So I went out to eat at this nice Italian place downtown last night and, because it was so nice, I knew it was going to be somewhat expensive, but there really has to be some limit, doesn’t there? I’ll give you the run-down:
Tanqueray and Tonic - $7.50 …… okay, well it’s a nice restaurant, so fine
Gnocchi Piselli - $9.95 …… actually listed as $8.95, but again, no real big deal
One glass Pinot Grigio (house) - $6.95 …… same as the T&T
Vitello Aspargi (veal with asparagus) - $22.95 …… delicious, worth every cent
Fruit dessert (spumoni) - $8.50 …… $8.50 !!! WTF?! It was a wine glass with a scoop-and-a-half of ice-cream!
Like I said, I expected it not to be cheap, but come on, $8.50 for some friggin’ ice cream?! The soufflé was only $5.50 fer fucks sake! The only thing I can figure is that since it was not a “menu item,” there is some off menu inflation involved.
I tipped appropriately, after all, it’s not the waiters doing that the damn thing is overpriced, but it still chaps my ass.
This is why I don’t do the fancy resturaunt thing. I just can’t get past the price. Even if I had the money, I don’t think I could get past the price. Must be my practical Midwestern upbringing. The last time the Missus and I had drinks at a fancy-scmancy place, it cost us $14 for one round. Fourteen freakin’ dollars! Hell, for $14 we can buy a six-pack of my favorite microbrew, have a pizza, and rent a movie with the change.
Jehosephat. $8.50. And I thought 5 bucks for a box of drumsticks was too much. Know what I think? (no, b, but I bet you’re going to tell me…)
I think that the logic involved in the whole pricing of the menu dictates that the ice cream in the frosted glass HAS to be at least $8.00. I mean, you’ve paid close to $10 for drinks. $22 for the entree. It only stands to reason that by the time you get to dessert you’d think nothing of dropping $8 on ice cream. I’m not saying it makes sense to me…but I bet it does to somebody who’d pay $8 for a scoop of ice cream without batting an eye.
So that’s my theory…it belongs to me…I call it ‘my theory.’ (sorry for the vague MP reference.)
I’ll shut up now.
I was in the Bahamas and I hooked up with some girls from Michigan. Being the friendly chap I am I took them over to to see some of the “hotspots”. I usually preferred to hang downtown with the real people but thought a tour might be fun.
We ordered three Becks, cost was $15.00. After a few I asked for a drink of water… cost? You guessed it. Five bucks! Way too stuffy and pretentious for me.
My next words were “fuck this” and I took these ladies dowtown to a joint where the music was live and things were jumpin’, there wasn’t a drink in the house that cost more than $2.00 and there was every type of food imaginable offered at great prices.
This was one of the places most tourists never see…
With apologies to Eddie Murphy, I can see thinksnow having this conversation with the waiter:
“How much for the ice cream?”
“Eight-fifty.”
“EIGHT-FIFTY?! I can get BLOWN for eight-fifty.”
I don’t drink, so my meal tabs usually aren’t terribly high, even in the best restaurants. But the day I drop sixty bucks on a meal solely for myself is the day I supplant Bill Gates as the richest man in the world. I guess I’m a cheapskate at heart.
Actually, I did pull the waiter over and say this:
“Um…just to be clear, the ‘fruit dessert’ was the spumoni, right?”
“Yes, sir”
“Hmmm, pretty expensive ice cream!”
“…”
At which point I handed over my credit card. Sauron, if I could get blown for 8-and-change, you’d never hear from me again, 'cuz there’s no way I can type under those sort of conditions!
I have two different things that could be going on here.
Their freezer bites and they’re too cheap top fix it. The price of the ice cream reflects the fact that they have to throw half of it away.
or
It’s possible they don’t like offering the ice cream and they are actively trying to discourage people from ordering it. Before you deem this unlikely, I worked in a very busy sports bar where the owner and the kitchen staff had agreed that nachos were just plain annoying to make. Took up too much time, too easy to burn, I really can’t remember why. Anyway, the owner just kept upping the price, until they were actually double the price they had started out at. And people still kept ordering them.
Everything ala-carte, which is apparently French for “how much can we charge you before you choke on your dinner”
My $38 porterhouse came with nothing. $8.95 for a salad, $5.95 for a freaking baked potato!! Add in a couple of $12 glasses of a mediocre red wine and pretty soon you’re talking real money.
I guess they couldn’t do this if idiots like me didn’t pay for it :rolleyes:
Me, I just love going to a place where I get charged outrageous amounts of money for a bad meal when I could travel about a mile and a half and get the same item, better prepared, for half the price. Note- if you’re in Vegas and have an uncontrollable urge for Chinese food, do not, repeat do not go to Lillie Langtry’s at the Golden Nugget. There are about a zillion Chinese restaraunts where they don’t dry the meat out before they cook it, and the food less than half the price.
Oh, yes, and most places that serve wine by the glass charge about two-thirds the price of an entire bottle… I guess they’re thinking they’ll have to throw half of it away, and they need to make a profit. They just don’t take into account the fact that more people would order the freaking wine if they would come down on the price, so there wouldn’t be the waste when they opened a bottle for one glass, and noone else ordered the wine that night because it’s so freaking expensive…
