Pig in a top hat and tails, twirling a cane? -Stop
Pig with an evil grin wearing a chef’s hat and roasting himself in front of a campfire? Stop.
Pig cunningly disguised as the Lion of Judah? This could be lion meat. Let’s stop anyway.
Pig running like hell? Move on
Attack from the 3rd Dimension I give you Slick Pig BBQ
Dammit, Cub Mistress! Now you’ve flung a craving on me. I guess it’s off to the 'Boro for lunch. 
If you have a life-threatening food allergy, they certainly should care about why you don’t want that ingredient. I don’t know how many times I’ve witnessed the following exchange between a colleague of mine and a waiter:
Colleague: Does the daily special contain <ingredient>?
Waiter: I don’t know. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.
Colleague: Can you check? Because I have a very severe food allergy to <ingredient>.
Waiter: I wouldn’t worry about it.
Colleague: Look, if there is any trace of <ingredient> on my plate, and I put any of it in my mouth, then I am going to end up on dying on the floor of this restaurant.
Waiter: OK, I’ll ask the chef.
(the waiter disappears into the kitchen and returns a minute later)
Waiter: Actually, yes, the daily special does contain <ingredient>.
The Greek restaurant I go to has the BEST lamb I have ever had. I am, however, not a huge fan of the moussaka.
Thirding. Ever so true. The best Lebanese restaurant in Ft. Worth is owned by a family with like 8 or 9 kids. For many years, any time you stopped by it was a given that “Mamma” would be in the kitchen, and various teenaged sons and daughters were waiting tables and helping in the kitchen. A shockingly high number of the kids went on to become restaurant owners themselves, at least 4 or 5 of them. I guess it must have been a good education.
A corrolary to that rule has to be that the older the cook is, the better the food will be.
My previous favorite Chinese takeout had this guy who must have been 90 years old back in the kitchen. Then a “New Management!” sign went up out front and the old guy wasn’t there anymore. The menu radically changed (as much as a Chinese takeout menu can change) and the new (young) cook wasn’t very good.
I have a story that is sort of related. One of the local diners slops gravy on their food, which I don’t especially appreciate. So I asked for gravy on the side. My food came out with gravy glopped on, AND a separate bowl of gravy. Apparently, “on the side” means “I want more than what you put on in the kitchen.” :smack:
Yes, not telling them about it is advice that could get you killed.
They still don’t care.
Yes yes yes, for those with a truly LIFE THREATENING allergy, it’s of course vital to be diligent to protect yourself. It’s the same for those of us who choose not to eat animal products for religious or other reasons, or have other dietary restrictions, no matter how valid the reasoning behind them. Of course you should communicate with your server about would and would not like. That is a given, as waitstaff are not mind readers.
But that DOES NOT mean going on for 15 minutes about the exact medical details and latin-root word pronunciation of your specific food allergy, nor about how 6 years ago you once had a similar entree prepared at an excellent little “fresh seafood” shack in Tuscon and had no problems then, so why can’t they fix it like that one place in Tuscon did, or telling them that this is a once-a-year special meal for you, commemorating your newfound conversion to Baha’i, or celebrating the fact that you haven’t passed out drunk and wett the bedd for a whole month, or how your little brother just received his 1st Michelin Star at his Alsatian vin bistro, and if he was here, he could fix me something that wouldn’t kill me and…
They don’t care.
They don’t care.
They don’t care.
Hate to keep harping on the Mormons, but would they serve coffee, tea, Coke, wine, or cocktails in a restaurant that catered to tourists? If they even had such a restaurant? I understand one can have a pleasant dining experience without such things, but I think anyone would look askance at a menu listing flavors of Koolaid, LOL!
Yes, they do care (or should care) about life-threatening allergies, and no, it’s not the same for those of you who choose not to eat certain foods for reasons of ethics, superstition, or personal preference. If someone with such a preference tells the restaurant he can’t have a particular ingredient, and they serve it to him anyway, then nothing particularly bad is going to happen. In some cases the customer won’t notice and will eat (and possbly enjoy) the meal anyway. In others he will notice and send the food back. In rare cases he may choose to make a spectacle of it. The worst that will happen to the restaurant is that they’ll lose a customer, and their reputation may be infinitesimally damaged if that customer chooses to share his experience with others.
On the other hand, it’s extremely bad publicity for someone to die conspicuously on the floor of their restaurant as a result of food that they assured the customer was safe to eat, even after being warned about the ingredient’s potential to cause death. They could also be criminally and civilly liable for the death.
Since they don’t care, if you are at true risk of death by ingesting a minuscule amount of a common food ingredient, you better either be sure that the restaurant dosent have ANY of the deadly food anywhere on premise or eat at home.
They don’t care.
Any ethnic resturant–ANY ethnicity at all that labelled “<Ethnic> hyphen American” will do neither well.
Chinese-American is always inferior to “Chinese”
Mexican-American is always inferior to “Mexican”
Italian-American
Ethiopian-American
Japanese-American…the list goes on and on.
and 99% of the time multi-ethinic hyphenated places are worse than hyphen-American resturaunts:
Chinese-Mexican Cusine
Italian-Japanese cuisine…etc
The remaining 1% is when you’ve got a multi-ethnic family that knows how to do both–I’ve had that happen a few time.
The worst though is the triple hyphen: Mexican-Japanese-American cuisine. or “Swedish-South American-Thai” or something.
Oh, and with Chinese resturants, always start by ordering the egg-rolls. If the egg rolls are good, (fresh cabbage, etc) you’re usually in a good place and you can generally order anything safely, even the weird/fancy stuff. If the egg rolls are meh–order generally harder to fuck-up items (lo mein, etc). If the egg rolls are horrible, run for your life.
Whatever. I’ve personally seem them start caring rather furiously the moment it was made clear to them that failing to do so would result in a writhing, convulsing body on the floor of their establishment. What is it about the dialogue I posted that makes you think any differently? Did you think I just made that up?
+1 for the family restaurant with kids doing homework.
We used to have a favorite mexican place back in TX when I was growing up. It was our weekly special family dinner. Mom knew the Dad (working the front) and Mom (cooking). The sons were cleaning up and doing everything else. It was great food.
I went back about 10 years later and it was on its last legs. Mom had died, one son left for college, the other son was about to do the same and Dad just couldn’t keep everything going on his own. I don’t know why they didn’t just hire extra help, but they ended up selling the place. Shame. That was some damn good food.
Dude. You should try their Borscht Ceveche Parmigiana. Ask for extra rose water on the side.
Yeah, as another corollary to Core Competency, I want the restaurant to have one. Places whose competency is “fancy” are usually terrible: they think putting pesto on gnocchi with goat cheese and a side of figs wrapped in bacon on a bed of microgreens hits enough food trends to make it worth eating. No, no, it doesn’t. Don’t go for whatever’s trendy in whatever decade: go for what’s really tasty.
I went once or twice to an Ethiopian restuarant (sadly now closed) in London. You got a good feeling from the moment you wandered in to what was clearly someone’s front room, with a TV showing the Eastenders omnibus edition, while the owner/chef/waitress showed you to your table, poured the drinks, then bustled off to make the meal. And when the place filled up with other Ethiopians, and they shared the post-dinner coffee out amongst all the diners, you knew it was a bit more authentic than your usual restaurant.
