Tag: Restaurants

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To give you a little context about this post, please scroll down to the previous post. I make a confession about food.

So I was getting ready to talk about eating at a high falutin restaurant before I felt it necessary to explain a little something about my taste buds, so, I assume everyone is on board with my undiscriminating taste so I will continue with my story.

Friends wanted to go to a Michelin star French restaurant for the experience. Bob likes food and I like alcohol. The restaurant had both so I was in for the experience. Before going too far, I want to say the experience was fun, good company, good drink, and nice setting all made for a wonderful evening.

When I think of French dining, I think Beef Bourguignon, Coq au Vin, or Salad Nicoise. None of which were on the menu instead the menu contained a mysterious blends of unfamiliar meats, vegetables, and sauces. Absolutely nothing was familiar to me. Fortunately for me, most of my dining companions found themselves in the same situation. Usually when a waiter arrives at the table, I have a general idea of what I am interested in ordering. After scanning the menu several times, I had no idea whatsoever.

The waiter was absolutely vital to the ordering process. If he hadn’t patiently explained every item on the menu, I would have been lost. And I am not exaggerating, I mean every item on the menu needed an explanation from the waiter. Usually after a waiter answers my questions, particularly if he spent the better part of a half hour, I can safely make my choice. I simply match the entree’s main dish — say the steak with what the waiter just told me. Except nothing on this menu says steak or chicken or salmon. Each item has a clever French name which was spoken beautifully by the waiter and promptly forgotten by me. So instead of looking down at the menu and seeing steak, I am seeing the blah, blah or the blah, blah, blah. I can’t remember if the blah, blah is the salmon or the blah, blah, blah. I worry that the so far very patient waiter might break if I ask him to repeat for the fifth time what was on the menu. Instead, between a combination of fuzzy memory and mental dart throwing, I make my choices

The food arrives and was eaten. First the food tasted fine. I ate everything on my plate but at the prices they were charging I was going to eat everything on my plate even if I detested the meal, so hardly a valid measurement. More telling, I am afraid, is that even after eating my meal, I had no words to describe what I ate. This is after the waiter has given a dissertation about the menu and who when delivering the food, kindly reminded me what I ordered. If I had to describe my meal, I would say it was a hunk of meat with a sauce. Wait that is wrong, maybe, it wasn’t a hunk of meat, maybe it was a vegetable. Wait, maybe it was fruit. Or was it pasta? I really couldn’t tell you. It was definitely something and it was edible. If any of my dinner companions asked me what I just ate, I had to go back to the website look at the menu and then, after a few minutes a word would jump out at me and I would remember what I ordered.

All and all, it was a wonderful experience but I am afraid the menu revealed, yet again, my low brow status. This only confirms the Dorothy Parker adage: “You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.”

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I am beginning to hear something on a regular basis and it is really bothering me. Waiters are ask something to the effect, “Do you want a protein with Your Salad?” I was thrown the first time I heard this question. What kind of question is that. I mocked the waiter and thought what a pompous ass he is, a protein, my ass. After lunch, I never gave it another thought until I heard it again. Then again. I thought this has become annoying. Why don’t they just ask do you want chicken or salmon on your salad? Or just list the proteins that are an option. No, they have to doll it up. Protein.

It is snooty up selling which is about as bad as it gets. The customer hears protein and thinks for a few dollars more I can add some protein to my caesar salad. Protein is good. Salads aren’t protein. I need protein. Throw on a few pieces of chicken on to that caesar salad. I get what the restaurant is doing and can live with the up selling even though I, personally, will say no. I say no to up selling as a habit. I would say no even if I did want some protein on my salad because I want to discourage up selling whenever and wherever I can.

But calling meat and fish protein is pretentious and condescending. It screams a wasted college education and all I got out of it was a job waiting tables but I am still superior to you because you probably don’t even know what I am asking, you uneducated chump.

I live in southern California so I don’t know if this is a trend across the country, or, God forbid, the world. A lot of things that start here never make it past the state line and usually for good reason. I feel using the word protein to describe meat and fish is just one of those good reasons. For thousands of years, people have understood meat and fish. Calling them protein adds nothing to the restaurant transaction and only confuses people who might have slept through their high school biology courses.