GG said she would be unable to post today. I don't know if anybody traded with her, so I'll put up a provisional post to get discussions started, since lunch is quickly approaching on the East Coast.
With yesterday's celebration of OWFLs favorite server, it brings us back to the question of service quality.
Does that plain burger taste better when your Hooter's waitress winks at you?
Is that wonderful steak less great if the waiter is a jerk?
How does the service at your lunch joint impact the quality of your lunch?
We've probably discussed this before, but I just thought it would be appropriate after yesterday's celebration.
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45 comments:
I think there's a subtle distinction here between the quality of my lunch and the quality of my lunching experience. While they are certainly related, they are not fundamentally tied together.
A shitty burger is a shitty burger even if it's delivered to me by a cheekily suggestive Emma Thompson. A fantastic chicken breast is still a fantastic chicken breast even if it's delivered to my by a nasal-verbally abusive, naked Roseanne Barr.
It can enhance or it can detract, but it cannot change the quality of my lunch.
Woah, no comments yet? Well, let me be the first. Yes, service can affect eating. If I get truly awful service, I'll be so pissed off all I can taste is bile. In Vegas once my friends & I were trying to grab a quick bite before going to see Mamma Mia & our waiter was such a dick. He wasn't even just incompetent, which would have been one thing, but he was like laughing about his incompetence, and not in a self-depracating way, but more of a "wow, sucks for you having a shitty server like me. ha ha!" kind of way. And even after we complained, he still sucked. At least they'll usually comp you something or be extra-attentive, but he was almost shittier than before. So moral of the story: never ever go to 'Bleu Blanc Rouge' ('Rouge Bleu Blanc'? I forget what order the colors are in) in Manadalay Bay.
EQ, your "hot chick" is 50 year old Emma Thompson? Ooooookaaaayyy.
But i'm still with you. The service does not affect the quality of the food, unless its so bad its gotten cold or worse.
But the dining experience is enhanced by good service.
I went to Woolaeoak this weekend, Korean BBQ. Very good food, but also incredible service. Made me feel better about the big bill size.
Totally played, lt. I totally got in before you.
Earthquake - 1
LizTurtle - 0
For lunch today, I'll be picking something up from a drive-thru somewhere between here and Harrisburg, PA.
Dinner with one of my favorite people in the world tonight at a joint m recommended yesterday.
And, yes, dog, I unabashedly stand up and quasi-anonymously proclaim that I would walk to the ends of the earth to make out with Emma Thompson.
Actually, yeah. I've thought about it some more & I think bad service can make a good meal shitty, but no amount of obsequious service can make a shitty meal good.
In college once we ordered a veggie pizza (b/c it's so healthy - pan crust! Mmm!) with olives only on half. They put the olives on the middle half.
Jo, you will be happy to know I have an appointment with a Dish network guy Saturday morning.
A delicious steak served by a horrible human being is still a delicious steak.
A shitty steak served by Helen Mirren is still a shitty steak but I would use that fact to get in good with Helen.
When it comes to older English broads, Emma aint got shit on Helen.
Your Czar is having a bad cigarette hangover. No more smokes for a week or three.
Kudos to our fave bartender Bob for taking good care of us at an overpriced HH location that shant be returned to anytime soon(despite the good service of our bartender Rose). The stronger of our assembled lot continued on to Panache for more drinks, apps and limoncello shots. The strongest of us continued even further into NE and had a very animated bartender regale us with tales of racism and killer whales. Good times.
I got home after our extended Bob celebration and had the five guys burger bought for me by the missus. I stuck it in the microwave for 45 seconds and it was perfect. on the side I made a small tomato & onion salad in chunky bleu cheese dressing. The meal and I watched the end of Iron Chef America: Battle Chickpea and the first 25 minutes of Nip/Tuck before retiring for the night.
My first choice for lunch is the old braunschweiger & salami but that may change.
Stay tuned.
WAY TO GO LT!!!!
Need I remind you that no cable/satellite system is complete without DVR or Tivo?
Message from lachoi:
i would've posted but my bastard office network is acting strange. i like foods when they are served to me by a loved one or if i serve them to myself b/c it's guaranteed to be very tasty. [INSERT EGO HERE] last night, i geniously concocted a quick pasta sauce with tomatoes, garlic, portobello mushrooms, button mushrooms, prosciutto, butter, olive oil, herbs & spices. ate that again for lunch. i will not post again today. fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
are peep and miso, sorry, "peeso", going to ever defend their treatment of dipso?
Wow. Josephus. Good showing last night. I am very impressed with both the longevity and variety of your celebration of Bob.
Jo, I'm ten kinds of strung out on the dvr. Comcast got me hooked & they got me good. So yes, duh, I will be getting dvr. On both tvs!! Huzzah! So now I can dvr 4 programs at once!!!!! Mwwwwaaaaaaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!! I may never leave my house.
Lunch is the other half of that Havana burrito from yesterday, rolled on the thighs of virgins or something. I guess that's what makes it a real Cubano.
oh man, dipso is not gonna be pleased...
I bet they were hanging out with horsecock all weekend.
It's what you didn't do to Dipso.
Bob's a gem. He's the best server in the world. And I can't believe we were out that late . . . although since I was close to falling asleep at the bar . . . . Plus I had a power outage at my house & all the clocks were flashing this morning, so I had double whammy for not getting to work until like 10:45. And I am still tired. Yawn.
I mean, Hi Miso! Yer sweet kid, too!
ANYWAY, I coincidentally got lunch at the Gourmet Pantry, which, as Jo could testify, merits patronage based upon their attitude and service as much as their food. And they're anti-penny.
Chicken noodle soup and turkey pastrami and swiss on rye.
Annnnnd, I just opened my sandwich and it's regular pastrami, not turkey.
(This is not a problem.)
Stop miso, what's that sound?
Why, it's the sound of Josephus instigating.
at a full day department meeting and just got a couple minute reprieve.. ugh.. i hate meetings... in this one we had to sing our company's fight song which was the picture of a prime time sitcom... god i'll be releaved when i find out that i am the truman show.
going to "Charlie Brown's" for lunch and although i am not sure exactly what kinda place it is i hear they "have a wicked salad bar" and expect to be seeped in depression
M, you work for a place that has a fight song? What the hell do you do?
I mean if you work for a school, or competetive athletic team that's fine. But like are you saying "Go Microsoft, Beat Apple!" Or "Fight on Pepsi, Fight on Pepsi, Fight on for your right. Take a sip around the end zone, show you're in in the fight! P E P S I... aaaaawwwwwww Yeah!"
I hope you get nerd pay, {a form of hazzard pay} for having to sing.
For lunch was market to market. Talapia with Cushed (I still think they mean Crushed) Mango, some green stuff, california-type roll, spring roll, stuffing with gravy
watchdog they indeed did mean "cushed" mango. It's from the "Cushed" region of Eastern Morocco. Best mangoes around.
miso, no offense but you're no t-rex. I would swat you down with my deformed right ear. And I would make peep watch as I eared you up and down the street.
That sounded hotter than I intended. Remember the old days when we would all threaten to "dry gulch" eachother?
sigh.
As a former waiter, I think the tip should come first. Because T.I.P. is an acronym for "To Insure Prompt Service", or so i've read...
That way I would have known which customers to provide courteous and prompt service to, and which customers I should have put a little something extra in their special sauce
Lunch was the bagel I didn't eat at Brekkie. I am researching DC building codes, and it is pretty interesting...not. But it is the perfect cover for my other non work activities. And I am too wiped out from swimming last night to get put of my chair.
"These days."
On the topic, I remember the restaurant in E.L. that had perhaps the world's worst service, but the food was awesome.
Location: Bilbo's
Staff rules: No more than five (5) facial piercings.
I once sat there for 20 minutes without any service, scanning the restaurant for ANYONE who could bring me a beer and a menu. I finally flagged down a passing waitress (who only had 3 facial piercings), and asked her if I could get some help.
She immediately got real pissy and said "First of all, I'm not your waitress." There was no "second of all" however, as she quickly turned and stomped off. I think we waited another 20 minutes and then left.
The bartender guy would make you wait even if he wasn't helping anybody and just standing there. He'd just silently hold up a finger in a "one-minute" gesture and continue to silently stand there. asshole
That place went out of business and is now a trendy martini bar.
See what happens you dirty hippies? Your shit closes down and is replace by something that stands against everything you believe in...
I "loved" Bilbo's. "Loved" it in the sense that I loved that it was there. I rarely ate there and always got the same thing when I did go, hobbit sticks with both sauces. Usually I'd go to see the latest freak, (freak as in several facial piercings, not in the hotlanta varnacular as a term for any female) my friend...I'll call him "trainwreck" was dating. My favorite of these frek waitresses was the one who broke into his house after she got off work around 4 am (he lived with his grandparents) and and sat in his bedroom wearing her Bilbo's gear just to watch him sleep.
Yes Jo, the hobbit sticks were probably their best item. The food was great, and they had super Long Island Ice Teas for $5 that was the most bang for your buck in E.L.
If not for those 2 things it would have gone out of business long before.
In some ways the really bad service made the food even better, because if you were able to tough it out and actually get served, it felt like a great accomplishment and the hobbit sticks tasted like victory.
Peep, who was the El Az employee? Perhaps someone with many facial piercings?
What's a hobbit stick? It sounds porny.
peep I know I'm not the only one on here whose first thought after hearing that guy's description was "Is he single?"
I went with the turkey club instead of the braun & salami.
Hooray! Blogger is finally allowing me to comment!
First - WTF is a hobbit stick?
Second - for some reason, I want Panera today. I think b/c a friend of mine keeps talking about it, and despite his use of phrases like "not worth it" and "overrated" and "don't drive all the way out to the suburbs for that" and my only having eaten in a Panera once or twice in my life, I want it.
Third - On the other hand, I'm contemplating trying out the Qdoba on E St., then hitting H&M, then the gym (or all of that, in a different order)
Fourth - I have an extremely high tolerance for bad service. You don't know bad service until you've lived in Eastern Europe and attempted to procure food there. One restaurant in particular, in Budapest, called Fatal (there's an accent dohickey over the second a, and it means "wooden dish" in Hungarian) particularly sticks out. I once waited an hour for a menu. And when I got it, it was thrown at me. I was, on another occasion, seated at another group's table, because, "You all speak English." But, the food was fantastic. The Meat Platter was amazing. It was a heaping pile of fried, roasted, and otherwise prepared meats, of all sorts.
Now I'm craving a meat platter...
Yes peep, I know exactly who you're talking about
Eavcuation of the club sandwich to begin in T minus 75 seconds...
I think somebody just got fried chicken. It smells sooooooooooo goooooooood. Except I don't know where you would get fried chicken around here, since Wendy's don't do that no more.
Man, I just got paid $18.75 to decorate the Brookings Christmas tree. It is in the cafeteria, so I got a sammie and put on the whole seed mustard and it was delectible. mmmmm whole stone ground mustard.
You decorated the tree with mustard?
I wish. I decorated my sesame roll with mustard. I used donated holiday decorations for the tree.
SOme guy, who might nave been in the navy at one time, donated a hand made ornament which was a submarine with a wreath around the conning tower. The Con tower broke off and so did the wreath, so the submarine looks like a huge bomb. Very fitting in this time of both holiday cheer and war.
LT, I laughed. Though, I feel that this might be not dissimilar to my "Librarian" comment last night...
Why is our humor so underappreciated?
Ha! That was great! We are so esoteric.
So Sunshine, after putting that decoration on the tree, did you scream "BOMB!" and run away? B/c that would have been awesome.
Hey, didn't you say this is a pretty liberal place you're working? Why are they having a Christmas tree? Do they have a menorah, too? Hmm, I'm a little offended.
Yes liberal. Yes Minorah. I think it comes out tomorrow. I don't think there are any decorations I have to put on it though.
Oooh, for my rosemary tree in my kitchen I have some make-it-yourself ornaments. I made snowmen, martinis, wreaths, and one with stars of david. You should go to Target & buy the kit ($2.50) & make all of them with stars of david. Nothings Christmas's up a menorah like a bunch of Christmas tree decorations decorated with a star of david!
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