Somewhere along the line the average person decided “have it your way” applied not only to McDonalds, but to any culinary experience. I don’t know about you, but it wouldn’t even occur to me to ask for some of the things that folks ask us for at Ferry Plaza Seafood. The other side of the coin is that I have always approached food as an experience. I don’t approach it with the idea that I will eat out as I do at home. For example, I am one of those folks that put everything but the kitchen sink in my salad at home. When I go out, I don’t ask to have the same salad or to change a salad on the menu to mimic what I have at home because I am looking for something other than what I usually eat.
The other day, a woman came in and asked to taste our salad dressings. Seriously? Could you imagine asking a restaurant to taste their salad dressings? Usually if someone has difficulty finding dressing they like or don’t like they just say dressing on the side please. After all I already wrote about a woman who took out a bottle of her own salad dressing from her purse. I have since learned that Patti Labelle actually carries around her favorite hot sauce in her purse. Perhaps that’s not as unusual as I once thought. In any case they certainly don’t ask to have a salad dressing taste testing. Of course, we said sorry, we don’t do salad dressing tastings. So what happened? She left because we wouldn’t let her taste the salad dressing.
Last Saturday, a table of 4 came into the restaurant. 1 person ordered our Mussels, but the other 3 people all ordered our Crab Caesar Salad. This is the funny part: 1 wanted the crab on the side of the salad, 1 wanted the dressing on the side, 1 asked for light on the dressing. When you work in a restaurant in San Francisco, I believe that most people work in the restaurants they work in because they stand behind the food they serve. In our case, we are in the Ferry Building which is all about “good, sustainable food.” Why don’t people trust us to get our flavors and proportions right? Having said that, many people do trust us and love our food, but some people, I guess, have been scared in the past by bad food so they have developed a laundry list of “special requests.” To finish this little story, the one with the light dressing asked us for more dressing. Of course.
Beyond the “have it your way” bargaining for food seems to also come to our restaurant. A woman came in and ordered a Shrimp Louie Salad, but she wanted extra egg, extra cucumber extra tomato etc, but she didn’t want the shrimp on it. The server said that it would be $10.50, the same as a regular with Shrimp, since there were so many extras. The woman said how about $8.50 so the server said “excuse me?” The woman repeated herself. The server said, I’m sorry Miss, but it’s $10.50. She ended up ordering a regular shrimp salad, but simply giving her shrimp to her friend. Couldn't she have just done this from the get go?
At this point, I feel compelled to explain the world of substitutions to all of you who are not familiar with the inner workings of a restaurant. Anytime you have to substitute something, the server needs to “modify” the order on the computer and hand type in anything other than the most basic request like “dry” which is just a tap on the screen vs. “light dressing” which one has to type in separately. Once the order goes through, the “Expo” needs to make certain the special instruction isn’t missed by the line (folks in the kitchen) and finally when it comes out, the “Expo” needs to make certain that the one Crab Caesar with “light dressing” gets to your table and doesn’t go to another table because you can’t really tell it’s the one with “light dressing.” In the case of the extra’s on the salad in lieu of the shrimp, by the time all those steps are taken and the person on salads pulls all the “extras” it would have been easier to just make the standard shrimp salad.
Finally please all of you out there that order a seared Ahi Salad please please stop asking us to “cook it to medium.” It’s a seared, slim piece of fish it’s going to taste like cardboard on top of mixed greens. The intent of the salad is to have a fresh piece of seared fish “raw in the middle” so fresh that it barely needs much but perhaps a wee bit of salt. Trust us, we know what we are doing and we want you to love us for that!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Surfer's Wave
For many years people thought that only cheap wine had a screw top, but going green has hit the wine industry as well and many people don’t realize that we are seeing many many wines internationally and domestically coming to us with screw top caps.
Alas alack some of our customers unaware of this trend seem to have many preconceived ideas about this new trend.
Last Friday evening, a woman came in with what we determined was her son and daughter in law for dinner. They ordered a bottle of Bonny Doon Rose. When the bottled arrived at the table the Mother saw that the wine was screw top and from Santa Cruz. She seemed to believe that she would be sick if she drank the wine because it was screw top and that the only thing that happened in Santa Cruz was surfing and that no good wine could possibly come from there. So, she had a diet coke and refused to drink any wine.
Sometimes, folks come to our restaurant thinking they well, know more than we do about wine. Sometimes people do, but for the most part, we have a very good grasp on what we are selling. Last Saturday, someone insisted that our French Riesling should have bubbles. Now being open to a mistake, I did take time to double check to make certain one can't buy a Riesling with bubbles and in fact, no bubbles in Riesling everybody. Where our patron got that idea and then refused to accept our information that they don't have bubbles, I really don't know.
Finally, my favorite this week was..... "Excuse me, I'd like a Mimosa refill please." I guess they thought they were in a buffet....
Really everybody, trust us..., we want to make you happy. Maybe for April Fools Day, I should try to sell a made up bottle of some sort. I know, I will try to sell a screw top bottle of Riesling and call it our newest sparkling white from Santa Cruz, and call it Surfer's Wave. Nah, that's not nice!
Alas alack some of our customers unaware of this trend seem to have many preconceived ideas about this new trend.
Last Friday evening, a woman came in with what we determined was her son and daughter in law for dinner. They ordered a bottle of Bonny Doon Rose. When the bottled arrived at the table the Mother saw that the wine was screw top and from Santa Cruz. She seemed to believe that she would be sick if she drank the wine because it was screw top and that the only thing that happened in Santa Cruz was surfing and that no good wine could possibly come from there. So, she had a diet coke and refused to drink any wine.
Sometimes, folks come to our restaurant thinking they well, know more than we do about wine. Sometimes people do, but for the most part, we have a very good grasp on what we are selling. Last Saturday, someone insisted that our French Riesling should have bubbles. Now being open to a mistake, I did take time to double check to make certain one can't buy a Riesling with bubbles and in fact, no bubbles in Riesling everybody. Where our patron got that idea and then refused to accept our information that they don't have bubbles, I really don't know.
Finally, my favorite this week was..... "Excuse me, I'd like a Mimosa refill please." I guess they thought they were in a buffet....
Really everybody, trust us..., we want to make you happy. Maybe for April Fools Day, I should try to sell a made up bottle of some sort. I know, I will try to sell a screw top bottle of Riesling and call it our newest sparkling white from Santa Cruz, and call it Surfer's Wave. Nah, that's not nice!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
You Can’t Believe What We Have Seen Around Here
It’s been a while since my last entry, but for those who follow my little Blog, here’s a selection of stories from the last few weeks at Ferry Plaza.
Many people, who visit the Ferry Building, think for some reason, it functions much like a food court. Even in a food court however, most people get that if you eat at a Chinese food restaurant, you don’t take napkins, forks etc. from the Taqueria to eat your Chinese food. Well, we had an incident the other day where a gentleman bought a meal at another restaurant and apparently needed a fork. Why he didn’t simply return to the restaurant he got the food from and acquire a fork we don’t know. One of our servers saw him and watched him take one of our rollups (restaurant language for a cloth napkin with utensils rolled up inside) unroll it and pull out stainless steel fork and leave the rollup on the table.
Excuse me, “What are you doing?”
“I need a fork.”
“You are stealing our fork.”
“Well, I needed a fork.”
“Then you should go get a plastic one at the restaurant where you purchased your food.”
So he left without apology and a bit baffled as to the fact that he was confronted for stealing.
Last Saturday, a large table of appx. 10 or 12 people sat down for lunch. We were really happy because apparently a few weeks earlier 2 of the people in the party had enjoyed lunch with us and then brought back this large group. We brought all of the beverages out which included one hot tea. We serve tea in a cup with hot water and an accompanied caddy of tea selections. After we dropped one hot tea, the gentleman next to the woman that had the tea took another tea bag out of the tea caddy and put it in his pocket. Then a couple of minutes later he ordered a “cup of hot water” not another hot tea. So essentially he stole a tea bag and then ordered a hot water so the table saved a couple of dollars for the additional cup of tea. I have never seen such a thing. Why did he do that? It was so odd and frustrating. In any case, because we saw all of this happen, we charged the table for the second cup of tea. This gentleman was a guest at the table and didn’t have to pay for his meal anyway. I thought wow, people have no shame.
People will try absolutely anything to scoot around rules. Restaurants have to cover a lot of costs in replacing lost items. This is really tacky. A woman took a glass from Hog Island across the aisle from us, and brought it to our restaurant. When our manager asked her if she would like a glass of wine, the woman said no thank you, I already have some. So our manager asked why she had a glass from Hog Island, in our restaurant, she said “she wanted to finish her wine.” Why is it so hard to imagine that it is inappropriate to drink another restaurant’s wine in our restaurant? We of course walked the glass back over to Hog Island.
My question would be, listen I haven’t finished my wine, would you mind if I pour this into your glass and return this one to Hog Island. Of course we would prefer that she drank our wine, but at least that would have been a more honest approach.
Finally, need I say more: Don’t take the Tabasco. We have these big bottles of Tabasco, I mean these are about 9” tall. Our manager has seen people stick the whole bottle in their bag. Of course, she asked for it back. I like to think they will think twice one day before they steal something from another restaurant.
Many people, who visit the Ferry Building, think for some reason, it functions much like a food court. Even in a food court however, most people get that if you eat at a Chinese food restaurant, you don’t take napkins, forks etc. from the Taqueria to eat your Chinese food. Well, we had an incident the other day where a gentleman bought a meal at another restaurant and apparently needed a fork. Why he didn’t simply return to the restaurant he got the food from and acquire a fork we don’t know. One of our servers saw him and watched him take one of our rollups (restaurant language for a cloth napkin with utensils rolled up inside) unroll it and pull out stainless steel fork and leave the rollup on the table.
Excuse me, “What are you doing?”
“I need a fork.”
“You are stealing our fork.”
“Well, I needed a fork.”
“Then you should go get a plastic one at the restaurant where you purchased your food.”
So he left without apology and a bit baffled as to the fact that he was confronted for stealing.
Last Saturday, a large table of appx. 10 or 12 people sat down for lunch. We were really happy because apparently a few weeks earlier 2 of the people in the party had enjoyed lunch with us and then brought back this large group. We brought all of the beverages out which included one hot tea. We serve tea in a cup with hot water and an accompanied caddy of tea selections. After we dropped one hot tea, the gentleman next to the woman that had the tea took another tea bag out of the tea caddy and put it in his pocket. Then a couple of minutes later he ordered a “cup of hot water” not another hot tea. So essentially he stole a tea bag and then ordered a hot water so the table saved a couple of dollars for the additional cup of tea. I have never seen such a thing. Why did he do that? It was so odd and frustrating. In any case, because we saw all of this happen, we charged the table for the second cup of tea. This gentleman was a guest at the table and didn’t have to pay for his meal anyway. I thought wow, people have no shame.
People will try absolutely anything to scoot around rules. Restaurants have to cover a lot of costs in replacing lost items. This is really tacky. A woman took a glass from Hog Island across the aisle from us, and brought it to our restaurant. When our manager asked her if she would like a glass of wine, the woman said no thank you, I already have some. So our manager asked why she had a glass from Hog Island, in our restaurant, she said “she wanted to finish her wine.” Why is it so hard to imagine that it is inappropriate to drink another restaurant’s wine in our restaurant? We of course walked the glass back over to Hog Island.
My question would be, listen I haven’t finished my wine, would you mind if I pour this into your glass and return this one to Hog Island. Of course we would prefer that she drank our wine, but at least that would have been a more honest approach.
Finally, need I say more: Don’t take the Tabasco. We have these big bottles of Tabasco, I mean these are about 9” tall. Our manager has seen people stick the whole bottle in their bag. Of course, she asked for it back. I like to think they will think twice one day before they steal something from another restaurant.
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