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Thursday, May 30, 2002
Meg has been saving for months to have dinner at the French Laundry (a place so good, even vegetarians will eat its foie gras) and finally she had her big night (Jason went, too).
One day, people will be asking us to sign their menus.
posted by Luke at 3:31 PM | Comment?
When they turn the story of our restaurant into a movie, here's how I'd like to see it cast: Ellen Burstyn as Gayle the waitress, Sean Penn (U Turn-style) as Simon the cook, and Steve Buscemi as Harry the regular. For the other regular, the one who gets an life-altering epiphany one day while walking through our front door and orders something completely different than her usual, causing Gayle to nearly have a seizure and Simon and Harry to exchange gosh darn glances, I'd like to cast Sarah.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 6:42 AM | Comment?
Wednesday, May 29, 2002
The geniuses at Mitsubishi have developed a system of smart glasses that, when nearing empty status, wirelessly alert the kitchen for a refill. I'm at a loss to see how the benefits of such a system outweigh the costs of installing it and keeping it up -- not to mention the costs of the additional liquid product that will be poured for free. The restaurant "experts" claim that customers' satisfaction decrease the longer they have to wait for refills. Sure, but does it dip so low that it'll cost the restaurant a repeat visit? I doubt it.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 10:03 AM | 3 comments
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Amazon has launched a curious restaurant feature. It's nice to have access to menus, but I think that, despite its poor design, the Reader's Restaurant Finder remains the best way to sniff out a good meal in Chicago (other than offering to buy one of us dinner).
posted by Luke at 7:20 AM | 4 comments
Thursday, May 23, 2002
The Tribune asked nine people at the National Restaurant Association show to answer this question: "What annoys you most when you go to a restaurant?" Most cite service aggravations, such as overeager busboys and long waits. One mentioned cell phones.
My favorite answer came from Ray Jarrell, an orange grower from Lake Wales, Fla.: "I like for the people to be basically like me -- to be themselves. And don't put on a big show."
I think we've already decided that we want to be ourselves, but if we can't, let's be basically like Ray Jarrell. Seems like a nice guy.
posted by Luke at 2:50 PM | 3 comments
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Chef Mark Tachman this morning told Morning Edition what it's really like to work in a restaurant. Anyone who still would still want to go to cooking school, he says, is nuts.
posted by Luke at 6:54 AM | Comment?
Monday, May 20, 2002
Why we should keep our waiters away from the funny pages, second in a series:
posted by Sandor Weisz at 10:59 AM | Comment?
Friday, May 17, 2002
When a restaurant or bar has two single-occupancy restrooms, what is the point of segregating them by gender? Why not make them co-ed? It would be much more efficient that way. It's almost as though owners are separating customers into two teams, boys vs. girls, and the cleanliness of one's restroom depends on how clean one's "team" has kept it.
posted by Luke at 7:46 AM | Comment?
Thursday, May 16, 2002
Speaking of birthdays... do we sing? Our waitress on Saturday was about to, but thought better of it. She probably gauged our group as a bunch of introverts, and accurately sensed an impending displeasure had she belted one out. I was left with the impression that they sometimes do sing at Kabul, which seemed out of place with the otherwise quiet ambience. Maybe they do it in a foreign language or something.
Our waitstaff should be friendly, they should be jovial, they should love like brothers, but I say they stop short of actually singing Happy Birthday. If the table wants to engage in their own rendition, that's fine. If the birthday spirit spreads like Ebola and the entire dining room bursts into an impromptu performance of The Beatles' Birthday, so be it. But while the people sing, that the waitstaff should stand aside. I don't think we want to be the kind of place where your waiter breaks into tableside song without being asked to.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 1:51 PM | 3 comments
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
I needed to discreetly alert our waitress that someone in our party was celebrating a birthday. I would have called ahead, to avoid discussing it in the presence of the birthday honoree, but in this case, I didn't have the chance. So, near the end of the meal, while the rest of the table was engaged in conversation, I quietly slipped away without mention, found our waitress in a part of the restaurant out of view from our table, and asked her to surprise our guest with a piece of birthday cake. (Or in this case, baklava.) When she delivered it, candle alit, our guest was left scratching his head as to how our waitress could have possibly been tipped off, since he hadn't seen anyone in our party talk with her.
It'd be nice if we had a system set up to alleviate this problem. A system in which someone could flash a signal to the waiter to indicate the table's need of a birthday cake. Something that wouldn't raise the suspicion of the person being honored. I wonder what that could be.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 2:10 PM | 5 comments
Friday, May 10, 2002
A Friday Five about restaurants from a few weeks ago:
1. What is your favorite restaurant and why? As far as all-around restaurant experiences go, I'd have to say Kopi. I know of no other place that allows me to lounge for several hours against pillows on their floor, that knows my name and favorite dish, and whose owner seems to enjoy his job and have a life outside of it. As far as quality, the best meal I've had in Chicago was at Grace.
2. What fast food restaurant are you partial to? I never, ever eat fast food... unless I'm face-to-face with an In-N-Out Double Double Cheeseburger, Animal Style.
3. What are your standards and rules for tipping? I start with a base amount. If I'm paying with cash, I double the tax, add it to the total, and round it up to the next dollar or two. If I'm using plastic, I take 20% of the total and subtract a dollar or two. From there, it can go down (long waits, rude service) or up (charm, friendliness) depending on a variety of factors.
4. Do you usually order an appetizer and/or dessert? No, though lately I've taken to ordering two appetizers instead of one entree. If I'm with a large party, especially at a Greek restaurant, I'll order an appetizer for the whole table. If I'm at Serendipity, I'll get the Frozen Hot Chocloate, and possibly nothing else. It is Unquestionably The Best Dessert In The Whole Freakin' World.
5. What do you usually order to drink at a restaurant? For breakfast, orange juice. For lunch, iced tea. For dinner, wine. If I'm feeling saucy, a mixture of all three.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 12:40 PM | 3 comments
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
Calvin Trillin recently profiled a Greenwich Village restaurant, a favorite among locals, that's been fighting the good fight between popularity and integrity for twenty years:
"When Kenny gets a phone call from a restaurant guidebook that wants to include Shopsin's, he sometimes says that the place is no longer in operation, identifying himself as someone who just happens to be there moving out the fixtures. ... To Kenny's way of thinking, a complimentary mention is worse than a knock. It brings review-trotters -- the sort of people who go to a restaurant because somebody told them to. Kenny finds that review-trotters are often 'petulant and demanding.'"
While reading, I found myself alternating between two thoughts: "Next time I'm in New York, I've gotta remember to visit this place.", then "No, no, if I respect Kenny's business, I must also respect his wish to keep this place private." (If you're wondering why a place desiring anonymity would agree to a profile in a major magazine, it's answered at the end of the article.)
I encountered a similar mindset when I met Bob from Pizzetta 211. It was because of a chance encounter with him, the manager of the place, that I learned of its existence. When I looked up the restaurant on Vindigo in Bob's presence, and came up empty, he was relieved. In business for only a year, they already had a following in the neighborhood that packed their tables on a daily basis. Any extra publicity would only bring in the "petulant and demanding."
There are no simple answers to this. Restricting reviews to prevent the customers we don't want smacks of elitism. Are we going into business to make money or are we going into business to have a good time? Surely both are feasible; balancing the two will take generous amounts of tolerance.
(Thanks to Jason for the link.)
posted by Sandor Weisz at 9:18 PM | 2 comments
Monday, May 06, 2002
I was prepping the kitchen for breakfast at the Cafe on Thursday when a gentleman came in to volunteer his services. He was slated to serve, but had arrived early and wanted to put his cooking chops to work. I assigned him the task of making the pancake batter. As he got to work, an exchange of small talk revealed what he did with his life when he wasn't feeding the homeless. This nice man, to whom I had given the lowly task of adding water to pre-fab pancake mix, was, in real life, a franchise owner of several International Houses of Pancakes. I was as if I had asked Norman Rockwell to fill in a paint-by-numbers.
After withstanding a flurry of my mea culpas, the gracious Pancake Man began to reveal to us the IHOP kitchen customs that he's used to. At the Cafe, we pour our pancake mix from a pitcher; at IHOP, they use a gun. Our omelette batter consists of egg and maybe a little milk; at IHOP, they inject a few shots of pancake mix to make 'em fluffy. (Shhh! That one's a secret.) When Pancake Man took his spot waiting tables, he'd put in his orders using IHOP lingo. "3 wrecked" meant three eggs scrambled. "62 OM" meant six eggs, over medium, on two plates. I was waiting to see "Adam and Eve on a raft," which I know from movies is lingo for something, though for what I wasn't sure. I'd probably have just sent back an apple.
While its likely that kitchen lingo speeds up operation -- "wrecked" has one syllable; "scrambled" has two -- I'm sure it also exists to give the staff an extra boost of comaraderie. Either way, we must come up with a language entirely our own for our kitchen. Something with both function and flair. Maybe we'd associate each dish with a Chicago icon? For example: "Gimme a Green Line, no Elia!" would mean "I'd like an order of the Milanese Asparagus, hold the salt, please."
posted by Sandor Weisz at 1:32 PM | Comment?
Thursday, May 02, 2002
Here's an amusing tale on communal dining. I'm still hooked on the concept. (Via JP)
posted by Luke at 7:10 AM | Comment?
Wednesday, May 01, 2002
Swanville, Minn., is a small town that found itself without a restaurant and thus without a central location to shoot the breeze over coffee. The townsfolk quite understandably found this intolerable, so 67 chipped in $5,000 each to create Granny's Cafe, a co-op restaurant.
I've mentioned the notion of collective ownership before. How long do you suppose it will be before we have 65 friends willing to drop five big? Perhaps we need to start making friends who are more well-heeled.
(Confidential to current, average-heeled friends: I'm just kidding.)
(Confidential to wealthy readers: I'm dead serious about this. Let's be friends!)
posted by Luke at 6:28 AM | 1 comment
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