Review the last restaurant you've eaten at

[DotKritic]

The General Manager at Red Sushi walks around the dining area and the hibachi area asking guests how the service and food is. My family had one problem in the 20+ times we dined in and he took care of the issue promptly.

[korny]

I think it's retarded when I hear that people are "too afraid" to complain. You are paying for a service and an experience and you are going to end up with servers at times who lack the necessary professionalism to rectify the issues at hand. That's what the GM is for. My tip is directly related to how quickly water gets put on my table, how quickly I am attended to, and how attentive to my needs the server is. If all goes well I tip 50% quite often.

[Cavernio]

Originally Posted by korny

K so, a problem that could have easily been avoided by asking to speak with the manager you instead let ruin your dining experience altogether. Seems rather silly if you ask me.

Was this directed at me? I don't want to speak to manager every time I eat out. I hate making a fuss, and that won't necessarily fix anything anyways? A manager can make a mistake too. FYI, I don't eat at my parents house because despite me explaining numerous times how to avoid cross contamination of foods that give me an immune reaction, one little slip up is all I need to feel sick(er) for weeks. And every time I went there was something suspect. There's a reason my own house is totally gluten and dairy free.

Besides which, I didn't expect to HAVE an issue telling someone 'I can't have dairy', and then getting a plate with a large swath of creamy cheese in the middle, especially after the conversation I had with the waitress while ordering about what I can and can't eat, and going over multiple different menu items. I got safe food for myself eventually there, there wasn't a problem once I made it clear I wasn't going to eat the food they had given me.

It's worse than you think though. That incident, among others, just didn't ruin my dining experience there, it has ruined my dining experience for every restaurant. I'd been to that restaurant before and been perfectly happy. But mistakes happen, it's a fact of life, and that incident just opened my eyes in that it'd be stupid for me to expect to always have a safe dining experience out. And it's stupid of me to eat something if I don't think it IS safe.

Anyways, I seem to have issues with lots of foods that technically should be safe for me to eat. Even if I could guarantee tiny amounts of gluten and dairy not being in my food, there's no guarantee I'd be able to eat at the vast majority of food at restaurant's anyways. Safest thing would probably be salad without dressing. Yum. And if they cut the tomatoes on a board that touched flour at any point and wasn't cleaned exceptionally well, it wouldn't be safe.

I suppose my absolute most recent experience in 'eating out' was getting coffee at a Tim Horton's drive thru, in my own mug. I had nerve pain and itchy hands for 3 weeks.

[korny]

What you call making a fuss I call making a legitimate and deserved complaint regarding the issues at hand i.e. your celiacs disease. You are basically letting like I said, the unprofessional servers that tend to appear from time to time ruin your dining experience altogether at a restaurant. You are choosing to not seek out a more enjoyable experience, when one can be provided. It is their JOB. I have been a server. Complaints are not complaints to me. It's feed back that is necessary for me to ensure you received the experience our restaurant is supposed to provide, so that you come back, and tip me well. I tend to notice that being timid is incredibly common amongst those who eat out and didn't get what they were looking. The whole reason you are dining out is to have the experience you expect to receive, and if one unqualified server isn't giving you that experience, then the GM will (should) make damn sure that you get it. This also depends largely on what sort of restaurant you eat out at. I don't eat at chili's. Why? Because I don't expect an amazing dining experience.( and the food is crap) People don't go to chili's expecting top quality service and cleanliness. I will hope and assume that someone with a disease such as celiacs, would keep in mind that what quality restaurant you go to is directly dependent upon how well that restaurant is usually run, so from that perspective, what did you expect? (I don't know the quality of this restaurant I'm just giving an example.) I don't agree that this is how things should be, but servers bust their ass and have to deal with crap all the time. The incentives provided to keep up with things like those with dairy or gluten issues, doesn't really register for some. Some people are plain ignorant and uneducated, and they tend to carry a certain work ethic with them because of it. You have to be honest and rational with yourself before outright saying "I'm done with restaurants for now". Basically, you get what you pay for.

[Cavernio]

Not eating at restaurants IS me being rational. The Blue Door is one of the more upper-scale restaurants where I live, and their food is really good.

I understand what you're getting at, but believe me, it's nearly impossible to 'keep up' with celiac disease. The one food product that makes me sick in the tiniest of quantities is literally the most common food product in North America. That's not a sleight at waiters or chefs, it's a matter of fact. (But yes, I'm still a little peeved at that one server I had.)

So far the most reliable gluten tests can detect 5ppm. The international standard is 20ppm for gluten, but in North America that's not strict at all, it's merely a guideline. Some individuals with celiac disease know they still get sick from eating foods at 20ppm of gluten, and this has been scientifically tested too. About 10% of celiacs don't get better from what seems to be a gluten free diet. They have what's called refractory celiac disease. I've now read a small study that strongly suggested that these people don't have some sort of different disease and have been misdiagnosed (as I had originally figured would be the case). Rather, they have simply never been gluten free enough, or their celiac disease is reactive to more proteins than just gluten and hordein and avenin. The study had them basically cut out all and anything processed including all grains and dairy and a think a couple more things for a few months. And they finally showed some healing.

I've found that not all celiacs will be as careful as me, and I know of some who are more cautious than me. I just want to get better. Unlike for many people, I never had a nice phase after cutting out gluten when I felt better. It's been agonizingly slow with lots of setbacks as I figure out that I can't scarf down everything that says 'gluten free' on the label. How am I supposed to eat out if I don't even know what products I can tell them I can eat?

[Jonlovesddr]

Duff's in buffalo
10/10 so much

[korny]

I understand, and that is fair. Anecdotally, I ate out with my friends father who has celiacs a while back. He is incredibly successful and is solely in charge of integrating blackberry products with dell products I believe. Basically, he's rich as fuck. The only relevance in stating that, is that he is accustomed to getting straight to the point about his disease because he constantly eats out with business executives . He asks for the GM everytime and makes it very clear, "look, I have celiacs disease, I am hyper sensitive to gluten products and need to be ensured that there will be no issues with this because I have been told this is a celiacs friendly environment." His concerns are immediately and genuinely addressed. For people like you, these things are necessary. Instead of looking at it as causing conflict, it is important to always be vocal about maintaining the sensitivities to your health like he does, so that you don't feel so excluded from enjoying what many others do

[DotKritic]

Originally Posted by korny

I think it's retarded when I hear that people are "too afraid" to complain. You are paying for a service and an experience and you are going to end up with servers at times who lack the necessary professionalism to rectify the issues at hand. That's what the GM is for. My tip is directly related to how quickly water gets put on my table, how quickly I am attended to, and how attentive to my needs the server is. If all goes well I tip 50% quite often.

Exactly.

I tip as high as 40% if service is great. But if I'm at the bar at Main Event and I order a couple of beers and a small meal, most of the time I'll tip the total amount of the bill (E.g. The bill at the bar could be $12.50 and I would tip that amount or close to it).

[Aldentron]

20% is my minimum cause pretty much all of my corporate work experience is in food service.

As for Pappa Chang's yesterday, they were understaffed on an early Sunday afternoon. Me and my friend girl almost had to opt for the buffet (which DID have a fair number of vegan options for me to chose from) until the owner guy came and apologized and took our orders from the menu. The food came and I was still home in time to get ready for work where I made $7 less in tips than I paid for my whole meal at the restaurant.

[Spenner]

Originally Posted by Jonlovesddr

Duff's in buffalo
10/10 so much

Oh shit, I went there like 5 years ago and they had amazing wings. Awesome place~

[kommisar]

House of Lam

top tier chinese food. a little more expensive, but very worth it. no frozen shit, everything made fresh.

[mi40]

fresh chinese food is so fuckin worth

[rayword45]

Boloco (stands for Boston Local Company, so I'm guessing it's a local Burrito chain)

I was kinda stoned at the time, but those burritos were delicious. Authentic? Hell to the no. But they were good. And the Nutella milkshake was like a white person's dream I assume. For me it was decent.

[popsicle_3000]

Maccas. would eat there again for those non-aussies, maccas = mcdonalds

edit: and holy crap, ffr is loaded. tipping 50% 0_o

[rayword45]

Originally Posted by popsicle_3000

Maccas. would eat there again

for those non-aussies, maccas = mcdonalds

How the fuck does this compute? Unless you guys have clean McDonalds with fresh food.

[popsicle_3000]

I've had mcdonalds in England, france, australia, canada, thailand, and nowhere is it worse, bland and stale/old than in USA. IDK why it's so different in the US

a new aussie burger: Big n tasty w/ bacon


it actually does look like this and tastes so good.

[Spenner]

Maru Sushi

Not a place for rolls that are going to be the best of the simple, but really interesting rolls, and a lot of their own unique designs for them. Plating is really interesting with all of their personalized rolls, we tried the Ozark roll and it came on a bed of shredded vegetable that had been candied (not sure, radish? Who knows. It was good though) and just presented in a way that made it look like an art piece. Everything was done solidly, and even their simple california rolls were solid, no fake crab shit, and you could really tell.

8.8/10, service was kind of awkward, but that was the only thing (she nearly didn't give up dishes for soya sauce, and afterwards came back and was like "Oh here's some of these in case you want soya sauce..." a new waitress clearly so I'll let it slide~)