Looking at the post about someone going into a cafe of the wrong class

[bumblebee50]

This reminded me of my Christmas night out with work last year to a posh restaurant. The wine waiter poured everyone some wine (white in my case), however, no matter where I am I always ask for a glass of ice as I like to top my wine up with it, firstly to make it extra cold but also to dilute it a wee bit. The wine waiter looked at me as if I had grown an extra head and I never did get my glass of ice. i was too embarrassed to ask again. WIBU in my request?

Whatever a paying customer wants, food and drink wise, they get, if it's available, and with a polite smile. Cannot stand food and drink snobs especially when they are there to serve not pass personal comment. They can make recommendations but showing snobbery isn't on.

I suspect even "posh people" in "posh restaurants" have ketchup with their fillet steaks sometimes, and I bet waiting staff would be falling over themselves to get it for them.

Tres I was in a "posh restaurant" last weekend. Food snob waiter asked me how I'd like my steak, I said "well done, please". He said "We'll compromise on medium-well then" and wrote that down!

And yes, Tres, what's it to the waiting staff how you have your steak?! You are right, yours was a good waiter. It's not them who is eating it, after all. It doesn't affect their delicate palate. They are recording what you want for the information of the chef.

I don't care if a steak has been hung for x amount of days and was hand-massaged etc. If I want it well done, I want it well done!

did you tell him you'd compromise on the bill too?

Honestly, who are these twits. They shouldn't be waiting tables, that's for sure.

Although I do wonder whether quite a lot of British people think they're not truly having a posh night out unless they're being bullied by a snob in a penguin suit

thisisme - red wine and coke is called calimocho in Spain. Haven't drunk that since I was a student. A northern Spanish friend was very particular about the ratios of wine and coke and insisted he make it whenever we were at a party (frequently).

Ice cubes in wine/beer/baileys
Pineapple, chicken, fruit on pizza
Cream, butter or yoghurt in a carbonara
Cappuccino with your lunch
Cappuccino anytime of the day other than with breakfast
Salad on the same plate as pasta
Ketchup on pasta

A short list of things that are no nos imho

I always ask for a glass of ice as I like to top my wine up
I've been out with people who start chucking fruit, especially strawberries, into their wine (along with ice if it's handy). You pay, you get what you want.

Not wine but I recently went to a lovely restaurant with a foodie friend of mine. I ordered a burger (it was very posh, the bun was brioche) and it was raw in the middle. I plucked up the courage to ask the waiter to cook it through. They were lovely and tried to reassure me it was fine but I just can't eat that. I got a whole new beautiful dinner . . . Still raw. That's how the chef likes to cook it. Well I was paying but I wimped out, didn't eat it. It still payed and left a tip

This takes me back to when we all went to a well known pizza chain restaurant who likes to think of itself as 'up there' but it really isn't.

We asked for.ketchup with pizzas and tjr waiter said oh we don't do it, in the snobbiest tone ever. When we went back we just took a load of Heinz ketchup sachets with us.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned my biggest bugbear - restaurants where they get arsey if you ask for salt I'm paying for it - if it want salt on it, I'll have it!

Tres I so wish I'd thought of that!!! That would have been brilliant!

It's normal to have a small bucket of ice with a pichet of house wine in the bars and restaurants in the south of France. We also always have frozen grapes available at home. They're nice as a snack too. It's not terribly difficult to put grapes in the freezer.

Red wine is supposed to be served at room temperature. These instructions hark back to the days without central heating, hence room temperature was actually really bloody cold.

Drink it how you like it. They're your taste buds and its nobody else's business what makes them tingle!

Years ago I'm the US I ordered vodka and coke and the waitress was agog. 'Vodka? And Coke? Vodka AND Coke, together? In one glass? Really? I never heard that before'.

One of my US friends reacted the same and said it was disgusting.

I told her to fuck off.

I dont know why other peoples tastes offend others so much. I wasnt asking the bitch to drink it.

Americans are very opinionated about stuff like that. I dont give a shit if they dont like our food / tastes, given the utter rubbish they eat.

Reminds me of the time I asked for salad cream when I ordered a cheese omelette and chips,in a 'workman's' cafe. The woman behind the counter looked at me as if I'd asked for lobster thermidor!

I always order a large glass full of ice when I have wine. Nowhere chills it cold enough, and it does help water it down. I have had looks but I work on the Sybil Vimes theory of having complete confidence in what I say and do. It works! If you look apologetic for asking for something then you will be treated like a weirdo, ask for it in the full and certain knowledge that you will get it because its fine, and others will accept it as such.

Ha.
I always order either a glass or a bottle of sparkling mineral water so I can spritz my own wine (red or white) because it's the only way I can slow down with how much I drink. I don't, however, tell them why I'm asking for it. They don't need to know.

Next time just don't tell them why you want it; or order iced water and just hoik the ice out into the wine when they're not looking.

They do red wine and Coke in Hungary too. It's delicious. They call it VBK for short because the full name is a bit of a mouthful for us forriners. Vörösboros kóla. YUM.

Posted too soon. I like ice in my white wine on a warm day when just having a drink after work etc. but not when I am having wine with food.

The restaurant were in the wrong. Even if you've made a massive faux pas the truly classy will never draw attention to it. Hence the stories that if the Queen dines with someone who uses the wrong knife and fork or drinks out of the finger bowl she will do the same so as not to draw attention to it.

Customer is always right!
We went to a post wedding and a woman asked if they could pop her baby's bottle in a microwave.
Waiter looked aghast and said "we don't have a microwave...I can put it in warm water if you like"

Oh and on the steak there's some cuts gaucho don't recommend LESS than medium rare

Years ago I competed a wine service course with a very posh wine merchants. We were taught all the dos and don'ts and which wine to offer with certain foods. The tutor finished by saying if the customer wants red wine with fish or similar just give it them, without comment, because they are paying the bill!

I suppose we Brits can keep our Vodka and Coke, which is a perfectly normal drink to almost everyone I know and the US can keep their disgusting chocolate, twinkies, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese where cheese should never go (I love cheese but not with hot fatty meat so no pepperoni pizza, cheese burgers or chilli melty things for me).

I also agree with a PP that chicken or pineapple has no place on a pizza, nor any kind of spicy topping. The latest Dominos Italiano range makes me laugh because they are all the least Italian toppings you can imagine (chicken, spicy things, meat overload).

Ice is sort of essential for Baileys IMHO and I am the opposite of people who don't like their food touching or mixed together because when I have lasagne, I like it with a load of salad.

Professional waiting staff should be unfailingly polite and fulfil any reasonable request, keeping their reactions and opinions to themselves. I love good wine but put lemonade in whisky. Some Brits will make a class issue of anything. Don't get sucked in Bumble.