

Chapter 3 What to do when you have a bad oyster-Helpful hints for throwing up gracefully in public. i managed to purge the thing at a table of 4 without being noticed. luckily it was at the end of the course and the server had cleared the plate before i even got back from the restroom (where i washed out my mouth with water and even a little soap). my guests assured me that wine would help kill the baddies. i did what i could on that front.

i guess i should have said something for their own good. my assumption, until now, has been that they really can't have that much control over the product. but if you're assuring me that this isn't the case, and that this was almost certainly negligence on the restaurant's part, then yes, i should have said something. it weren't no cheap meal, either.

johnny d, i think i'll take your advice and give oysters a little sniff from here on in. i'm not sure that the bad one was throwing off enough odor to tip off a shucker. but i might have been able to tell before i put in my hopper had i given it a sniff. there's nothing quite as magical as an oyster. and there's nothing more disgusting than a bad oyster. the disparity is enormous.

i can appreciate if it's a school situation that you might not have the freedom or inclination to throw around cash. but yes, i do think that if it's 20 dollars on 180 (which doesn't amount to much more than 10%, which some might find insufficient), i still might be inclined to break it down to a per person basis to rationalize, if necessary, the tip. sometimes a tip seems like "a lot", but it's really not, all things considered. good luck. i hope everyone ends up feeling good about the decision.

That's a rather bold generalization. Not really. There are plenty of other posts on a bunch o'threads about chefs having an amount of distain for servers and I've sure worked with plenty. Remember the staff meal thread where I posted about our exec chef ordered and prepared windings for 30 straight days in a row as punishment because of some sort of FOH day shift antics? in every restaurant that i have ever become close with, the FOH and the BOH had a love/hate relationship. lots of disrespect all around. lots of talking behind backs. and then lots of blow, booze and sex. could be worse, but yeah, i think beans is right.

apparently, the "huff" was the big issue. personally, i would have laughed. but i don't suppose i would have gotten a very big tip, either.

who here hasn't gotten "huffy" at work? for those who have, i expect you to pay back 10% of your pay for that day.

i wasn't going to post about this anti-mall thing until i saw fat guy was on board. who in NYC really cares about this "mall" issue anyway as it relates to fine dining etc? stand up and be counted. no one? ok then.

depending on the place from which you're ordering, tip a what you think the effort was worth. if the 17 year old kid is running through the rain with 8 boxes of pizza, and it's 80 bucks, 10 dollars doesn't seem unreasoanble. for 180, if the delivery person is working for tips, 20 doesn't seem to be too much. that's 50 cents a person. and if a company is paying for it, who really cares. it's a deduction and they're more than making up for the loss in added productivity if people are staying on-site to eat, and, presumably, conducting business and/or building relationships in the process.

i'm of the opinion that the warnings in general are overrated. egullet fav (and mine) bourdain claims that you shouldn't order fish on monday. while i wouldn't necessarily order fish at an irish pub on a monday, i don't find this guideline very applicable at most places i eat (and i'd imagine most places that most semi-discerning diners frequent). same with oysters and shellfish. although i should add that i had a dozen oysters at a reasonably well-respected seafood restaurant in NYC tonight and the 11th one was clearly fucked. i had to run to the restroom to get it out of my mouth. and hey, it was tuesday. i'll post back to this thread if anything, um, transpires. and i'd certainly not eat raw shellfish if i had a compromised immune system. but that's pretty basic knowledge.

if i've learned one thing about you over the years sandra, it's that you hate celery.

no tip? the server, from your description, seemed reasonable enough. wait times vary, but i think i would have tipped.

good god what else is left to eat??

hopefully =mark will log on and see this. he's the king of red bank and knows his stuff. as for me, i'm useless.

website.

you can be assured that i'm more likely to show up on sunday than i am to any NY events.

i just don't want anyone to forget about balthazar.

haven't yet. but if you send me your bottle of lemonade i'll get started straight away.

sunday as in the sunday coming up (the 22nd?). but if you've got something *really* compelling i could probably get out there by 8 tonight.

i'll be in chicago on sunday. if anyone wants to buy me a beer or smack me upside the head, or both, feel free to PM me. and this time it's just about definite. (and any recs for a casual, fun, low-key dinner on a sunday would be welcome as well...staying on E. Delware i think)

i can appreciate the fun aspect and the drama of it all. but i'm of the thought that disrupting a bottle of sparkling wine to the point where it will come to a quick head and perhaps come out of the top of the bottle (or broken neck in this case) is not the best approach (and from what i've seen on tv, this is what happens...although i suppose if the wine is super-chilled you could retard that reaction a bit if not completely), and could probably be considered wasteful on some level. that said, i'd stop by your bar on one of those evenings for sure. i'll check back in later with a sentence that is actually readable.

I don't rest all the blame on the server. Yeah, they could inspect the salad closely to be sure it was properly dressed, but the guy in the kitchen needs to be on the ball in preparing it correctly. Its a lot easier for them to get it right in the kitchen than it is for the server to try and figure out whether it's right or not. Not to mention, if the server does actually realize that it is wrong, the kitchen would need to make it again, resulting in waste. Some things, like steaks, can't be judged by servers at all. The kitchen staff needs to do their job right. Lets not pass the buck completely to the server. With respect to the Outback issue, I am not trying to get Outback to change their ways by posting here. I'm just trying to use an experience to make a point. We go to Outback not because it's less expensive, but because it's more convenient. If the Brickhouse wants to open a place in Wayne that serves me a quick steak, where I don't have to put pants on to feel comfortable, I would go there. In going to Outback, I save myself time and hassle. It ain't about the money... if he wasn't so skinny i'd say that ant-nee is my brother. then again i could say the same about lou. very valid points, all around.

i'll hopefully be joining you. not at your house, i mean, but you know.

link. don't be afraid to go to bugmenot.com if this requires registration.