The meal is on the house

fx

Sat, 4 Apr 2009 07:21:37 GMT

Yes indeed, some people have a hard time accepting the idea that the clients of their "luxury" restaurant might be of the same age as they are. If you are old and gray they will be obsequious, but if you are not they"ll treat you like shit. Same thing with some of the low minds who sometimes work in five star hotels.

Sganarelle

Fri, 3 Apr 2009 23:58:28 GMT

Hi Fran�ois,
I just read over Zhu Zhu"s post and your response, but I think you"ve misunderstood him.
I don"t think he meant to suggest that you were looking for opportunities to get free stuff by complaining about the food or service.
Simply, younger and poorer looking clients are often not taken seriously by restaurant staff, even though the sophistication of their palette may be out of proportion with the thickness of their wallet. The moment you look too young, too poor, you take the cheapest "menu" or decide not to order any drinks, you often lose all credibility. In such situations, you"ll generally eat everything they offer unless, as Zhu Zhu says, it"s outright moldy... not eating anything would just amount to feeling even more ripped off.
When I was doing my masters in France, I once went to a restaurant in Rouen which took itself quite seriously, but in which all the dishes were served with these little cubes of boiled vegetables, exactly like you would get out of a frozen package of Green Giant. The wait staff had a bit of a mocking attitude throughout the meal, and at the end, seeing that my wife and I weren"t terribly thrilled with the whole experience, they made a provocative remark, inviting us to explain what it was we hadn"t liked. When we told them that, aside from their "air moqueur", we couldn"t understand why the chef would serve vegetables so easily mistaken for frozen Green Giant, we were virtually laughed out of the restaurant. They replied in such a fashion as to make it clear that it was we who had no discernment, and not they who had neither creativity nor scruples.
I"m certain that if we had "looked the part" we would have been treated more hospitably and, had we still made the remark about the vegetables, been told that they would let the chef know, even if it was a lie. But because we didn"t look the part, they felt authorised to openly humiliate us. I think Zhu Zhu is referring to this sort of experience. I think his question is in fact, "if you"re clearly young and not overly wealthy, how can you get restaurant staff to take you seriously?".
So, in light of that, any thoughts?
Looking forward to seeing your latest videos. Best wishes,

Sganarelle

fx

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:17:30 GMT

Sometimes I experience extreme, kitchen-nighmarish service in a restaurant and I just look around the room if there is anything worth buying at the forced sale that will happen within a couple months. Many times, the place does indeed go bankrupt within the year.

Geoff Ball

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 23:24:13 GMT

Well with those two cases it shows you that they had at least one person who cared in that restaurant.

I can remember this one evening some friends and I stopping in at a local restaurant and just wanting to have a desert and a coffee. I ordered a piece of chocolate cake.

Well the food took forever.

When I tasted it, onion.
Strong old onion.
In fact there was even a bit of onion on it.
(Who ever had cut the cake had used a dirty knife that had been used to prep onions).

I showed it eventually to the waiter and he offered 10% off my dessert. I paid, I left, and never went back.
I never understood the 10%.

I agree with you that I"d rather have a good meal then a poor free meal.

fx

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:32:46 GMT

Zhu Zhu, this was not a technique to get a free dinner but a legitimate complaint for a real problem with the restaurant. Sure, you could carry a box of dead flies and place one in your soup and ask for a refund, but that would be a dishonest and utterly immoral way of scamming the restaurant owner out of regular income. It"s a hard industry to make a buck in and I really don"t think it would be fair to ask for a free lunch when the restaurant delivered on its promises.

Zhu Zhu

Sun, 9 Mar 2008 18:50:26 GMT

Thank you. The post and the comment are both interesting. I didn"t know that. How would you do it if you are a poor college student? There have been quite a few times that I found either the service or the food lacking. Being a poor student, I find myself incapable of throwing away food unless it"s totally burnt or moldy. I found your site via StumbleUpon.

Javier

Sat, 9 Jun 2007 23:34:40 GMT

As a supplier of restaurants I could not agree more. My friends who are restaurateurs and chefs absolutely want to know if their food or service fails to meet expectations. And, they would not only pay for your meal that evening, but in most cases would invite you to return at their expense to have a more pleasing dining experience at their restaurant. Please let the management know if they did not serve you well, but do it in a polite, specific way so that the restaurant can improve what they are doing for all of their customers.