Coleslaw

Haven't heard of that method before.

I'm not sure how much I'd trust that waitress's description though. I don't think she really understood what the kitchen is doing with the coleslaw. It might be part of it, or a pickling thing they do, but just a vinegar soak and a creamy result doesn't sound complete. 

Thats why she is a waitress. This will make the slaw so soggy so quick that I doubt if you would eat it. .Great to put a littel in saurkraut with the salt and a drop in red cabbage but thats it.

If it were soaked in dilute vinegar for a couple of hours then drained, it would have been something like dressing it twice.  There are a lot of vinegar based cole-slaw dressings after all.  

Just as a thought experiment, consider what it would taste like if you dressed your slaw in a vinegar dressing, refrigerated it for a few hours, drained, then dressed again in a creamy, mayo and/or sour cream based dressing.  I've never tried it but think it would work well.

Ed's experience is different from mine.  Vinegar doesn't make for soggy cabbage (or sauerkraut either).  But... remember that you want to soak a cabbage based slaw in its dressing (and drain off the water which gets thrown off) for a while before serving to improve texture AND flavor.

BDL

Hang on now.

Pickling the cabbage first could be a valid technique. If done properly, a vinegar soaked cabbage could actually be better at retaining texture than a simple dressed cabbage. The vinegar could go towards making it crispy...just like any other pickled veg, no?

I've made plenty of vinegar based slaws, though I have to admit that I've never soaked a batch in vinegar. I could see some sort of pickled cabbage as a base for a cole slaw as being potentially very good. The catch is the texture of course. 

We need more details about the cole slaw. Was it vinegar based or creamy? Was it crisp or soggy and limp? 

After adding whatever dressing let sit a while then place on inverted dish in a bowl the liquid will drain down and off cabbage mix

  Or you can do what is done with commercially made . That is to add a gel or agar or stabilizer to the mix to hold the dressing to the cabbage mix. Don't use red cabbage if holding overnight as the color will leech out and make whole mix pink and unappealing.

Many Japanese places make a cabbage based rice wine combo type salad (more like Health Slaw) it is very good but in most cases they make just enough for the days service.(IE Bennihanna)