Do you complain about food at restaurants? - Page 2

I have only had a problem with 2 restraunts in my life
first was in Olvera street in LA:
i was already not liking the vibe there is noting i hate more than than corny mexican places. But this place was the oldest restaurant (100 year or something like that) and my SO really wanted to go. I ordered the vegen burrito,i thought it would be bean rice onions maybe potatos. Something tex-mexy, I dunno. What i got is a giant tortilla filled with a steamed broccolli, cauliflower,squash, carrots and celery thats it. My SO got a tortillia soup wich tasted as if someone opened a can of tomato patse added water, avocado, tortilla chips and cheese. We each had 3 bites looked at each other and left. It was soo bad.

Second was at an upscale Italian place over at the americana in glendale
this place is pertty good and i had eaten there before. I had ordered a pasta with clam dish. The plate was beautiful and hot (a BIG plus) and i thought "Yessss" . The pasta was cooked perfectly and so were the clams but the sauce witch was supposed to have white wine in it tasted only of butter and i had bitten in to a whole crushed clove of garlic and well i knew this place could do better i sent the dish back and got the chicken parm and that was good

The most common mistake I get from everyday, casual restaurants is a sandwich that comes with mayo. I always order without and 8 out of 10 times it seems there's a layer slathered on the bread. I don't complain. Wouldn't want the new food coming to my table to be "tainted" by the staff.

it was so ridiculous once, i ordered a sirloin at this club once and it was NOT a busy day at all. It came about medium well when i asked for it medium rare. I sent it back and it came out well done. I just gave up and ate the garnishes instead, Urgh.

I wont return it because though the chef has not prepared it intentionally to make food taste bad we can advice them ask them for some  discount .

 hahaha
In fact I am one of the people who hate the controversy,
What to do is to leave the dish as it is.
I try to search for the exit door.
Take a step outside and see the name of the place , I blame myself and taking the Covenant not to come back here again.

Will simply

mmm may B  :/
 

It depends on how well I know the restaurant. There are places I eat regularly, where if something was bad, the chef and owner would be mortified. Typically, they'll apologize, remake it and take it off the bill. Happily, this almost never happens at these places, since I'd feel terrible.

If it's a place I've never been to before, I'll mention it when I leave, just as a "head's up" but won't eat anything else from the kitchen that day. If they take it off my bill, I'll stop back another day and try something else. Otherwise, I just won't go back, however I never get loud or obnoxious. It gets me nothing and ruins my mood.

Terry

 I have sent back an undercooked steak that I asked to be prepared medium and it looked as though it had been turned once or twice on the grill for 30 seconds and put on the plate.  It came back well done and I just left it.  I won't go back there.  I have sent back iced tea and asked for Coke instead.  Many of the restaurants in this area now serve only some sort of flavored iced tea only it isn't indicated on the menu and the server never mentions it.  It's happened frequently enough that I now ask, I want plain, unflavored, unsweetened iced tea or none at all.  It's bad enough to pay upwards of $3.50 for a glass of it without it being corrupted by who knows what.  Yes, it makes me cranky when people mess with my iced tea!

The next time you are out and want just a plain ice tea ask your server for hot tea and a glass of ice.  Mix the two and you will have just plain Ice Tea, if you are extra polite,{without being fake or sarcastic} some times they will just do it for you.

Thanks Diana!  Sometimes the simplest solutions elude me.  Reminds me of Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces ordering a chicken salad sandwich in an attempt to get toast.

If its not too off base of what it is suppose to be then I tolerate it and eat it. If its completely not what I expected I send it back, also if I can tell the food has been frozen and not as fresh as it should be I'll make a comment to the manager.

We had a horrible experience a few weeks ago at a restaurant:

We ordered the Calamari for an appetizer...they gave us pot stickers.

By the time they fixed it and got us our correct appetizer our meals arrived. My fiancés meal was a chicken dish and the chicken was raw pink in the center.

The night ended with the manager taking both her meal and our starters off the check (which they ended up to mess up by putting her meal on there twice when they should have took it off...this resulted in a free desert). Its a big chain restaurant also, goes to show that even if you are big you cant cut corners.

 

 

I agree with KY Heirloomer.

As a consumer you should receive what it is that you ordered.  If you pay someone to paint your house white and they paint it blue you are going to have them redo it.  At the same time if a meal is delivered to me and not what I expected I am always going to give it a try as if may be someone elses take on a classic dish or whatever.  As an individual who runs a kitchen,  we don't know whats wrong and cant fix it if we are not told.  So use your judgment and be polite it will always get you the best result.

 In most cases what some are describing here is the servers fault. SOS no tomato, no lettuce, no mayo etc. Sure the kitchen put it on but it is the server who is the last line of defense from the patron. If the food is bad or ice cold I send it back. otherwise they will continue to operate like this. I figure I am helping them and helping the next customer.. And I write letters and in most cases get results,

In most cases what some are describing here is the servers fault.

So what?

I think what most people want is to fix the problem, not the blame. Doesn't matter how the wrong food, or incorrectly cooked food, or improperly dressed food was set on the table. What matters is 1. that it isn't what the patron ordered, and, 2. what happens once the error is pointed out.

every now n again if i get an awesome meal, i ask the waitress who was on pans/larder whatever, and i tell them to add a beer to my bill for them at the end of the night. one time i did that, the head chef sent me out a free dessert and came out and said that the chef very much appreciated my gesture, and that he was glad that ppl were happy to dish out praise as easily as they can dish out a complaint!

Perfectly stated!!!
In order for us Restaurant people to perform our jobs, we need your feedback good or bad. Just do not penalize us or itch and whine because your taste buds were not as excited as you
thought they'd be. You made a choice to order an item and if it is prepared as it was described with no other problems other than  you did not like it, don't complain about it!!

Hmm. I don't know if it's most cases. That definitely does happen, where the server is to blame, but cooks make mistakes too. Sometimes it's no one's direct fault, but more a breakdown in communication. As far as the last line of defense goes, I don't really think that's quite right. Sure, the server can look and attempt to make sure things are right. But what if tomatoes just aren't visible, but they're there when you asked for none? I sure as heck don't want them poking around in my food to double check.

The way I see it, anyone in the chain is just as liable or able to make a mistake as anyone else. So really, what it comes down to is, if I politely point it out (the rare times that I do), is the problem fixed?

Gee, where's the "expediter" when you need one?

Hehe, a good point.

I hate to bring up Oprah, but I believe I got this from something she said.  If you see Evil Knievel heading to the ramp at 60mph when he needs to be at 80mph in order to clear the jump and live, would you embarrass him by stopping him or would you let him continue and perhaps die?

Complaining is a good thing, not a bad thing.  Complaining alerts the management of a problem that can then be corrected.  Such a correction could save many peoples' jobs for them, including the waitstaff to whom you complain.

 Most GOOD places do try to fix the problem . At least places I go to

In most case if it is my regular restaurants i wont complain but when i am visiting some new restaurants and the taste is beyond my excepation i will definitely complain .

Rabicamail, I don't begin to understand that.

 

If the food suddenly goes downhill in a restaurant you regularly go to that would indicate some sort of problem. I would expect the management would want to know about it---particularly from a regular customer.

 

The quicker they're made aware of it, the faster they can fix the problem.

 

 

Yes I do complain like you guys if in case I don't get what I ordered exactly. Like with burgers, if I ask them not to put pickles and mustard and then I see some, I would give it back. These are case to case basis, and luckily I don't have any complains with most of the restaurants that we ate with before. But of course it is annoying not to get what you have ordered, so it's just right for us to complain about that.

"Complaining is a good thing, not a bad thing.  Complaining alerts the management of a problem that can then be corrected.  Such a correction could save many peoples' jobs for them, including the waitstaff to whom you complain."

 

If  the complaint is justified. From the other side of it, I'm quite sure most of us have dealt with "complaints" that were nothing more than ignorance or misinformation on the guest's part.

 

In my case... the Jalapeno pizza that was sent back because the peppers were too spicy.

the traditonal mafalda bolognese that was sent back because "bolognese isn't supposed to have carrot in it".

the item that is served exactly as described but then returned because it wasn't "what they expected".

 

I have only compained when food is inedible, or blatantly misprepared... well done when I order med rare for example, or served in a manner inconsistent with my specifications i.e. "no cheese".

 

If it's simply tasteless, or obviously cooked by monkeys... I don't complain, I simply never return.

I was thinking about this thread tonight. I went to a medium-small chain family restaurant with my little daughter (she's 2 1/2). It's the sort of place that does burgers and third-rate fried chicken and "loaded" fries, and whenever possible they drown things in scads of plastic cheese and terrible BBQ or whatever sauces. But the prices are reasonable, there's lots of ice cream, and they're very welcoming to little children. Besides, lots of people like that kind of food -- otherwise it's hard to explain what goes on in most family restaurants in America, you know? Anyway, I digress...

 

We normally get efficient, friendly service and food that is well within the range of what it claims to be. I mean, it's never going to be any good -- how good can this sort of thing really be? -- but it can look and taste like you think it's supposed to.

 

Tonight, however, was different. The dining room was only half full, but it was clear that the cook doing most of the work was pretty seriously in the weeds. The other cook on -- you can just see into the kitchen from certain seats, and I was in one -- was letting the guy suffer, I think basically punishing him for making a mess of both stations simultaneously. The cook doing the work was sloppy and unfocused, his dishes were taking a long time, and every time he'd finally finish one he'd call for the server by barking her name in this nasty way that anyone paying any attention could hear across the restaurant. This, and the fact that he was a 40-something white guy, suggests to me that he was the manager covering for someone. But he was totally incompetent. He'd send the servers out to a four-top with one or sometimes two plates, and they'd have to come back to get the next when he finished it, and like that.

 

When our food came, mine was acceptably mediocre, but my daughter's was a disgrace. The hot dog was burnt black in two fat strips along the sides. The mac and cheese was so over-nuked that there was an orange block of hard crusty stuff on one side. From being at such places before, I know that everyone nukes mac and cheese, so I always feel it before my daughter burns herself. Well, this stuff was totally burnt, and blazing hot -- but then about half of it was dead cold.

 

So... did I complain? Not really. The server asked me, "how did everything come out?" which struck me as a funny way to put it, and not usual in this place, so I think what she meant was "I know it's not great, but is it OK?" I said, "I guess it's all right."

 

Why didn't I complain?

 

1. You do not, repeat not, serve a 2 1/2 year-old a plate of mac and cheese with hot dog and then take it away, unless you're quite sure that the food is actually inedible. She's not going to eat the grotesque portion anyway, so just remove the bad stuff and stir the mac to even the temperature through.

 

2. The server was perfectly fine, and clearly suffering with having to run back and forth one plate at a time, so why should I take it out on her?

 

3. As I say, I think the manager was the idiot cook, so complaining about the food was just going to screw up the dining room even more royally, making everyone suffer for nothing.

 

4. Based on the way he was barking at servers when everything was his fault, I think the guy could very well have taken it out on my server, who surely didn't deserve it.

 

And, last but CERTAINLY not least....

 

5. Because this restaurant is currently running a promo special where you complete an online survey about your dining experience and they give you a coupon. Somebody's going to read a scathing survey, and yes, I did everything I could to identify the moron and pinpoint his grossest failures. Either corporate management is going to give him a little yelling-at or they'll ignore it, but either way I've achieved as much as it's reasonably possible to achieve when complaining about a place like this.

 

I will say that I do have one complaint about the server, though I didn't mention it to her or on the survey. No server should have let a plate like that go into the dining room. No way. I'm betting that she didn't want her boss screaming at her, and besides it's not like he was going to do a whole lot better if he did it again.

If I order a steak medium rare and it comes well done i'll send it back.

If I order salad and it comes with cheese when I asked for no cheese i'll send it back.

 

If, however, the food is just poor quality i'll chalk it up to experience and never go back.

So, here's a slight twist. What happens if you go to a restaruant recommended by somebody who's judgement you usually respect, and it's the opposite of what he said?

 

That happened to us yesterday. A friend, who's restaurant recommendations usually are spot on, raved about this place. The food, service, and prices were all 100%.

 

We stopped in for lunch, and everything from the level of service to the quality of the food was, at best, mediocre.

 

Just a bad day? I wonder. When the manager is in the back shooting the bull with the servers, and we sat with our thumbs up waiting for our order to be taken. This place puts out a buffet, for lunch, and it seemed as though ordering from the menu was an imposition. Least that's how we were treated. And on and on in like vein. I won't bore everybody with the details.

 

So, what would y'all do in circumstances like that?