The waiting etiquette

For once I am not out here to brag about my punctuality going by the title of this post. This time for a change I am talking about the etiquette that a good waiter should have in a good restaurant towards his/her customers. Of course this post stemmed from a blog on the NY Times. You can find the blog here -

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/one-hundred-things-restaurant-staffers-should-never-do-part-one/ and it's sequel here -

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/one-hundred-things-restaurant-staffers-should-never-do-part-2/

If you did have the patience to go through all 100 of the things on the list, and if you are anything like me, you will agree that a lot of the list was highly obnoxious. It sort of took the humanity out of the waiter and sort of reduced to them to a robot with no feelings and slave-like chores to do. Some made a point but a vast majority simply assumed that the customers were snooty enough not to respect their waiters as other people.

I had my first opportunity to judge the waiting experience for it's merit since reading the article. Normally I am pretty pre-occupied by the conversation at the table and tend to give the waiting experience a break (unless it's exceptionally bad like I remember once in Bali Satay House in Ames). Our group meeting, a quarterly affair, had it's typical 5-6 course luncheon at our college's exclusive restaurant which can compare to a decent 3-star experience anywhere in the world. And I made it a point to notice what the waiter did/did not do over the entire lunching experience. Here are the salient features -

1. He did serve the women first - no matter where they were seated around the 10 seater table (we were 4 out of 10 just for the numbers)

2. No, he didn't introduce himself or encourage us to call him a nickname to call his attention. But this is probably because ours was the only table that he was tending to through the entire lunch.

3. Yes, he did refill the wine/water and replenish the bread on each n every glass/plate as and when they ran out. But he did this in such discrete fashion that it was hardly discernable.

4. He did wait for everyone at the table to finish before clearing out the plates of all. And yes, there was fresh cutlery with evey course and nothing had to be reued or reserved for usage after being used once. And that was certainly refreshing.

5. On being informed that I was vegetarian at the last moment, I was wholesomely still served a full meal keeping with the theme of everyone else's meal and not a measly salad. Of course this had more to do with the chef than the waiter but I mention it here because this was one of the points that the author of those blogs above happened to mention in one of his zillion requirements.

Well, that was all that I distinctly noticed. It was an excellent meal overall and after reading those articles, I can confidently say that I won't have a 100 things for the waiting staff to do. I'd be just as happy with these 5. I am curious - does anyone ook forward to anything from their waiters apart from the basic decency and clean service? Voice up!

French Food - The Gaulion way

So my bro was visiting us this past weekend and we wanted to make the trip as special and wholesome as possible. And so to the normal sightseeing that one does, we added an authentic expensive French dinner on the list. A French friend of ours who'd been there recommended the place and so the reservations were made and after a long exhausting day of sight-seeing we landed at the place. The first look was a cozy barn-type place. And a closer look revealed that the short tight spaces was intentional for the restaurant was very large in itself, being multistoreyed and furnished entirely in carved wood, from the walls to the furniture. And it wasn't very brightly lit, giving it a cavern-like atmosphere... So we settled in to our reserved table downstairs amidst loud crowds who were celebrating a Friday, perhaps. And first things first we're told all the food is unlimited as is the wine. The latter lights up the guys' faces... And the next thing we know, a very large basket of fresh raw vegetables was placed in front of us with a bowl of mayonnaise. This was the starters with large loaves of freshly baked bread...

And no, I wasn't kidding. See? And so we crunched like cows on the raw vegetables which went interestingly well with the red wine. We were given huge knives too, to cut through the larger vegetables and from what I saw, the collection included carrots, radishes, turnips, spring onions, onions, cabbages, capsicum, cauliflower, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and lemon. ALong with this, one had the option of going to the upstairs buffet and loading up on unlimited meat chunks and some veggie salad combos as well.

While we were crunching away, the waiter dude informed us that we could choose main course between duck, lamb and steak. While my eyebrows vanished into my hair, he quickly mentioned that they also served ratatouille for their vegetarian patrons. Relieved as I was, I could also finally try that authentic French dish. And that's what sold me on the place finally. The ratatouille was phenomenal. Essentially just a stew of vegetables made in a tomato sauce, it was very nice indeed. And for dessert, we could choose between chocolate chip and a lemon sorbée. No prizes for guessing which one I chose, the chocoholic that I was. Tipsy as everyone else was, some chose the sorbée to clear their heads but the chocochip was a no-brainer.

A loud, long and interesting meal later, we all owed 41€ each, the menu price, more than a tad expensive but surely worthwhile for a once-a-time Gaulion experience. Oh and I didn't mention which restaurant, did I? Here it is...