By gosh, you're right! I DID order a drink!

Last night, my wife and I had dinner at a nice little strip mall Thai place called The King and I. It's a cute little place that's both clean and inexpensive. We eat there pretty regularly, and the food has always been excellent, as it was last night. However, the one complaint that I always have about this particular place, namely, the fact that they have a single waitress to cover about fifteen tables, which is woefully inadequate, was magnified by a serving error that seems to be becoming more common. Let me explain.

Anyone who has dined with me will have noted that I require a huge volume of liquid with meals. I don't know why. I just do. If you're a waitress, and you're serving me, count on refilling both my water glass and my chosen beverage at least four times. I realize that this is abnormal, and so I tip servers who keep my glasses full very well, and I cut the others some slack. Last night, however, I had a server, who was otherwise quite good, commit a couple of serving errors that I couldn't overlook.

When I was seated, the waitress brought out water glasses. I drained mine almost immediately. When I ordered my meal, an extremely tasty and generously portioned Pad Thai, I also ordered a glass of iced tea. Throughout the evening, I continued to empty my water glass, and the lone waitress did an admirable job in attempting to keep it filled while working all of the other tables in the joint. Sadly, she didn't seem to realize that she could halve the number of trips to our table had she actually brought my iced tea. I said nothing, as she was monstrously overworked, and I invariably had a mouthful of noodles when she flew by our table with a pitcher of water. I was bothered by the inattention to our order, but a missing drink wasn't the end of the world, nor was it very surprising as my wife had eschewed a drink all together.

What really bothered me, however, was the waitress' reaction to realizing her error when she brought the check. In my mind, the correct reaction would have been "I'm terribly sorry. I just realized that I forgot to bring your iced tea. Would you like me to bring it now? Of course, you haven't been charged for it." However, what I got was more like, "I'm sorry. I forgot your tea. everyone just sort of rushed in and I forgot. You should have said something to me. Why didn't you say anything?" This left me to mutter something like "It's no problem. Thanks." The problem in my mind, is that first, the waitress tried to pass blame for the error onto the other diners. This is inexcusable. As I've mentioned, this woman is overworked, but inadequate wait staff is neither my problem, nor the problem of the other patrons. Then, she focused the attention on my failure to note the missing drink. I'm not the one with the notepad, lady, and I'm not your quality control specialist, either. You forgot. I'm not mad. I'm not going to stiff you. If it had been a big deal, I would have said something, but ultimately, getting the order right is your responsibility. Accept it.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that this sort of thing seems to be becoming more common. That means I should probably provide another case. At another Des Moines restaurant recently, we had a severely unacceptable meal. Things were cooked improperly, orders were mishandled, etc. We were attempting to have a romantic, borderline upscale meal, and ordered drinks, appetizers, salads and entrees. Our waiter recommended a very nice beer (I don't remember what Sarah had, but she liked it) and brought the appetizer to us. It was excellent. Then, he brought our entrees. They were reprehensible, Mine was edible, but mediocre, and Sarah's fish was undercooked, tasted funny and had garnish piled on top of an area which had obviously never touched a grill. I ate mine. She didn't. The waiter came by and noticed that her meal was completely unacceptable, inspected it, and removed it from the bill, as it should have been. We declined desert, as we weren't willing to take this dining experience any further. The waiter left and returned with our check, but promptly left again without leaving it. A few minutes later he returned, apologized again, and left the check. I examined the check, and saw that the inedible entree had been removed as promised, as had the two salads that we had ordered but never received. No mention was ever made about the whereabouts of the salads. We paid and left, never to return.

So which is worse, passing the blame for a forgotten item, or acting as if it had never been ordered? I don't know, but I would offer this bit of advice to servers. If you realize mid-meal, or at the end of a meal that you've forgotten something, or that you've screwed something up, just accept responsibility. Diners realize that mistakes happen. When a mistake does happen, however, don't try to make it my fault. OK?

Welcome to my new Blog!

I've had a number of blogs before, and have given them up for one eason or another. In fact, I pretty much figured that I was done with blogs, homepages and the like. Recently, though, there have been several major changes in my life, so I've decided to give it another crack. I won't claim that this blog will be entertaining, informative, or useful, but it will serve as a place for me to vent about daily frustrations, discuss the myriad things that interest me, and shar a little bit of my life with the world. Enjoy!

-Earhorn