Restaurant pet peeves.

[TheLollipopShoes]

What are your pet peeves in restaurants?P.S I know what a difficult job working in a restaurant is and how hard it is to run one is but I still want to have a moan.

Over sauced pasta for me. I like a light coating only. I know that most people prefer more sauce than I do which is fine but I don't expect to have to call in Tony Robinson and co to excavate my fusilli.

Food served on wooden boards. They've ruined more than one pizza/sandwich for me. The boards usually aren't aired correctly or cleaned with an old cloth and it leaves a damp smell/taste on my pizza,

Ingredients that aren't mentioned on the menu. I know that they can't list every single item but I hate it when there's an ingredient that I hate that's a major component of the dish but isn't listed in the description so I spend more time trying to avoid olives or raw tomatoes than I do eating.

People who are rude to waiting staff. There's absolutely no need for it and I see it all the time. Ordinary run of the mill individuals who think they're better than the person serving them, and look down their nose at them.

Disclaimer: I am not now, or never have been a waiter(ess) However I have, in the past worked in retail where the same thing applies.

This sums it up nicely:

Asking for a jug of tap water repeatedly. Because it's not chargeable, the staff think it's not worth bothering about.

Equally at busy shopping centre being told its a 15min wait for a table when its got empty tables (Zizzi im looking at you)

If it’s anything like the two near us, a 15-minute wait for anything would be an improvement. Service was always so slow it would have been faster with one hand tied behind a back. Never figured out why now but we don’t go to any now because of it (the thought of a wait like that with DC!).

Otherwise - in naice or independent restaurants, especially Italian establishments where it is literally the basis of most of the bloody food, when they use dried pasta instead of fresh. It feels like taking the piss.

If you value your life, do not - under any circumstances - try and tell me that grating spring onions onto spaghetti carbonara is - or has ever been - a "thing". Just apologise for all your life, take it away, kill the chef, and bring it freshly cooked.

This. I was served 'carbonara' with huge slices of white onion in once.

On an unrelated note, a short time later, that restaurant burned down with the doors chained shut and I moved continents. Just the chef would have been too lenient.

A lengthy explanation of what’s in each dish and how it’s made as it’s put in front of you. Obviously it’s grand if the server says ‘here’s your rigatoni’ so you know you’ve been brought the right thing, but when it descends into ‘rigatoni cooked al dente with slow cooked beef cheek ragu, microherbs, parmesan emulsion...’ etc etc I’m thinking it’s going to be freezing in a minute, and I did read the menu!

Places where they won’t let you sit down without someone rushing to pull your chair out for you and then push you in. And when you come back to your napkin folded perfectly on the table when you’ve nipped to the toilet. God, I sound horrible but it just feels a bit intrusive!

Cold restaurants - please don't sit me under the air con!

Having my chair pulled out for me - makes me self-conscious.

Too many check-ins from the wait staff. Please leave me in peace to eat!

Waiters taking the wine away so they are in control of when our glasses are topped up, rather than us.

Fennel. I hate fennel and it's in bloody everything these days.

Asking for tap water and it never arriving

Stinginess with bread: I need more than two small slices to go with a huge pot of pate or a terrine

Calling anything 'sides'. We are in England not America. WTAF are 'sides'? I cannot begin to tell you how much this annoys me!

The most ridiculous teeny tiny pots of things like apple sauce, horseradish that come with a roast. The portion they bring for 4 is what I'd eat on my own!, I always ask for more.

"guys".
So agree. Do NOT call me that. Bloody rude in my book.

"Asking for tap water and it never arriving

Stinginess with bread: I need more than two small slices to go with a huge pot of pate or a terrine"

Ooh, yes, both of these too!

Wooden boards, slates, even a shovel! Crazy, give me a plate, round ideally

As for American clearing tables outside of some big cities it’s more of a cultural thing. Have had chats with waiters about it as I’m always shocked at how rude it is when there.
It’s felt it is rude to leave a dirty empty plate in front of someone!
Sometime obvs its to help turn the table but as often as not, not!

I'm with the Americans on this! I hate having my dirty plate left there to fester especially if I want to stay for a few drinks etc. Much as it's nice to linger over the end of a meal it always seems to take far too long to get the bill in this country too, so I much preferred it when I was in the US and they'd be fairly swift about removing your plates but always say 'take as much time as you like'.

Even in fast-ish casual places where they drop the bill off at your table they say you can order more (pudding, drinks etc) and they just add it to your bill.

I have to say the Americans largely have the restaurant /server business nailed way more than we do. So much sloppy service here, perhaps due to the British cultural embarrassment of feeling 'waited upon' (I'm massively generalising, I know) so we have it a bit muddled and it can be a bit passive.

Random paper napkins placed between the food and the plate so I have to slide the wet paper out from under the warm quiche. Why?

Drafts.

I will not care how nice the food or decor is if I am in a draft. And telling diners that the window is open ‘for the kitchen’ isn’t really OK.

When you serve chips make sure ketchup/ mayo arrives before or at the same time not once chips half eaten

what's 'drafts'?

oh, draughts

A breeze I assume

Allergens not listed.

Being spoken to like a toddler.

Under/over cooked meat.

A new one on me, I'd ordered half a cider last week, waiter proceeded to grill me if I was driving.

I do ask for any service charge to be removed, I then tip in cash. Only good service mind.

Shit lighting. Menus with tiny type with no alternative available.

Oh god - just about everything. I'm not keen on restaurants at all.

DP and I have been to two fancy cocktail bars in London recently (a very rare event!) where the servers sat down at our table like old friends to take our orders and chat in a relaxed, conspiratorial way about our drinks and lives in general. As we don’t get out much we found this quite amusing but couldn’t help wondering how it would go down in our small Yorkshire hometown (although to be fair you usually know the person serving you anyway, or if not them, their brother/mum/next door neighbour).

wanky things instead of plates

Places that don't take reservations (spontaneity has it's place, but not when I am trying to plan things!)

Lighting so dark you can't read the menu
Meals coming out at different times, so people have to sit and wait with their food getting cold, or eat whilst some poor sod sits and watches.
Waiting ages for the bill after asking.

Loud customers

Poor acoustics with lots of hard services making the whole place noisy

Being seated near the loos

Mains that arrive before the starters or dishes arriving ages before the rest of the table (looking at you Wagamama)

Small portions