If you are that picky, stay at home

[RickSpangle]

My mother-in-law is forever asking (baffled) waiters what shape they serve squid in. Every time she does I die a little inside.

[bainsidhe]

My mother-in-law is forever asking (baffled) waiters what shape they serve squid in. Every time she does I die a little inside.

I can kinda see it. I do not eat tentacles. Nope, ew. I prefer not to have my food waving back at me. But make them look like onion rings and we're golden.

[AccountingDrone]

I can kinda see it. I do not eat tentacles. Nope, ew. I prefer not to have my food waving back at me. But make them look like onion rings and we're golden.

Whats not to love about octopods ...

[Jester]

I have dealt with picky people like this on occasion. One great example of it was this one semi-regular at a restaurant I used to work at. I never waited on them personally, but when they would come in, they would order the French Onion Soup....without onions.

I know what you're thinking. How in the bloody hell do you expect to get French Onion Soup without the primary ingredient of onions? Well, apparently the first time this happened, the kitchen went above and beyond and, rather than refusing this ridiculous request, they strained the soup so that all that was in the bowl was the broth, then added the crouton and cheese. This was a mistake they would rue for some time, as it was a signal to the customer that this was something they could and would do. And so that customer came in every so often and continued to place that ridiculous order. But, to the customer's credit, at least they were pleasant about it, from all reports.

If I get someone doing that one thing you mentioned ("not too much, not too little"), I always offer to put the questionable item on the side for them, so that they could add how much they wanted to the food item in question. So far, that has seemed to work pretty well.

All of the above notwithstanding, your customers and their orders were pure and utter bullshit.

[SongsOfDragons]

I'm a semi-regular at a great pub I know, a contender for the oldest pub in the world. It even has a Saxon wall behind plexiglass that people can oogle. Me and our gaming group meet in saturdays in the basement, we all order food, we're perfectly congenial with the barstaff and the long-serving deputy manager (?? not sure) has told us he likes us because he knows he can use bad language around us and we don't care (most often a friendly shaddap you lot!! as he closes the basement door). Most of us have regular orders - and mine, steak, medium rare, and chips, ta, just chips please as the other peripherals won't be eaten and I don't want to waste your lovely food. Thus far no-one's not done it for me. I love them.

[Jester]

Well, SOD, remember....eliminating stuff such as the peripherals you mentioned? That's easy. Shit like that, most servers don't have a problem with. You are easy, not picky. Any server who DOES have a problem with that needs to get that tight knot out of their panties.

[SongsOfDragons]

Well, SOD, remember....eliminating stuff such as the peripherals you mentioned? That's easy. Shit like that, most servers don't have a problem with. You are easy, not picky. Any server who DOES have a problem with that needs to get that tight knot out of their panties.

Phew...I feel a little better about that now, thanks. I've never worked in food so all I know about the attitudes have come from this forum...

[TelephoneAngel]

I have dealt with picky people like this on occasion. One great example of it was this one semi-regular at a restaurant I used to work at. I never waited on them personally, but when they would come in, they would order the French Onion Soup....without onions.

I know what you're thinking. How in the bloody hell do you expect to get French Onion Soup without the primary ingredient of onions? Well, apparently the first time this happened, the kitchen went above and beyond and, rather than refusing this ridiculous request, they strained the soup so that all that was in the bowl was the broth, then added the crouton and cheese. This was a mistake they would rue for some time, .

Why would they rue it?

Not being sarcastic, but wouldn't it be relatively easy to just ladle out broth (I do it with my own soups), or to pour it into a colander over a bowl and get the onions out?

[crazylegs]

Why would they rue it?

Not being sarcastic, but wouldn't it be relatively easy to just ladle out broth (I do it with my own soups), or to pour it into a colander over a bowl and get the onions out?

It is, especially when you're the only person you're cooking for. When there are possibly hundreds of meals a night being served the last thing you want to be doing is sieving onions from onion soup.

[Draevis]

It is, especially when you're the only person you're cooking for. When there are possibly hundreds of meals a night being served the last thing you want to be doing is sieving onions from onion soup.

I would imagine that unless the special onion-free French Onion soup was in a different serving dish it would be impossible to tell which was which once the cheese was melted over the top

All you need then is to mix up a regular with the onion-free soup and upset two customers.

[Jester]

Phew...I feel a little better about that now, thanks. I've never worked in food so all I know about the attitudes have come from this forum...

Don't let all of our bitterness and cynicism dissuade you from ordering food the way you like it. The people we hate are the picky people who are ridiculous, not the picky people who are just picky. I myself will often order, for example, a cobb salad, but without egg or avocado, as I don't like egg in my salads, and I don't like avocado at all. But if it doesn't come out as I ordered it, I don't go apeshit on the server. I deal with it, either politely explaining the issue to the server, or (in situations like the above example) merely picking out the offending items.

The problem isn't how picky you are. The problem is how much of an asshole you are. The customers in the OP were assholes. You are not. Pretty simple, really.

Why would they rue it?

Not being sarcastic, but wouldn't it be relatively easy to just ladle out broth (I do it with my own soups), or to pour it into a colander over a bowl and get the onions out?

The act of straining the soup itself is, yes, easy.

The act of doing it during a busy dinner rush while they are trying to cook innumerable orders is still easy in the sense that the task itself is easy, but it is still a royal pain in the ass to do while you are trying to get everything else done.

And that is why they rued it.

I would imagine that unless the special onion-free French Onion soup was in a different serving dish it would be impossible to tell which was which once the cheese was melted over the top.

Impossible? No, quite easy, really. Oftentimes in kitchens, special orders are marked in some way to differentiate them from other similar looking orders. The most common method I have seen is to merely stick a toothpick in the special order item, so the expediter/server knows which is which, and then the pick is removed shortly before being brought out to the table. Another method would be to put the special item in a different part of the window than the normal items.

A well-run kitchen will have no issues differentiating special orders from normal orders, even if all the orders look the exact same on the surface. Just as I, as a server, will know which of the sodas is a diet cola even if there are nine regular colas on the tray with the diet one.