Re: (ATTN) The Harlow tart


"Dat" <dat_004@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:na7mo15lk03gfvgdkeum2h68c71dfot6gn@xxxxxxxxxx
> On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 22:02:08 GMT, "Joe Horowitz"
> <joeunderscorehorowitz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >That's fair enough, but I hope you don't think I meant 'anyone who
doesn't
> >like it rare'.
>
> I'm not so sure I was thinking much at all. The combination of "He
> also told me how to do steak how he liked it" and the undercooking bit
> sent me off on one. Sorry.

Yeah, I used the words very carefully though in an attempt to _not_ make it
sound like there was a right or wrong way. Looks like I cocked it up, but
in essence that's why I put the 'how he liked it' bit at the end, and not
just 'right' or 'properly'. Then added at the end that it tasted good to
me, which was supposed to be shorthand for 'turned out to be how I liked it
as well!11!happycoincidence!11'.

I'll use more words this time, I seem to work best when waffling like a
twat....

> Er, not in my experience. To be fair I think there's a big problem
> with different people's interpretation of the grades. Obviously for a
> chef who is loath to incinerate a perfectly good piece of meat, well
> done means another millisecond more than normal on the flame. Either
> that or they decide the customer has faulty tastebuds and won't notice
> if he leaves it till it is almost a small mound of soot while he does
> other more important things for other more important people.

I dunno, I really don't think that many chefs would be that bothered how the
*** people like their stakes actually. The more I think about it, the more
I think most chefs I've worked with would want people to say 'hey, that
chef, he does a fantastic steak he does. Well, medium or rare, it's always
quality'. It just sounds like you're going to places where the chefs aren't
very good at steaks.

My salmon analogy wasn't entirely applicable, looking back, as most
restaurants don't offer salmon 'well, medium or rare'. Whether or not they
should is a different matter, but the fact remains that the chef's brief
will be to cook it a certain way. Steak is offered in three ways, or even
five or more if it's a halfway self-respecting steakhouse, so why the hell
any chef should care how it's asked for is beyond me.

> I think perhaps that it is the lack of a standard, pretty much the
> same as with curries, which is the root of the problem. Until you've
> been to a place a couple of times you're hoping like hell that their
> medium hot is similar to that other place you like, and not barely
> discernable or liable to cause immediate blistering to your tender
> bits.

AWTWP.

> Out of pure boredom I guess, he attempted to argue that graphic
> equalisers were a waste of time. According to him the artists go to
> great lengths to locate an engineer who can obtain the specific sound
> they want. Who then, were we mere mortals to *** with the work of
> geniuses?

Heh. My Stepdad is a right *** for this one as well, it annoys him that
many turn the bass and treble up on recordings where skilled engineers and
insightful producers had put great work into getting them _just so_.

> Pointing out that everyone doesn't hear things exactly the same, that
> the equipment we were listening to was no doubt quite different to
> that upon which they'd had the pleasure of listening to it upon, and
> that some of my tapes may have been fourth generation copies and
> required a bit of a boost fell upon deaf ears.

Yep, that's the standpoint I take as well. I guess it just comes down to
why people are doing what they are doing, and what they hope to give and
receive from it. Some make music/food/whatever else because they want to
give something good to the world and maybe get some money and recognition in
return, others are so caught up in the artistic significance of it all they
forget it's supposed to be for someone else at the end of the line.

> >Of course, they might be doing the best they can, but just not be very
good
> >at cooking well-done steak.
>
> Yeah, in which case they should probably admit it and suggest that I
> might like to try the orangey pork chops instead, which coincidentally
> they don't seem to have much trouble with.

They might not know they're not very good at cooking well-done steak, or be
doing it how they like it themselves without realising it's not how others
like it.

> Yup, that's probably what I should do. Unfortunately, like most people
> I believe, I'm not one to complain. I hate the thought of someone
> getting into trouble because of anything I might have done, and get
> most embarrassed when someone else at the table decides to have a bit
> of a whinge.

People don't get in trouble because of complaints, unless they do something
completely out of order. If you gave your staff a bollocking every time
someone had something bad to say about them you wouldn't have any staff
worth speaking of before long.

I once had a customer come to the bar and asks for their fish back, the fish
they'd bought on the way to the bar at the fishmongers, and which one of our
staff had apparently been helpful enough to store for them in the cafe
fridge where we keep all the milk and cream and chocolate flakes and the
suchlike for our coffees, while they sat and ate their food. Having gone to
said fridge and verified that there was indeed a fucking great lump of raw
turbot in there, cling-filmed mind and in a bag but still a fishcut at the
end of the day, I retrieved the bag and handed it back to the customer with
a cheerful 'there you go!'. Then, I asked as unsuspisciously as I could, if
they could remember which member of staff they gave it to, and they were
just about to casually tell me before a look of doubt crossed their face and
they said "hang on, they're not going to get in trouble are they?". Now, I
wasn't about to lie and tell the customer they'd get a pat on the back and a
free drink for good service, so I just laughed and said 'no, of course not,
especially not for such a well-intentioned act, it's just because of food
hygiene and the suchlike we shouldn't really have done that, and it's better
I make sure that they know that there is actually a bit of an issue with
storing raw fish from an unknown source with our dairy produce. They won't
get told off, though, that would be just daft".

In the end, the customer, who was actually a rather lovely chap (and is now
a regular, although he doesn't ask us to store raw fish for him anymore),
wouldn't tell me, we had quite a laugh and a joke about it but he wasn't
going to give me a description or point to them because he just couldn't
live with himself if he got someone in trouble for helping him, and nothing
I said would re-assure him that this wouldn't be the case.

In an ideal world I could have just had a quiet chat with the staff member
in question and probably a bit of a laugh and a joke with them about it as
well, while getting my point across and educating them a little on the
basics of food hygiene and H&S legislation, as it was I just had to mention
it on the next newsletter (I try to do one every week, you can probably
imagine my style) and hope they didn't feel too stupid when they read it.

> For a start most people find it difficult to ask for
> something to be altered without sounding like complete cunts, and try
> as I might to form a nice way of putting it in my head on the
> occasions I have considered complaining, it always leaves the
> impression of lying on the ground motioning for the ref to bring out a
> card.

You'd be surprised. If you're making any sort of effort at all not to be a
*** or to make people feel bad or take something out on them, I reckon most
places would really appreciate your standpoint and try their best to make
things right. Maybe I've been extremely lucky over the years, but that's
been my experience of complaining.

Last time I ate out I complained, in fact. It was when I went for pizza at
ZeroDegrees with Ben, and the waiter asked at the end (as pretty much any
waiter does) if everything was okay. I said it was all fine, except I
couldn't really taste the dressing on the salad and I like quite a nice
strong dressingy tang on my salads. The waiter explained that they had put
more on in the past, but that got complaints as well and it was easier to
add some more on request, obviously, than to throw the salad away and make a
new one with less, but if I came again and asked for some extra dressing on
the salad that wouldn't be a problem at all. Which was entirely, utterly
reasonable, and the whole conversation was conducted in an amicable and not
at all unpleasant fashion. I'm happy to 'complain' in this manner if I
think they're genuinely interested.

I don't, however, do this because I want to help them, it's because
everything else was good and I'd like to know that I could go back another
time and have it be even better.

Ben, for the record, said it was all fine as well, although in all
likelihood there was probably far more he found unsatisfactory about it than
I did.

> I rather just play on and not add to an already unsatisfactory
> experience. I'm the sort who pays the bill and never returns. Mostly
> due to the above, but also because I don't feel that it is my
> responsibility to be part of the staff training process, nor to
> voluntarily assist with quality assurance, and wrong though I may be,
> I rarely feel any obligation to contribute to the ongoing success of
> any kind of establishment that has done such a crap job of trying to
> meet my needs, if in fact that's what they were attempting to do. I
> make a note of dinning establishments that have pleased me and visit
> another of the dozens of others should I feel like a change.

Yeah, all of that is absolutely fair enough, and I certainly don't think it
is a customer's responsibility to contribute anything towards staff training
or quality control. It just makes things a lot easier when they do, which
of course from my point of view in my work-time is a good thing. However,
at the end of the day your own objectives are to get some food how you like
it, to have your needs met, and if the next place you try does that then
you've made a good judgement call and saved yourself some stress. If it
doesn't, though, and the one after doesn't, and neither does the one after
that, and so on, then that's whole load of time and money and walking wasted
that could have been saved with just a few words in someone's shell-like in
the first joint.

> Also, if plates containing barely touched food are being cleared from
> tables I expect that someone is going to take note. If it was only
> mine then perhaps I'm just a fussy *** or I just got unlucky. If
> it's occurring regularly though, I'd expect someone to be having a
> little word with someone.

Yes, that is indeed a good indication and one everywhere should use, partly
to ensure turnover and regular custom by making sure they're cooking food
people seem to like eating, and also to make sure they're not
over-portioning as well. If no-one ever eats all their chips, you're
probably putting too much chips on the plate. If no-one ever eats more than
half their steak, though, then the steak is probably ***.

Trouble is, and it comes back to the standards thing, are you confident that
most others who go to these places are having this problem, or is it
possible you just like it done differently to the majority of their
customers? Are all the tables around you being cleared with barely-eaten
steaks on them? Or do the other mindless standardless cunts there just seem
to be happily accepting whatever dross is put in front of them?

> As you say, the gulf between waiting
> staff/general hands and the foul mouthed fascist (well, that's what
> they're like on tv) heating stuff up may cause feedback to be less
> than forthcoming. That's not my problem.

Of course it's not. You got your great steak, everything is rosy from your
point of view isn't it.

Err.... disregard. I've just remembered that you didn't and it isn't.
Perhaps it has become your problem slightly after all. Gordon Ramsey has a
lot to answer for.

> Exactly. Customers aren't always right...perhaps that should be rarely
> right. They do pay the bills though and in most industries it pays to
> keep as many as possible happy.

Well, AWTWP of course. As a customer, though, which is what you are, and
what we all are in a million different ways, it often also pays to let
people know when and how they're not meeting your needs. I'm on both sides
of this debate, don't forget, I may work in a bar and not go to many myself,
but I do use a myriad of other services and I'm more than ready to
'complain' if I genuinely think it might improve my life in the long run.

As they say, though, you catch more flies with honey, I try to be nice to
cunts and always bear in mind that the particular cunt I'm talking to might
not personally be responsible for where things have gone wrong for me (in
fact, they very rarely are), and I tend to get favourable results more often
than not.

Yay! I win!11!

Do you?


--
Joe

(Poleson for manager)


.