Eddie’s food grievances: restaurant deal-breakers (that I’m almost craving now)
Adeline (nickname: Eddie) loves food, a lot and often, both at home and out. Usually, that goes well, but sometimes it doesn’t. In the series Eddie’s food grievances you’ll read about the latter. This time: the gigantic restaurant deal-breakers.
I have to go through these offenses with you, so that later we’ll still remember that they really did exist. Because we’re romanticizing the whole thing. Like that squatting waiter who sticks his head way too chummily above your table, as if he himself is being served. That far too filthy yellow cloth, for which you have to lift your elbows off the table and which makes you never want to touch the table again. Or preferably flee from it at a run. It existed—what am I saying? It still all exists. And when we’re allowed to go out again, it will pounce on you without you noticing. I present the compilation, so that we never forget what things can be like in the restaurant industry.
A wine glass that smells like stale beer
Because they run it through the same stagnant water that has already been sitting in the tub for a day. And isn’t being replaced. Ugh.
The horror yellow cloth
Which has probably been stinking behind the bar for five days and is quickly run under the tap just before being used to clean your terrace table. You may think it’s not that bad. I once worked behind a bar, believe me: it is that bad.
Cutlery caked with the leftovers of your predecessors
Stuffed so jauntily between the pronged fingers of your fork. Or discovering after ten minutes of cutting that there was a remnant on the other side of the knife. The side you couldn’t see. Okay, washbasin.
Staff who are busier with themselves and each other than with the guests
I find this phenomenon blood-boilingly irritating and call me biased, but I think it’s a very Amsterdam affliction.
Charging for tap water
This remains the stingiest move in the restaurant industry ever. Of course you want people to drink booze instead of filling little glasses with tap water all evening, but this isn’t the way. And if you get a table like that once in a while, it says more about them than about you. Be proud and give it away by the litre.
Having to sit by the toilets
This table should be banned anyway, because it’s pretty shitty. With a bit of bad luck, the toilet freshener wafts across your plate when the door slams shut. This is, incidentally, the only table where you have carte blanche to bitch.
Ordering Coke and getting Pepsi
And people who say they’re the same are out of their minds. At least announce that you don’t have any Coca-Cola in stock, but will be serving Pepsi. This applies to every ingredient that gets replaced with something else. The guest orders something and pays for it, so woe betide you if you secretly start swapping things out.
Finding unsolicited bread on the bill
Finally, the sneakiest of our irritations. You get bread, eat it, and then suddenly have to pay four euros fifty for those three pieces. Because: you ate it, so you wanted it, so you have to pay for it. Get lost with your bread.
It’s official: we are the restaurant guest from hell. But God, I’m dying to go out.
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