Memo to the city’s hard-working waiters and sommeliers:
Eating and drinking in your restaurants is about our “favorites,” not yours. You are working. We are paying.
The year’s most irksome service phenomenon is floor staff who try steering us to dishes we don’t want, don’t need or shouldn’t be allowed in the room. Meanwhile, the “favorite” frenzy lets them avoid sharing what we actually need to know.
“Let me tell you my favorites” is to 2012 waiter shtick what “I’m Henry and I’ll be your out-of-work bond trader tonight” was to the 1980s “American Psycho” age. Often, it’s a push to unload whatever’s sitting around the kitchen. If black bass is approaching its “sell by” date, count on it to be your waiter’s No. 1 fave.
At the new Lincoln Center edition of The Smith, I blundered into dry and dreary “15-hour pork” because — silly me — I trusted the waitress’ excited endorsement. She said polenta included goat cheese and jalapeno; neither showed up.
The spiels can lead to teeth-gnashing frustration. My first time at Pig and Khao, Leah Cohen’s delightful Southeast Asian bistro on Clinton Street, the waitress raved about oysters fried with sizzling garlic, ginger and chilies. They were a life-altering “must,” she said.
Her sales pitch worked too well. We ordered oysters, panting with anticipation. She returned crestfallen, minutes later. The kitchen was out of them. Shouldn’t they check before setting our salivary glands on fire?
Fancy Italian spots avoid the actual f-word, but pitch specials in such prolonged, lubricious detail that you’re made to feel like a garlic-chomping gavone not to have them. Hello, Il Mulino Uptown, where the detail often omitted is the price. Red snapper was $50! Yes!
The “favorite” frenzy has spread to wine. A sommelier is supposed to make recommendations. But at both Bill’s and Arlington Club, they practically insisted we have “organic,” “biodynamic” reds even after I made clear that I can’t stomach most of them.
Yet there’s often no alerts about things we really need to know. No place bamboozled me as much as Animal in Los Angeles, which had just received an eight-page rave in The New Yorker (Yes, The New Yorker) when I ate there in 2010.
After the waiter promised that a chicken-liver-on-crostini affair included no onions whatsoever, it arrived as a jagged Mount Everest of fried onion strips. It differed from local fiascos only in degree.
Many places regard presentation as a house secret, to be shared only when you pry it out of the waiter (who often has to “check on that for you”).
We wouldn’t have ordered a side of fries at The Library at the Public had we been told that the burger one of us was having came with enough fries to feed the whole theater crowd downstairs. Nor would I have ordered a side of broccoli at Bill’s had we known there was plenty of broccoli with my scallops.
When a dish departs wildly from what its name implies, it’s incumbent on the crew to tip you off. I’ve had “spaghetti carbonara” — classically made only with eggs and cheese — laden not only with cream, but with the banal vegetables normally reserved for “primavera” victims.
Even the greatest restaurants neglect to warn you when familiar-sounding dishes are “deconstructed.” I eat at Boulud Sud every chance I get. But when I asked for saltimbocca Romana, I had no idea that prosciutto would be presented separate from the veal, rather than atop or around it, or that sage would take the form of a few leaves atop the meat.
So do your jobs, guys. Just tell us what to expect. And save your “favorites” for your own nights out.