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 Seemann at 9:46 AM | 8 comments
 

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 3:51 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 4:10 PM | 5 comments
 

[ HOME ] [ ARCHIVES ] [ ABOUT ] [ CONTACT ] [ DONATE ]

YANIs: The Nibbler, The Onomastic Sobriquet, Jawbone, Eureka!, The Redwood Racer, The Dangerous Kitchen, Edible Complex, Mabinogion, Neo-Cafetorium, Forty-two, Capital F, Dessert Caravan, Candor, Hot and Steamy, The Imperial LeBaron, Rochambeau, Infinite Jest, Cleaver, The Hot Seat, Cataplexy, Crackpot. YACMIs: Critical Mass, Anti-Valentine's Day, Dessert give-a-ways, Newspaper menus, The Mission, Food feud, T-shirts, Rain checks, Visible kitchen, Complimentary patches, RRReport, Word-of-mouth cards, Inevitable leftovers, Golden dollars, Weekly newsletter, Marketing scarcity, Wall Of Taste, Missed Connections, Promoting cleverness. YAPLs: Byron & Lincoln, The tied house on Division, The tied house. YAMIs: Lava-cooked game hen, Soup & salad, Edible silverware, Fun and danger, Mothers' recipes, Your Dinner With Andre, What She's Having, Ikezukuri veggies. YAPPs: "... to perfection".

« chicago blogs »