My Restaurant Pet Peeves - Part 4

Wow! I’m surprising myself with how many restaurant pet peeves I actually have – who knew? Anyway, welcome to the fourth installment of my restaurant pet peeves blog series. This post is about my food-related pet peeves – from what cooks do in the kitchen that irritate me to what happens in the dining room when the food is served. Let the rant continue!

In the end, it’s all about the food, right? Well, not so fast. An enjoyable dining out experience includes not only the quality of the food, but also other important factors like the ambiance of the restaurant; the food, wine, and cocktail options offered; as well as the quality of the service from start to finish. But after all is said and done, you go to a restaurant to eat food, and hopefully fresh, high quality, nicely presented food that tastes great. Which brings me to my next set of restaurant pet peeves – the food that’s served, and how it’s presented.

• Food that’s not cooked as requested. My expectation is that the food I order will be cooked properly, and consistent with any requests I make. It’s amazing how often I order steak, or fish or seafood that’s not cooked as requested. My preference for fish is to have it cooked medium to medium well, while my temperature preference for steak is medium rare to medium – pink throughout. Frequently, the fish I order is cooked well-done and dry, while the steak I order is cooked medium well or alternatively, barely cooked and rare. This really shouldn’t be a difficult thing for a competent chef to do. In fact, I have had to return steaks to the kitchen so often for being served at the wrong temperature that I now ask, as a matter of course, for the server to describe what temperature and color medium rare and medium steaks are cooked by the kitchen staff and then order accordingly. I KNOW this isn’t that difficult because even I can consistently cook a steak to the right temperature. Also, high end restaurants almost always get fish, seafood, and steaks right the first time, proof that it IS possible if the kitchen staff pay attention to the details. This pet peeve also includes other dishes that aren’t served at the proper temperature, like side dishes served lukewarm when they should be piping hot.

  
  

• Over sauced dishes and overdressed salads. Many restaurants I’ve been to consistently over sauce or over dress their dishes. In most cases, using a light touch with sauces is highly preferably to having the dish doused in sauce which can serve to mask other problems with the dish, like improperly cooked pasta or dry protein. But the worst is when chefs overdress salads – I abhor being served a salad that’s swimming in dressing with limp lettuce and soggy croutons. More often than not, I now ask for the dressing on the side so I can control the amount that ends up on my salad.

  
  

• Restaurants/chefs that don’t accommodate special requests. I have to confess that this rarely happens, but when it does, I get really annoyed. I have been at restaurants that frown on substitutions and make you feel guilty for requesting them. And in a few cases, I have requested a change to a dish based on a particular dislike of mine, only to be told after checking with the kitchen that the chef won’t accommodate the request, without any reason given. I get it when a dish is premade and they can’t, for example, remove the olives or something like that. But my expectation is that the kitchen should accommodate special requests if they are reasonable and don’t require additional time or trouble. And the best restaurants are the ones that go overboard to make sure the customer gets what they want.

  
  

• An odd number of items in appetizers or small plates for sharing. This might sound weird, but have you ever noticed how many times an appetizer or small plate has an odd number of items on the plate? It happens to us frequently at small plate/tapas restaurants, but also with traditional appetizers. We recently tried a new Italian restaurant in downtown Sarasota with friends and ordered a couple of appetizers – arancini and bruschetta – and both came with three instead of four items on the plate. Given that almost all dining parties have an even number of guests, this makes little sense to me. I now routinely ask how many come in a serving and ask them to adjust to accommodate the number of diners (and of course, expect them to upcharge me accordingly).

  
  

• No salt or pepper on the table. I also find it annoying when I have to ask for salt and pepper – restaurants should always just have both on the table when you arrive. I know higher end restaurants do this because the chef knows how to season dishes properly and would be offended if someone dared to add salt or pepper to their perfectly seasoned dish, but I find that approach really pretentious. Everyone’s tastes and sensitivity to salt and other seasoning are different – let the guest decide without having to request a “special accommodation”!

  
  

• Having to pay for bread service. I know this last one is pretty trivial, but it still irks me. Have you noticed that more and more restaurants no longer offer gratis bread service at the beginning of the meal and instead, charge you for it? I’m not sure I can really defend my position that bread service should always be complementary, but restaurants have survived for decades providing customers with free bread – why the change now?! Even though I get that restaurants don’t owe us this, it’s still a pet peeve of mine when they don’t provide it! Recently, Laurie and I went to a special occasion restaurant that set us back around $400 or so for drinks and dinner after tax and tip - part of that $400 was an $8 charge for a breadbasket. I'm thinking they probably won't go out of business by comping the bread next time!

  
  

In the next and final installment in this series, I’ll focus on restaurant policies and practices that irritate me.