Restaurants that can’t synchronize orders and instead bring different orders out at different times to diners in the same party.
We dined at an (East!!) Indian restaurant tonight. My son’s tandoori shrimp arrived a full 10 minutes before the other three dishes ordered by mom, dad, and brother.
Maybe I’m expecting too much from average restaurants and synchronized plating occurs only at $$$ establishments.
I think it may depend on the level of dining you expect. One of our favorite Sichuan places in town is a total hole-in-the-wall, but the food is great. When I gather my chili heads for a family style meal & order the dishes, stuff comes out when it’s ready. We don’t mind.
This.
Perhaps the restaurant assumed that the tandoori shrimp was meant to be shared by everyone, which is not uncommon in Indian cuisines.
The place might just as (un)reasonably presumed any of the individual orders was for takeaway for after the meal. Or that the patron who looked hungriest should be served immdiately, so their second order would arrive with the rest. The plates should all arrive as close together as possible.
This is just rank speculation. Only the poster was there, and I agree with him. It’s a bigger deal at the table than you may appreciate.
If something ordered , e.g., lasagna, requires more time to fire, the server should address that up-front, and ask about waiting for simultaneous service.
In Chinese restaurants (around here, anyway) it is common for everyone to share all the dishes, so bringing them out as they’re ready makes perfect sense. (That’s assuming they’re served family style, where everyone gets a empty plate to serve themselves from the serving dishes.)
(Not everyone eats this way. When we went out with older family members a couple of decades ago, I asked how many dishes we should order, and they were confused: “Everyone will order their own dish, right?”)
Funny how the dog is watching him, concerned.
I can’t figure out why he blames the anchovies for the oiliness, though. Sure, they are considered a fatty fish, but by weight the mozz has 2x more on a par weight basis, and by ratio of the 2 ingredients on the pizza, a lot more oil.
I’m US-based. My coworkers who were from India or of Indian descent tended to refer to themselves and their fellows as “Indian-Americans” and (the few times it came up) to US native people “American Indians” or “Native Americans”. That is at least fairly clear. Never heard any of them use the word Desi and didn’t even know about it until one poster on CH kept referring to “my Desi friends” so I had to look it up. Maybe it’s a younger gen thing.
One guy, Manivakkam, [edit - on reread I see this is clear as mud, but I’m referring here to another old coworker] habitually said “Indian-dot-not-feather”, and the first time I heard it, I couldn’t figure out what he meant (it didn’t help that he was an incredibly fast talker, almost like a country auctioneer). I always felt that usage might be vaguely disrespectful to both groups, though. At least, if I as a white guy would say that.
The Native Americans I know always just say they’re Indians rather than NA, and without any modifiers, unless they were specifying tribe, too.
The QR code/no hard copy of the menu thing irritates the heck out of me.
I’m with you on that one. Not just restaurants, but even one of my favorite radio stations went “All Christmas Music All The Time” at the beginning of November. Years past, they only did that after T-day.
I don’t mind it much if I’m in a store shopping for Christmas gifts, but still not a huge fan. But especially annoying in restaurants.
Some of us have dumb phones, and often the entire party is dumb phoned.
Pretty short, 2 mins, but funny. I was stationed in Indianapolis (where “Bob & Tom” originated) when this came out, I guess ~ 35 years ago. The guest comedian is Randy Lubas - he worked in a store (not restaurant, in this case) where he had to hear “12 Days” multiple times a day. Evelyn (@eleeper) might also enjoy.
“I HOPE this man’s got a newspaper subscription - cause that’s 184 birds!”
Some of the sattellite stations music played in restaurants can be annoying to the extent of distraction, especially when a conversation cannot be carried on at the table. That’s when diners must turn to their phones to converse.
I get take-out from places like that.
Last night, I picked up take-out from a fine dining restaurant at the beginning of service.
I love when servers offer to order and bring out the kid’s meal before anyone else’s. They eat slower and are hard to keep entertained.
Is it kid friendly or should I screen first?
That made me think of juke boxes! And not even the ones in the booths at diners - when I was little my parents would take me to a local dimly lit restaurant/lounge with a big jukebox in the corner. Of course I had to go and peruse every song. Not necessarily play them - just see what was there. The restaurant was called Spaulding’s.
That hasn’t been my experience (my kids and the grandies eat at break neck speed) but I am glad to see that servers recognize that!
Can I join? Please?
Nope. Their menu is styled in a per person entree system. Plus, we clearly specified which dish was for which patron at the time of ordering in part based on eating restrictions.
This reminds me of another peeve:
Restaurants that have no clue who within a party ordered what when they bring out dishes. The waitstaff delivering food is often not the server who took the order and sometimes even if it is, they’ve forgotten who ordered each dish.
This is particularly annoying in groups of 8 or larger because the whole group has to hush up their joyous conversation to figure out who ordered the spicy saag paneer and who ordered the mild version, etc.
I totally agree that this is the norm when ordering Chinese food family style, and I am accustomed to things coming out in random order as they’re prepared.
But I still think it’s really unfortunate that they serve this way. The reason is the garlic string beans or gai lan often come out first, sometimes before they’ve even served steamed rice. What to do? Finish the vegetable side dishes with rice and then get the proteins as they come out one by one? I like to start my Chinese meal with several items on my plate next to one another so I can eat a bite of this, then a bite of that, and so on in parallel, rather than eating them in series.
