We eat out a great deal and, over the years, I've developed a lot of pet peeves with dining out. They might not apply to you, but they annoy me. Feel free to add any additions to my list!
1. Serving margarine instead of butter. Margarine is good for one thing and when I determine what that one thing is, I will be sure to pass it on. When you give me bread and want me to 'butter' it, give me butter. I'm also semi-annoyed by the 'olive oil' craze that is sweeping the nation. I grew up in a classic Italian American family in New Jersey and guess what we put on our bread growing up? BUTTER!
2. Restaurants that make you a nice salad and give you an envelope with real fake dressing inside of it. Of course, to make these $#% envelopes strong enough to not leak, they wrap them in industrial strength aluminum to make them difficult to tear open. They truly are Manzo proof and, frankly, don't taste like anything I'm interested in eating.
3. You to to a restaurant, they give you water and you are thirsty and drink the water down very quickly. Someone comes by and asks, "Would you like a refill?" DUH!!!!!!!!
4. You order a steak, and chains are notorious for this, and they put some sort of weird seasoning all over the steak. Instead of a beef taste you taste a weird combination of salt, chili powder, pepper, and secret spices all of which I could have done without.
5. Asian food on a buffet. I love Asian food and really good Chinese food as few peers. The stir frying technique makes the vegetables mostly especially hot, cooked, and crunchy. If you go to a buffet this marvelous cooking technique gets afflicted to a steam table which renders what started out as wonderful into yuch. Asian buffet restaurants should be avoided at all costs.
6. Boiled unto death hot dogs. Yuch. Grilled all beef franks and the puffy, colorless things that people take out of a vat of hot water and place on a bun have little semblance to each other.
7. Corned beef or pastrami with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. Anyone who really has a comprehension of what 'deli food' is can tell you that this is truly a mockery of food. It is like putting ketchup on filet mignon. Anyone who can count to 11 and keep his/her shoes on should know better than this.
8. Not saying, in the menu, what is actually in the dish. I cannot eat onions very well. I do not feel great after eating them. I will always read the menu to see if onion is a big part of dishes and I often ask and will order things without the onions. All too often I have read the description of a food item and I receive something fairly accurately described---except they used a copious amount of onions and didn't mention it. A friend ordered something and what she received had curry flavoring that wasn't mentioned. Since she didn't like curry flavoring...
9. McDonalds. I'd rather eat dirt.
10. Fish on the menu without telling me what kind of fish it is. Most places do not simply say "Meat sandwich" on the menu and let you hope you like the choice of meat. Maybe it's because I'm a northeastern elitist who grew up and learned that not all fish were the same or tasted the same. Before I bite into the fish, I'd like to know what kind it is.
2 comments:
Pet peeve(s) of Midwestern servers at restaurants:
Having elitist northeasterners come in and pay $8.99 for a steak dinner and expect:
1. real butter on their bread.
2. scratch-made dressings served by the bucket-load.
3. perfectly formed and intellectually developed questions when getting drink refills. We especially love smart*** diners who split hairs over how we ask simple questions, like "would you like more water?" How are such questions addressed in the northeast? -- "Yo chief, if you want more water, get it yourself. The toilet is that way." Voice this pet peeve at the restaurant and the next refill may come from a pitcher of water that has a little something extra.
4. prime aged beef that is edible without flavor masks and numerous tenderizers.
5. any kind of buffet/trough to serve edible food.
6. a perfectly cooked hot dogs at a restaurant that has hot dogs on the menu. What? Are you ordering off the kid's menu?
7. to go to a deli in the Midwest and get something edible?
8. the recipe for each dish to be on the menu.
9. that McDonalds is actually a "restaurant."
10. that the menu will say what kind of fish it is when the "Cheap Fish Company of America" doesn't even know for sure what kind of fish it is, or even if it is actually fish. Restaurants like this mostly serve "fish-product" instead of fish.
P.S. Midwesterners don't "dine out", they "eat out."
Great!!!
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