Do you believe you can judge a restaurant better than others?

[kuan]

I believe I can. Today I went to a "best of" place. It's a soup and sandwich place.

$4 for a cup of too salty soup out of a bag.

$6 for a two slices of ham and one slice of American swiss cheese food on an underbaked sandwich roll. Shredded lettuce and two thin slices of tomato.

Give me a break. Seriously one wonders how these places stay in business.

[Free Rider]

I agree, Kuan. I think people raised on manufactured food gravitate towards that sort of thing. I had a similar experience this weekend. Sweet Tomatoes is supposed to be a magnificent salad bar. When I first visted one some seven years ago, there were salads of all types. I went for the first time since then this weekend. The salad bar has become a run-of-the-mill Sysco type. People still rave even though it's a pile of iceberg lettuce and some bottled ranch dressing. Complete deterioration, but fits.

My sister came to visit me and said that, to her, ambience was more important than the food at a restaurant. She was willing to accept mediocre food to sit in, for example, the Rainforest Café. I took her instead to a place called the Havana Café, which is completely different. She said she had never tasted food like that before, ever. (I haven't seen my sister in many, many years, btw) People who have grown up on Campbell's soup at home are sure to choose the overly-salted, bagged version in a restaurant.

[bughut]

Whatever the price, you can tell when a place doesnt care and there just plain greedy and you dont go back. too soon they'll find no-one's coming back.
Sometimes though, like our recent dinner at a local french place, tried for the first time, it's okay, but it's screaming at you what could make it fantastic. Not talking about the food, that was good. The whole dont give a *** attitude was enough for us not to bother again.
Folk like to feel a wee bit special when theyre out. Afer making an effort to get poshed -up, you expect some of the same from the restaurant. Not talking about being fawned over by sycophantic crawly waiters, but cordiality... a smile and a pleasant attitude goes a long way.
When i use waiting staff the first rule is smile. Even if you want to kick them ...SMILE and give them their moment.
To Close:- Theres way too much greed out there in our business... no need for it. END OF.

[Headless Chicken]

I'm currently suck working at a place like this.

$5 (after taxes) gives you
-usually a freshly baked kaiser that we get in the mornings, I try not to keep kaisers for more then 2 days unless I'm expecting to do lots. With 4 slices of either: roast beef, smoked turkey, fake salami, or ham plus 1 slice of processed cheese, smeared with a pesto mayo.

But I love our pizzas now, we use to do 22' pizzas, sliced into 6 pies, each portion is cut in half for easier eating. A pepperoni slice would set someone back around $3. We now do 7' personal sizes and jumped the price by $1 and even in my eyes, they're sooooo not worth it.

$4minimum (before taxes) grants someone an 8oz bowl of whatever salad we prepack for outside. The price varies but its $3.99 starting.

Now that a few people have left, I've been working on improving the prepacked sandwiches like by not stock piling in bread like the previous idiots did or not using lettuce that only god knows when it was delivered. Unfortunately, theres only so much I can do since we all have to stick to these company approved recipes and standards.

[MikeLM]

My wife worked for 12 years in a restaurant chain of about 27 units (she was head of administration, not in operations) but the operations partner said repeatedly that you could get a pretty good fix on a restaurant by how clean the glass was. The front doors, the windows, the partitions, the sneeze guards, and whatever else.

If they weren't clean, there were probably a lot of other places that weren't clean, too. And, it indicated a general lack of attention to details that probably extended to the food.

The owners were always haunted by the knowledge that if a customer had a bad experience for ANY reason, they would NEVER come back, and would happily tell all their friends about it.

It's a tough business.

Mike

[Luc_H]

My check list is:
First, I will go back if I felt I was treated as an ACTUAL customer.

In pricey restaurants,
(in a similar vein of thought as MikeLM) my list of items I look for other then the ones already mentioned is:
Cleanliness of the bathrooms and attention to decor in the lavatory.
The way the coffee cream or milk is presented
the way sugar is presented
the quality of the linens.

My biggest turnoff these days is paying 1/4 (or more) the price of my main course for a simple coffee. Sometimes a coffee in a family restaurants goes for $2.50 or $3 for a meal that's $12. On vacation we went to a Rainf0re$t café, the meal was way over priced for the quality then we got charge $5 per coffee that tasted lousy! In a very polite way, I told the waitress that the restaurant should fire the person that makes the coffee. She took the charge ($10) off the bill, made a new pot herself and asked us to give it a second try. It still tasted lousy (must be fair trade coffee) but at least we felt like a customer.

Luc H

[shel]

Originally Posted by Luc_H

It still tasted lousy (must be fair trade coffee)

Huh!? WTF does that mean? Are you suggesting that Fair Trade coffee is inferior to regular coffee. What does Fair Trade have to do with the quality of coffee?

Shel

[Luc_H]

Ok Shel,

I am filled with remorse for such a cheap shot comment. I regret it.

First, the Rainforest Café pride themselves to serving fairtrade coffee and the like.
I'll be honest but I have tried to exercise my influence as a responsible consumer by purchasing Fair trade coffee. more often then none I throw the stuff away because it does not taste good. I've bought some expensive stuff for my wallet also (which is probably not a lot compared to others).

Can you advise me on names and regions for Fair Trade coffee?

(for those who may think my taste of coffee is influenced by the fact I am used to drinking robusta laced coffee that is untrue. I know coffee and I buy only Arabica whole beans and mill them myself before brewing. I even make my own espresso blend and mill to a powder with sifting screens)

Luc H.

[shel]

Hi Luc,

Just like with other products, there's good coffee and poor coffee, and often the difference is in the preparation. As you probably know - and which is probably the case in your area as well as mine - coffee comes as green beans which have to be roasted to bring out their flavor. Poor roasting, as well as poor storage, can reduce the quality of what's in the cup just as much as picking poor beans (unripe, damaged by rot or mildew, etc.), and that can be the case with Fair Trade coffee as well as regular coffee.

I am far from an expert on such matters. When I purchace coffee I do so only from a few vendors that I know roast their beans to my liking and who buy quality beans to start with. I only buy Fair Trade and Organic coffees. And while I'm no expert on coffee production, I am an expert of what tastes good ( to me, of course).

I will look into some specifics for you, but you might start with this source - a local place that sells mail order over the internet - which has one of the largest choice of beans I've come across and LOTS of good information about coffee and beans and sources. I think you'll enjoy the site - it's very information intensive.

Home Coffee Roasting Supplies -Sweet Maria's

This is one of the sellers I buy from: Equal Exchange

Shel

[shroomgirl]

yep....some of my bestest friends are restaurant reviewers and we dish on restaurants.

Most of the time I dine at independantly owned places, who make the majority of their food inhouse. A great percentage of them buy locally raised too.

[Marzoli]

I am far from being an expert in these matters, but I do find it a bit odd to be charged for a glass of water. Especially since the place in question has been leaning toward an out of the can sauce place--they used to make their own sauces, and it was always fun to try the sauce of the day pasta. Now their sauces have no real flavor-just seems like you're eating a bowl of goo. Could be a supermarket sauce only worse. Somehow I just don't feel like paying a high price for that. And I don't like being charged for a glass of water with a meal. Guess I won't be going back!

[kuan]

Hey there roboteacher. Don't be such a stranger btw

[Marzoli]

Hey Kuan-This has been a really BUSY school year so far-no time to do more than read an occasional forum! Chef Talk is always fun to visit, though!

[Mezzaluna]

I can't say I'd make a better reviewer necessarily, as I fully admit I don't have the academic background to know, for instance, what are the ingredients of a classic sauce Espagnole, or the traditional ingredients that make a tagine a tagine.

My local newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentiel recently lost its long-time reviewer, Dennis Getto, to a lung ailment. Since then, we've had no reviews, only articles like today's about local menus- the ones put into patrons' hands. I have no idea if they're going to replace Dennis or not, but they need to, and soon. Dennis did have culinary training and that's what made his reviews credible in my eyes. I didn't always agree with him, but he had credibility.

As for customers' reviews, I do think I know enough to make good layman's judgements. I drive my husband nuts when I try to deconstruct dishes and send the wait staff to the kitchen to ask what spices were used in a dish.

[smalltruck]

I think I can put a twist on Kuan's post. He and I are in the upper midwest (MN) and it seems like most but not the peoples tastebuds only recognize salt. If I had a nickel for every person I've heard in the last 6 months say some dish is to spicy for them...and yet I taste the same dish and my immediate reaction is wow thats salty.

I know a couple that uses no seasoning much less spices on their food, no salt no pepper no anything. She prides herself on being a good cook, I'd rather eat school paste.


Unfortunately here in the midwest Taco Bell is real mexican and the local place run by a latino family is too spicy and ignored. My two cents are as long as pablum like taco **** are hyped as great food the american public will keep buying it. Me, I keep going to the hole in the wall propieteter run places where the owner really does care about the food.
George