I’m on pseudo-Atkins. I eat more general vegetables of the relatively non-starchy variety than formal Atkins, which would still designate them as “carbs”, would encourage, but I eat very little bread.
Getting lunch without bread can be an exercise in inventiveness. But also often an exercise in frustration.
“No, I don’t want a catering-supply order of tuna fish for $11, I want tuna with lettuce tomato onion and provolone cheese, which you sell on a sandwich for $4.95, only I want mine without the bread, in one of those plastic take-out trays, with a fork”
That worked pretty well, although the way the ingredients are laid out in the plastic take-out container make it pretty obvious that he figures I’m making my own sandwiches back at the office. He’s not making me a breadless sandwich, he’s selling me some tuna and also some lettuce and some tomato slices and so on. But it works.
Not so much with the Gyro place. “No, we can’t sell it to you that way. It has to be on the pita bread.” // “But you put the Gyro in a snap-shut plastic container. Can’t you just give me everything that you would normally put on the pita bread, and just not include the pita bread?” // “This meat, this cost a lot of money. We don’t sell it to you that way, I get in trouble with my boss he sees that, because you getting extra for free” // “But I just want the same quantity that you’d put on the bread… oh whatever”
::takes completed pita sandwich, walks over to narrow eating counter, dismantles sandwich, scraping ingredients into plastic container, throws pita bread in trash can::
(Damn that seems wasteful… I don’t eat there very often, I don’t feel good about this)
We were at BurgerKing a while back and my friend had ordered a Whopper. The girl behind the counter asked him if he wanted that, “with cheese, or without with cheese?”
I ordered a plain cheeseburger at MDs. Of course, they asked, “Do you want anything on it?”
<sigh> “No. I want a plain cheeseburger, nothing on it.”
“Please pull up”
Because they are notorious for screwing up the order, I immediately checked the bag when she gave it to me. I unwrapped the burger.
“Hey, this burger has nothing on it!?”
“You asked for a plain cheeseburger, right?
“Yes! I asked for a plain CHEESEburger. Where the hell is the cheese?”
“You said plain so we took the cheese off.”
“AAAAGGGH! That’s called a HAMburger, which is NOT what I asked for! Where’s the manager?”
“I think she’s in the back doing her homework. Wanna talk to her?”
I thought most coffee places now have the customer fix their coffee to taste at a condiment station. I can’t think of a single place near me where the employee puts cream/sugar/etc into the coffee. The places that do clearly don’t have room for a table with sugar/cream/etc? Are they push-cart street vendors, I assume? Just curious, because the concept seems weird to me.
Since the birth of my child, coffee has replaced blood in my veins. I don’t have a tremendous amount of trouble ordering it, “lots of cream, and sugar until you get tired.”
Due to the upthread posting about McDonalds, I’ll tell the tale of my childs first Happy Meal. We were out running around doing errands and such, she needed something to eat so I decided to get her a Happy Meal. I order said HM, request an under 3 toy and ask for the Apple Juice for the drink. I get my order, verify again that it had the under 3 toy, am assured it does (by the manager) and happily continue to my destination. I unload the baby, the baby stuff, get her situated and open up the bag. There are French Fries, a Cookie and a Toy. No chicken nuggets. No apple juice. I check the receipt to make sure I wasn’t delusional, nope, everything I ordered was on the receipt that was stuck to the bag with a “CHECKED TWICE FOR ACCURACY” sticker.
I go back to the McDevils, I ask to speak with a manager, I swear, the proverbal pimpley faced teenager comes out, I show him the receipt and the bag and ask him if he thinks their might be a problem. He supposedly corrects the order, I head home. He kept the old french fries in the bag and the toy was NOT a 3 and under toy. sigh
Besides the Offensive and Misleading Sticker, I noticed that they had a huge bin of happy meal bags ready to go, which I guessed probably already had the cookie and the toy in them, so out of 5 items, 2 were prepacked and they screwed up the other 3. I should be thankful I was smart enough to check the toy before I gave it to my daughter.
Oh, and when I say I want an extra large beverage, could you please freakin’ assume I want whatever the largest drink bucket you have no matter what it is called?
Dunkin’ Donuts makes my coffee for me, and I regularly patronize them and pay a little extra for my coffee because damnit, I want someone to make it for me. I don’t want to have to add the cream & sugar after, it makes it cold. Generally when I make my own, I prefer to put the cream and sugar in the bottom and add the coffee on top.
Dunkin’ Donuts makes it this way, cream & sugar first, then steaming hot coffee poured on top. And this way the coffee stays piping hot. Plus they understand when I say “extra light extra sweet” I mean “a little coffee with my milk, please.”
Me too. I have never, ever, ever – from the greasiest spoon, to the fastest fast food, to the swankiest white tablecloth restaurant – been served a cup of coffee with anything in it. Cream & sugar always on the side. So this whole discussion has been interesting, but I can’t relate.
You get your breakfast food on the way into the office. I’m not saying there aren’t some with 11 kinds of coffee up simultaneously at a “pour your own” table with various kinds of coffee adulterators and fixings to ruin your coffee with, but the norm is still big stainless steel thingie behind the counter, an open quart of milk (for some reason up here they use milk instead of cream, not that I’d want either in my coffee), and a big urn of sugar with a shovel-sized spoon shoved in it. Stacks of paper coffee cups and lids. You order, they pour.
Come to South Korea, Antinor01. Sometimes I forget, when ordering my meal “with no meat” to specify with my order, “No ham either!” Then I end up getting ham in it. Apparently, pork isn’t considered meat in these parts.
Today I was at Boston Market. They have an ongoing discount for students until the end of the year. So I order my meal and the server prepares the plate, and I move down the al la carte line to the cashier line. At the end of the section, there is an empty food bin where my plate should be placed. Here’s where things go wrong. Instead of moving the bin out of the way, he takes my plate and puts it down on a table across from the cashier down in a corner. Why is my food going away from me?
Me: Excuse me, but why are you putting my plate over there?
Him: Oh, the cashier will take you in a minute.
Me: that’s not what I asked Why isn’t my food over here? (meanwhile another employee removes the food bin and the manager, who is the cashier, takes my plate and places it where it should be. He tells the cashier to take the drink off my bill and give me a student discount)
I thanked the manager after eating, and I told him I was confused over the logic of the server. If you ever go to Boston Market then you know that they have essentially an assembly line where the plates move down the line. This keeps the food hot and saves time.
