Odd/weird requests!

[Beto]

I saw a lady order a salad with ranch dressing and extra ranch on the side. She also had a special request that the salad not contain carrots, announcing in a pretentious tone that she was dieting and trying to "watch her sugar intake."

[tommy]

I saw a lady order a salad with ranch dressing and extra ranch on the side.  She also had a special request that the salad not contain carrots, announcing in a pretentious tone that she was dieting and trying to "watch her sugar intake." 

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does your Ranch dressing have sugar in it?

[IamQuidam]

I work in a resturant where we offer basic sandwiches. Quite a few people order tuna fish mixed with egg salad....

Which by itself isn't to bad. But when you put swiss cheese, onions, hot sauce AND mustard on it all and 'demand' it be mixed together before putting it on the bread....then it gets weird.

I like all of those things....alone, but mixed up? Yuck!

[Pat Churchill]

I work in a resturant where we offer basic sandwiches. Quite a few people order tuna fish mixed with egg salad....

Which by itself isn't to bad. But when you put swiss cheese, onions, hot sauce AND mustard on it all and 'demand' it be mixed together before putting it on the bread....then it gets weird.

I like all of those things....alone, but mixed up? Yuck!

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Yeah, but less bread that way

[johnsmith45678]

I work in a resturant where we offer basic sandwiches. Quite a few people order tuna fish mixed with egg salad....

Which by itself isn't to bad. But when you put swiss cheese, onions, hot sauce AND mustard on it all and 'demand' it be mixed together before putting it on the bread....then it gets weird.

I like all of those things....alone, but mixed up? Yuck!

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That actually sounds pretty good to me! But not too much hot sauce!

[Velma]

I saw a lady order a salad with ranch dressing and extra ranch on the side.  She also had a special request that the salad not contain carrots, announcing in a pretentious tone that she was dieting and trying to "watch her sugar intake." 

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She was probably on one of those weird diets (I've been on them too) where they tell you to avoid carrots because of the high sugar content. It is amazing how you can fool yourself when you want to!

[vivelafrance]

At a table next to ours in a Paris restaurant, a man loudly requested, "French Dressing" for his salad.  "What do you mean, no French dressing!  Where the !@#$! are we, anyway?  Italy?"

Being a philistine who's never been to France, forgive my ignorant question -- why don't they have French Dressing there? (My guess would be that it's an American creation, and thus the French probably scoff at it.)

A guy I worked with at a pizza place used to drain canned anchovies and drink the oil.

Ugh...wretch!

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Yep...there is nothing french about french dressing....

[lia]

"Can I have the 15 bean soup but with no limas??"

Pick the effing limas out yourself, jackass!! rolleyes.gif

Hehe, at my last job, we served delicious mashed sweet potatoes with golden raisins as a side dish. A guy from one of the financial offices upstairs called for takeout, asked if he could get the mash without raisins. I said the raisins were already mixed in. He asked if we could PICK THEM OUT. I patiently explained that they were golden raisins, and as such, virtually invisible. "Oh really?" yeah.

My cousin was a waiter at a Wall St. area restaurant, claimed some suits requested their buffalo wings boned. He laughed.

At my current place of employment, one Father's Day several years ago, a family ordered our large porterhouse well done. Well, they sent it back because we don't carry A1 sauce!

[johnsmith45678]

One place I worked, the ahole GM would order caesar salad wtih a loogie in it.

Hmm, wait a minute...I think the chef (not me!) threw that in for free!

[chef_mico]

I just remembered, 5 years ago, it was like a few days from christmas, every filipino household would have lechon (whole roast pig) on their tables for noche buena (it's a sumptuous Filipino meal by 12 midnight on Christmas eve).

Well anyway, me and my dad we're looking for that perfect looking and tasting lechon. We we're going from store to store (all lechon vendors) looking for the best place to order, we ended at store which sadly i forgot the name, that's not the point, we tried some lechon, the meat so succulent and tender, and so damn juicy and full of flavor, and the best part, the oh so crisy skin. The skin of the lechon is always the first to disappear, so people who eat last end up with skinless lechon.

While we we're enjoying tasting and making our order , there was another customer beside us also inquiring of getting a lechon. There were negotiating. It was just common "i like some extra blah blah blah" or something like that. Here's the funny/weird/odd part, some way through their conversation, i couldn't help but eaves drop on the customer, he said in tagalog;

"Pwede ba bunutin lahat ang mga ngipin ng baboy, kasi ayokong nakikitang nakangiti siya sa amin habang kumakain kami, nakakakonsiyentiya eh"

Translation: Is it possible that all the teeth of the pig be pulled out because i don't want to see it smiling while we are eating, my conscience can't take it.

That was the first time in my whole life i've heard something like that. Me, my dad smiling looked at the vendor, he had a puzzled look, it's probably the first time of such request.

He just said unsurely "pwede siguro" or "maybe it can be done" while looking at us (probably saying, is this guy for real???).

[Peter Green]

Antonin Bonnet from the Greenhouse in London had a great line he used in his cooking class:

"When I first came to England, I would get very angry with the customers. Now, I have gotten over it."

[MissAmy]

"Pwede ba bunutin lahat ang mga ngipin ng baboy, kasi ayokong nakikitang nakangiti siya sa amin habang kumakain kami, nakakakonsiyentiya eh"

Translation: Is it possible that all the teeth of the pig be pulled out because i don't want to see it smiling while we are eating, my conscience can't take it.

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Oh man! Lechon was one of my very favorite things about living in Manila! That stuff is fab!

Anyway, back on topic, the first time we were ever served one was at a Philipino friend's house. My sister, who was eight or nine at the time, said very loudly, "Momma! I can't eat something that's SMILING at me!"

Luckily, our hosts had a good humor about it.

[BarbaraY]

One other incident that this thread brought to mind. One of the specials one evening was something or other sauteed in white wine. A woman requested that we give her husband the wine because she didn't drink.

[orangeman747]

i always find it odd that people in service industries take such exception to giving people what they want without feeling the need to critique and berate them, sometimes even to their faces.  if the guy wants filet mignon well-done, who is the server to suggest otherwise? you have to be kidding me.

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I totally agree. The food service industry is about making customers happy, and if a well done steak makes someone happy, then what do you care?

At Charlie Trotter's restaurant in Chicago, their whole thing is about the customer being first, but to the extreme.... and you know what, it works, the service there is AMAZING. Servers at Trotter's have been fired for not complying with a patron's request or making them feel stupid about asking for something. sure there are funny requests and quite memorable ones, i agree, but never should someone feel bad for ordering exactly what they want when they're paying for it. and im not saying that servers need to go way out of their way to fill some ridiculous request or anything, there needs to be a limit. but im just saying that why not? if you can do it, even if you and me think its absurd theyd ask for it, just do it.

[johnsmith45678]

McDonald's also gives the customer what they want.

[beandork]

It's a balance. There are a variety of weird tastes and people can be such psychos about their food, so there always needs to be some leeway for that.

But on the other hand, some people seem intent on destroying their food experience and quite often will ask for a refund or refuse the meal after disregarding a server's advice. To take it to the extreme, what would you do with someone who repeatedly sends their slab of foie back to the kitchen to get it 'proper well done', then refusing to pay for the resultant puddle?

The customer is not always right

[godito]

I had a great time reading this. It got me thinking about the many things I've seen in the industry. Many of the weird requests I've seen have already been mentioned here. However, I do remember at least one that made me laugh.

I didn't hear the whole story until later. The server comes into the kithcen with a piece of tuna that a customer sent back. The serves was quite upset: "he want's you to cook it some more" he says. Nothing unusual there. Some people just don't like their tuna rare (then again I think that they could just spend a lot less money and buy canned tuna for the same flavour ). But then, when the night got slower, the server comes back and talks about how that specific customer had asked for the tuna rare.

Much later (at least a couple of months) he finally tells the whole story. This guy, in his mid forties, comes with a pretty young lady and is obviously trying to woo her with his knowledge of food and wine. He orders an expensive bottle of wine and notices the tuna on the menu. "I´d like the tuna" he says. And then he starts talking about how that fish has to be cooked on a very hot iron skillet. The skillet must be at so many degrees celsius and the fish has to be there for so much time on each side. Bearing in mind, of course, that the skillet looses temperatura when the fish is placed upon it. For tuna to be cooked properly, it's internal temperature must be such and such. Is that how you do it? Well, that's pretty much what was done, except nobody takes temperatures. Funny, how he, then, sends it back to eat it "medium".

As for the whole cooking-temperature-debate, I think that the customer is the one that's eating it and he knows better. However, some dishes must come with a warning. Well done tuna is dryer and doesn't taste like fresh fish. Medium duck is tougher and a bit rubbery. Mushy vegetables taste like the frozen viriety. Nothing wrong with you liking food that way... just keep in mind that we're still charging you money for food that tastes like anything you can eat at a mediocre buffet.

[Randi]

when i was younger, i used to drink the "juice" leftover from the black olives...straight from the can of course!

oops - should I have outgrown this? I still do it!