What’s important when eating out?
0 voters
I know that a combination of the five choices is important and that a bad experience with one can spoil an evening or even make you lose youir appetite completely.
Thanks again,
Alleycat
Service, service and more service. No waitstaff’s little hobbit arms stretched over my dish, please. I find that intolerable. Serve from behind, on the right! No holding glasses by the rims, please. The ability to open a wine bottle without struggling like a moron and clutching and bending the cork in the little hobbit hands. Thank you! THAT is my main pet peeve in Taiwan. Even at decent places, you find ill-trained servers, it seems.
And of course the menu. Should have a good variety and plenty of vegetarian dishes on the menu. A good selection of wine, and nice desserts and appetizers.
I haven’t eaten out a whole lot in Taipei, but for me it usually comes down to value. If the restaurant’s cheap and the food’s good, I don’t mind if the service is shaky. Whenever I’ve lashed out on an expensive meal, anywhere, if I come away disappointed by anything it’ll usually be the service. Training helps a lot, but truly great service depends on being able to “read” a table, which is harder to teach, I guess.
Tantamount: Equivalent in effect or value: a request tantamount to a demand.
A good western dining experience is tantamount to an extremely satisfying sexual experience.
I’m being pedantic.
Having my meal delivered to my table at the same time as the other people at the table.
Having my drink delivered with or before my meal, so I don’t have to go chasing it.
Being in a no-smoking section where people are not allowed to smoke, as opposed to one where the no-smoking signs are just for decoration.
Serving staff that look at my table regularly to see if I’m likely to need anything soon, rather than hiding around the corner until I go looking for them.
Bar staff at a certain restaurant who nod at me across the room when I sit down, and appear two minutes later bearing the drink I hadn’t realised they were asking me if I wanted.
Feeling my head explode because the drink in question is a ‘special’ and I’m drinking it on an empty stomach.
Having everyones food brung out at the same time.
Having an attentive server who you don’t have to chase.
A restaurant that is willing to compensate you for their poor service.
Having some sort of unlimited supply of bread/tostitotos/breadsticks etc. while waiting for the meal.
LARGE PORTIONS.
NO BONES CARTILIDGE LIGAMENTS SEXUAL ORGANS… I don’t want my meal to look like some caveman butchered it with a stone cutter and cooked it on some hot rocks before coming to my plate.
If only Taiwan had tips and if people here were strong enough to stand up for their rights as a customer…
I think this is the major ‘bone’ of contention I have with a lot of Taiwanese meals. I should not have to perform an autopsy to eat my meal. Even things which should be simple like a chicken leg have been chopped into pieces so you constantly have to pick shards of shattered bone out. I should not have to spit things out after I’ve chewed them down. Ah to not have to worry about what is edible and inedible and just be able to eat!
You are now an honorary US citizen, and if you wish to claim membership, a virtual denizen of Anywhere, Kansas*, US. Welcome home!
*-Applies to Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Lousiana.
You are now an honorary US citizen, and if you wish to claim membership, a virtual denizen of Anywhere, Kansas*, US. Welcome home!
*-Applies to Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Lousiana.[/quote]
I wondered about that when I saw it, so I looked it up in the American Heritage dictionary. Here’s what it said:
brung (brŭng)
v. A past tense and a past participle of bring.
•The form brung is common in colloquial use in many areas, even among educated speakers, but it is not standard in formal writing.
It sounded weird to me, but I guess it’s ok to use it. (And I’m originally from Iowa 
)
My perfect dining experience:
When all of these come together…BLISS!!!
Neither… I’m from Brooklyn.
I would never say brung… damn. I must have had some bad shabu shabu that night.
EDIT:
Wait a second… it should be brung.
It’s used when you want the sentence to be passive mostly.
I think Americans in their infitinite wisdom just said hey, ring rang rung… swim swam swum, swing swang swung… Why the hell not?
infitinite??
‘Brung’ I like, it has a certain earthyness. Infitinite sounds like clothing of the wrong size. Or maybe a body of the wrong size.
Just teasing. Nikeh, as a newbian you have yet to undergo the ritual humiliation that long-time forumosans with nothing better to do all day reserve for anyone with a more interesting brand of English than they have. Don’t worry about it, just keep posting until they get used to you.
But I do have to take serious issue with the idea that Taiwan needs to introduce tipping. The places that screw my order up the most often also have the temerity to add a 10% service charge to the price they quote me. Expecting me to stick another random amount on to that, and put up with even worse service if I don’t measure up, is absurd.
Advice to anyone opening a ‘western’ restaurant here: Charge people the price you offer, even if you have to raise the price a bit. Pay your staff properly, train them properly, and fire their useless bodies if they don’t measure up. Poor service in Taiwan comes from poor management, not from a lack of desire to please.
Even telling a Taiwanese that your drink has gone mysteriously empty will embarass them beyond measure. If someone takes the trouble to teach them to anticipate that horrible event, and prevent it happening, then all they need is a little appreciation.
I NEVER tip at my fave restaurant. The staff who know me give me excellent service, because they know what I want, and I don’t get charged the extra 10% either. Tipping is for people with no personalities.
The best service I ever had was in Turkey (away from the tourist traps) where the staff felt that a tip was an insult. Tipping implied that the waiter was lazy, and needed to be bribed to do his job properly. One huy actually chased me down the street waving the money I had left because I was so impressed with the service.