To Ask For An Omelette?!

[MagicalMrsMistoffelees]

Cafe Rouge has a range of menus covering different times. We visited for lunch today at around 12.30pm and I asked for an omelette and fries. It's not on the main menu but is on other menus. I've been to CR twice before and made this request and both times they were fine about it.

Today the waitress said a straight no. She said the breakfast menu was no longer being served (fair enough) and the whisk had been washed up. She was friendly but certain that we could only order off the main menu. I mentioned that I'd been to CR before and it hadn't been a problem but she said they wouldn't have the eggs prepared and it wasn't happening. I shrugged it off, ordered something else and thought no more. But 10 minutes later she came back and said actually I could have an omelette after all, it was no problem. I'd gone off the idea by then. But it got me thinking.

Was it unreasonable to ask for an omelette?! I thought, based on my previous visits both to CR and other restaurants that requests were usually no problem. But this got me thinking. Perhaps it's not as straightforward as it seems?! A couple of eggs whisked in a bowl and heated in a frying pan seems fairly basic but maybe not. (Especially if the whisk has already been washed up. ) Can anyone who's worked in a restaurant enlighten me please?

[Squiff85]

People who deviate from the menu annoy me! I do think you were being a little difficult, but her excuse was odd!

[PestilentialCat]

My dad once stopped at a little chef & asked for beans on toast - it used to be on the menu. He was told No, they no longer did it.

After looking at the menu he ordered a round of toast & a side order of beans & asked for the beans to be served on top of the toast

[CombineBananaFister]

Yanbu to ask but they were not unreasonable to say no, although the way she did it was a bit daft - she should have asked Chef to see if he had time/ingredients to hand/not many checks on.

FWIW DH is a chef in a large hotel and he often gets off-menu requests at the breakfast buffet when there are 350+ guests in house and it isn't always possible to accommodate these even if the dish seems simple to us to make as one single dish. It isn't taking into account the prep available, the staff available and what would happen if even just 25% of guests asked for something different when he's trying to maintain the buffet, bar service and room service. I appreciate thats not the case with a small CR but prep/people/menus are done at certain times for good reasons.

[TeddTess]

maybe because it was lunchtime and they wanted to serve (and charge accordingly) for lunch items ???

how much can they charge for an omelette?

[JeanPadget]

I watched Falling Down on Friday evening.

Your post is making me remember Michael Douglas's character's reaction when he was told he was three minutes too late for the breakfast menu

[antiqueroadhoe]

"Preparing the eggs" ? Sorry, what preparation is there?

Hi Mr and Mrs Egg, could I trouble you for a preparatory talk regarding your immediate future...

[PuppyMonkey]

I'm imagining them in the kitchen: "release the whisk!"

[carabos]

at pestilential's Dad. I bet they served it with a straight face too .

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for something off-menu, as long as you don't kick off if they say no. Equally, it's not UR for them to just say no, not make up some incredible yarn about apparently shift-working kitchen utensils.

[IAmNotAMindReader]

Omelette is on their rapide menu served between 11:30am and 5pm. The OP was well within that time range. It wasn't a request outside the bounds of normality and was not off menu. YANBU OP.

[lorelei9]

Stinker - you mean some catering company is delivering pre done croque monsieur to cafes all over town - they just stick under a grill?

wow. I really thought it would be more cost effective to just, er, make them onsite.

[Viviennemary]

I think it's fair enough to ask for something that isn't on the menu. But if you are refused it's not reasonable to say oh but last time it was OK. But generally I think it is a bit cheeky to ask for things that aren't on the menu. I've only done it once or twice.

[TiredButFineODFOJ]

I had a nice imlette in CR when I didn't fancy any other veggie choices. I find most places happy enought to chuck together an omlette if you don't fancy the (butternot squash pasta) veggie option.
I do suspect that powdered egg/liquid egg/frozen omlette hadn't been "prepped" or waitress had been bawled at by the cook for asking for a special order in the past

[VoldysGoneMouldy]

YWBU to ask for something that wasn't on the menu, and the "it's never been a problem before" style comment probably made her uncomfortable, which is why she came out with a silly response.

That said, "the whisk has been washed up" is possibly my favourite quote from anyone in a restaurant ever

[PegsPigs]

I asked for a bacon sandwich once in a £150 a night hotel. They had bacon and bread/toast but no she wouldn't serve me one. I confess I wasn't much up for eggs benedict or some of the other fancy breakfast offerings. I was very pissed off though.

YANBU to ask and actually fair play to her for coming back and admitting she was wrong.

[Gwenhwyfar]

"If omelette isn't on the menu, why on earth would you ask for it? The menu's there for a reason; you can't ask for whatever you fancy. YABU."

Any proper restaurant can make something simple like an omelette or a cheese sandwich on request. It doesn't need to be on the menu.

[TendonQueen]

Sw the thread title and thought of Gavin and Stacey . I bet Gwen would never tell anyone 'no, the whisk's been washed up now. ' I do understand that a place can't necessarily always do stuff that's off menu, but it would be better just to say that, than to come up with bizarre-sounding excuses.

All this notwithstanding, I do now want to call in at CR some lunchtime soon for a mushroom omelette. I love them.

[BarbaraofSeville]

Crazy. Omelettes have to be one of the quickest, lowest effort things to make. If they can't manage that, I don't know how they manage anything more complicated.

[tibbawyrots]

I'm out of eggs and really fancy an omelette now...

[BarbaraofSeville]

This thread has reminded me of the time a few weeks ago when I wanted eggs benedict in morrisons cafe, which I couldn't have 'because they had run out of muffins'.

While I was sat there waiting for my inferior alternative, I looked at the adjacent supermarket which probably had a whole shelf full of muffins and thought why didn't they offer me them and I wish I had thought to ask for them to get muffins out of the shop.

[Anniegetyourgun]

My omelette story: Years ago I went to Corfu with a couple of friends. One friend, a sorely tried veggie, tried to order a plain omelette and chips. The waiter simply could not get his head around the concept of an omelette with nothing in it, and the language barrier didn't help. "No chis? No cham? No prawn?" "No cheese, no ham, no prawns, just an omelette please." "Omelette, no chis, no cham, no prawn," repeated with bewilderment as he pottered off. Eventually her order turned up, a rather fat omelette in a bowl. Friend looked at it with deep suspicion. But where were the chips? Answer revealed on investigation with a fork: folded inside. The chef had managed to work out a way to prevent the universe imploding by filling the anomalous naked omelette with the chips. Ingenious. Friend with omelette was rather nonplussed, while other friend rolled about laughing helplessly.

[TheDetective]

YANBU to ask. Not at all.

I often order off menu, particularly for my dairy/soya intolerant child.

I went to some tea rooms with him this week, and they were absolutely lovely at making him something up to suit. He ended up with crumpets and jam, cucumber and a little pot of beans. Random, but he doesn't mind that kind of thing! They had run out of alternatives (bagels, and the gluten free bread, which would make it soya free also). But nothing was too much trouble to organise for him.

I love a good omelette. Fancy one now. Damn it!

[originalmavis]

We stopped off at a cafe for lunch on a long trip - sadly it was the only place for miles so not a lot of choice.

I wanted the omlette as it was the only remotely veggie food on the menu but it was a 'ham omlette'. I asked if it could be just plain as I was vegetarian. So the waitress sent to ask the chef. 'No he can't make a plain omlette'.

After a while probing why, she told us that they bought frozen ready made omlettes and microwaved them. She offered to pick out the ham. Bleugh.

[TheFairyCaravan]

ImNotAMindReader the Menu Rapide is available Mon-Fri so the OP was outside the timeframe.

YANBU to ask but they're not unreasonable to refuse.

[SparklyPenguin]

Yanbu to ask, but they're nbu to decline. Maintaining speed of service is key in a high-street restaurant, this relies on selling approximately the anticipated quantities of the listed dishes (based on sales statistics) as this is what the kitchen team will have prepped for. A fully-staffed, well-equipped kitchen should usually have no trouble accommodating the occasional simple 'off-menu' request as you've experienced at CR before, but who knows, that day maybe they might have been a bit short, or already prepping for a big evening event, or have just simply had too many orders on at the time. The waitress was nbu as she would've been going off the manager/chef's pre service instruction (though the whisk thing's just weird!) then when she'd double-checked they'd obviously decided it was ok to accommodate the request on this occasion.