jps wrote:
On Wed, 13 May 2009 16:23:54 -0400, HK wrote:

Vic Smith wrote:
On Wed, 13 May 2009 16:15:50 -0300, "Don White"
wrote:


My oldest son was a very fussy eater.
We'd go into a Chinese restaurant and he had to have a hamburger.
The Chinese joints I go to don't serve hamburgers, at least I never
saw them on the menu.
But I learned something when eating out with a friend who had been a
restaurateur - and he had been the maitre de at La Francais, an
internationally know restaurant nearby.
You can get almost anything you want in a good restaurant without even
looking at the menu.
Of course he knew the owners, what the kitchen was capable of, best
sides for the dish in the traditions or the originating country, etc.
You could call him an epicure, if that's the word.
These were all local "specialty" places, mostly Italian.
But let's say you tend that way, and like to eat just so.
For example you like blacks olives with such and such.
Not on the menu, but if you ask you should be accommodated.
One of my favorite movie scenes was Jack Nicholson getting his
toast by putting multiple holds on the menu BLT.
Five Easy Pieces, I think.
You don't have to do contortions like that to get what you want in a
good restaurant.
Having said that, I never do it, and go with the menu.

I believe in ordering the food they specialize in.

Me too.

--Vic

Indeed. Many, many years ago, Stepfatherinlaw #1, a nice fellow, came to
visit shortly after we moved to the DC area from New York. He was a
lifelong midwesterner. We went out to Annapolis for a nice day trip, and
I took everyone to a pretty nice seafood restaurant there. He ordered
meatloaf and his youngest daughter, who accompanied him on the trip,
ordered a roast beef sandwich. With mashed potato(e)s. Grrrrrrr.

They can't help themselves. My partner grew up in the midwest. We
met in Los Angeles. For the first year he was on the west coast,
every course of the meal featured meat.

He's long been rehabilitated but it took years.


Arrgh!

When I lived in KC, and was a highly underpaid reporter for the KC Star,
I was fortunate enough to find some really good steak houses where you
could get a complete meal...salad, baked potato(e) and steak, for $3 to
$4. Not the best steak houses in town, for sure, but pretty good.

There was one top of the line seafood house in the area at that time.
Luckily for me, for several years I dated a gal whose uncle owned the
place. I sure as hell could not have afforded lobster with my paycheck!

I worked on the larger circulation morning edition of the paper, and
reported to work at 4 pm and was on the clock until 1 am, though the
night city editor used to let us go after the final city news edition
hit the presses at 12:15. All of the single (and a few of married)
reporters and editors headed to a bar a couple of blocks away that
happened to serve really great soups and burgers. I ate too many meals
there.

We had a "dining room" at the paper, but it was populated with hot meal
vending machines. Pure ptomaine. Lots of great stories about The Star.
It was at the time one of the great papers in the country. No
more...bought out by the conglomerators.