Quirky things that happen in restaurants

[Ruby]

Here are some non earth-shattering things I've noticed and wonder why the practice continues.

1. The peppermill - why is a restaurant so anxious to grind pepper on my meal before I've even tasted the food? Plus I find it intrusive when I'm in conversation with my friends and we pause and wait until the pepper dance around the table stops so we can dig into the food. Could this practice have started when food was really bland? Why not just have a small peppermill on the table. Can you imagine this practice in your own home? You've slaved all day to prepare a meal for guests, the masterpiece is on the table but wait...you jump up, grab a two foot peppermill and prance around the table asking "would you like fresh pepper?"

2. Waiter's checks placed on sushi: I often sit at the sushi bar and notice when an order is ready, the chef places the waiter's paper check on the fish. I find a piece of paper with ink/pencil placed directly on food to be somewhat unappetizing and it goes directly against the visual presentation and pristine element that is associated with having sushi and sashimi.

3. We're in the 21st century yet I still find myself sitting at wobbly tables. The restaurant's solution? The old matchbook goes under the table's legs. How come the table isn't fixed or replaced? Surely the servers must get tired of steadying the shaky table.

If you have an explanation for any of the above, I'd love to hear it. Would also love to hear any quirks you've noticed. Maybe some restaurant owners reading here will also notice.

[Blue Heron]

The fresh ground pepper question doesn't bother me too much, as I pretty much like fresh cracked pepper on most things I order, for visual asthetics as well as flavor.  However, I agree it's best if a table has it's own peppermill, although I realize restaurants and many patrons like this ceremonial pepper grinding service.  Same goes for the waitperson who brings around extra parmasan cheese for the pasta.  I'd rather just have the freshly grated parmesan cheese dish left at my table, please.  

I've never noticed the check on the sushi before.  As for wobbly tables, ditto for wobbly chairs or benches (we have benches in our neighborhood taqueria...great food, but wobbly benches)....or tables so low I can't cross my legs (big rant), or tables so high that I feel rather small.  Fortunately, these occasions are very few, and I'm actually pretty easy to please.

I don't know if this is a 'quirk' per se, but I really enjoy a restaurant with a clean and well stocked restroom, preferably with fresh flowers, artwork and cotton/linen towels.  You can tell a lot about a restaurant by the quality of their restroom.

[John Whiting]

Why not just have a small peppermill on the table.

I was once told by a friend who ran an Italian restaurant that individual pepper mills on the tables disappeared faster than they could be replaced. The grotesquely oversized monsters you see are so they'll be too big even to slip under an overcoat.

[Deacon]

Kill two birds with one stone: use the peppermill as a chair leg.

[Robert Schonfeld]

A friend of mine opines that the quality of any given Italian restaurant is in inverse proportion to the size of its peppermill.

[Deacon]

That would make the peppermills at The Olive Garden the size of Corinthian columns.

[Jinmyo]

I think that the peppermill ritual is supposed to evoke some of the tableside preparations (such as carving, boning the fish, finishing the salad, and so on) that waitstaff used to do at better establishments.

[Ruby]

I think that the peppermill ritual is supposed to evoke some of the tableside preparations (such as carving, boning the fish, finishing the salad, and so on) that waitstaff used to do at better establishments.

Jinmyo, that's it! The peppermill is a holdover from the period when everything was prepared at the table for diners. Yes, I can visualize the original Delmonico's carving the roast, preparing the salad and offering fresh pepper. Thanks!

[tommy]

1) bring your own peppermill.

2) control your experience by not letting someone put pepper on a dish when you don't want it.

3) bring you own matchbook, or 3-legged table.

4) what's with the complaining?

[Tonyfinch]

Don't you Jewish New Yorkers take ANY notice of your analysts?

The pepper mill is a phallic symbol which "comes" hot stuff when manipulated by a rugged  testorone driven Italian male named Guissepe.Any rejection of the pepper mill and its emission will be seen as a rejection of Italian manhood and,ergo,a rejection of Italy entire.

You could "just say no" but be prepared for macho facade to crumble and for Guissepe to curl up into foetal position and cry for Mama. Easier to lie back and think of America.

[Matthew Grant]

I was once told by a friend who ran an Italian restaurant that individual pepper mills on the tables disappeared faster than they could be replaced. The grotesquely oversized monsters you see are so they'll be too big even to slip under an overcoat.

Try telling that to my Brother-in-law!  He managed to smuggle a huge pepper mill out of a restaurant without being caught. This was of course fuelled by alcohol and part of a bet. I cannot condone this sort of behaviour

[seanw]

"I cannot condone this sort of behaviour"

                        I believe you 'will drop pants for food' but here's another quirky piece of behaviour I've noticed in Vancouver,waiters/waitresses sticking the leather bound bill thingy down their pants & next to their arse's.Is this to encourage quick bill payment & thus rapid table turning???or perhaps to give the mock leather more authenticity(I never order steaks in such places!!)

[Jon Tseng]

"Crumbing down" after the main course

... will a few breadcrumbs really put me off my desert that much?

J

[cabrales]

I'm glad Jon mentioned "crumbing down". I do appreciate that step.

However, I find myself picking up large crumbs (if any) (and placing them on my bread plate, if it is still there, or sweeping them discreetly onto the floor, which I recognize is an unhelpful practice to the restaurant)  before the waiter arrives to remove the crumbs. I do not generally leave many crumbs, and tend not to have to pick up any. I doubt I am picking up crumbs because I believe the dining room service team would frown upon excessive crumbs, but am further considering what (apart from habit) is prompting my practice.

On a related point, do members care if they leave sauce marks or otherwise dirty the tablecloth? I do not generally leave many marks, but some large marks do bother me for some reason.  

[Ruby]

1) bring your own peppermill.

2) control your experience by not letting someone put pepper on a dish when you don't want it.

3) bring you own matchbook, or 3-legged table.

4) what's with the complaining?

Tommy, your suggestions are brilliant!

You certainly are smarter than two of the dumbest people I know!

Best wishes,

Ruby, Yenta Kvetch & Kishma Tuchas

[Sandra Levine]

On a related point, do members care if they leave sauce marks or otherwise dirty the tablecloth? I do not generally leave many marks, but some large marks do bother me for some reason.  

You are not going to get me to admit that I am a messier eater than you!

[Tonyfinch]

I don't care if they're MY marks. It's other people's I'm not too crazy about.

[Basildog]

My answer to people who apologise for leaving marks on our table cloths is "you are helping our local economy" , plus thats what there there for, shurley?. We don,t have a huge phallic pepper mill. just little ones on the tables (fruedian?).If you realy want to annoy me, season your food at the table before you taste it!

[cabrales]

We don,t have a huge phallic pepper mill. just little ones on the tables (fruedian?).

Basildog -- Do you have problems with theft of pepper mills?  

[Basildog]

Do you need to confess something Cabrales? We still got all the ones we bought at the begining of this year, but i am short one butter dish which i think walked out the door.We did lose one table , but that another story

[Tonyfinch]

It must be a sod that,Basildog. You know when people walk out with the tables.

[Basildog]

We were having an 80th birthday drinks party so i had to lose some tables.We have zero storage space at my place, so i put then accross the street in an archway.These were really cheap tables that i had re-topped with wood from an old bed.net worth about £2.50..anyhoo, end of the evening somebody had nicked one of these crappy horrible tables .We have since replaced all the tables with nice new ones

[Peter B Wolf]

Here are some non earth-shattering things I've noticed and wonder why the practice continues.

3. We're in the 21st century yet I still find myself sitting at wobbly tables. The restaurant's solution? The old matchbook goes under the table's legs. How come the table isn't fixed or replaced? Surely the servers must get tired of steadying the shaky table.

If you have an explanation for any of the above, I'd love to hear it. Would also love to hear any quirks you've noticed. Maybe some restaurant owners reading here will also notice.

There are really no shaky tables, just uneven floors.

What irks me most is waitpeople forgetting who gets what, and having the nerve to ask. If it happens to me, I usually tell them something I did not order at all, and get them completely confused.

[Pan]

What irks me most is waitpeople forgetting who gets what, and having the nerve to ask. If it happens to me, I usually tell them something I did not order at all, and get them completely confused.

I'd call someone who did that as something other than a joke a "shlemiel." What's the big deal in telling the waiter that the fois gras goes here and the duck goes there? Can't you find more important things to be irked about?  

Just to digress for a second:

On Sept. 17 or so, when I was taking a taxi from my place in the East Village to my folks' place on the Upper West Side, I got caught in terrible traffic on 3rd Av. My thoughts were: "This traffic is a disaster...

...Wait a second! This is not a disaster. It is a mere inconvenience and slight annoyance, and it may cost me an extra 5 bucks or so. So what? The important thing is that I am alive, I have a place to stay, and nothing terrible is happening."

In the scheme of things, isn't it an extremely minor annoyance (if any) for the waiter to bring the right dishes but ask who gets which dish? Sheesh, some people are impossible!  

(Hey, nothing personal. You're probably a nice guy, except to waiters who forget who gets which dish.)

[tommy]

...Wait a second! This is not a disaster. It is a mere inconvenience and slight annoyance, and it may cost me an extra 5 bucks or so. So what? The important thing is that I am alive, I have a place to stay, and nothing terrible is happening."

In the scheme of things, isn't it an extremely minor annoyance (if any) for the waiter to bring the right dishes but ask who gets which dish?

it's good to see someone with perspective.  a breath of fresh air in a vacuum of negativity.

What irks me most is waitpeople forgetting who gets what, and having the nerve to ask. If it happens to me, I usually tell them something I did not order at all, and get them completely confused.

that, however, is pretty damned funny.