HARDtoTOP

"chef's" at most of your places like outback and roadhouse probably don;t hold their jobs for more than a month either. What do they care? The probably got their food service training in the house of correction.

Bass

i ate in the house of correction for two weeks

isn't the food service at these places outsourced these days

as a side note - my digestive system worked great for those two weeks

Lainey

If the food sux or is not prepared even close to my liking, I'll take my chances and send it back.

On another note, after watching that video on how hotels sometimes clean the drinking glasses in the rooms, I couldn't bring myself to use a glass at the hotel last weekend. Bottled water, FTW.

Wonder if the glasses in the restaurant were properly washed.

kenta

I haven't seen it, but my parents have both worked in the resturant industry since coming here. My dad's worked as chef or sous-chef in mostly higher-end Boston seafood joints (examples: Anthony's, Turner's, Legal ) and is now semi-retired. My mom currently works at a place which serves, get this, a 20 dollar mac and cheese. There's an option to add 1/2 lobster for another 15 dollars which makes me chuckle.

I never heard any horror stories about the nice joints but it was those times when my father was between jobs working smaller establishments that he'd tell me the horrors of prep staff not doing their job, like washing veggies, dropping things, or keeping the kitchen clean that make me cringe. I just try not to think about it

Lainey

Me too! If I think too much about restaurants, or the creepy things that might lurk in hotel rooms, we'd never travel.

HARDtoTOP

What they do is hire a company like Aramark to "oversee and manage" the food prep instead of having the deputies do it. The actual prep itself is still done by inmates.

boltonblue

you know how staff likes to come by all bubbly and cheerful and ask "how was everything?"

on two occasions I've responded "pretty bad actually". once when the angel hair pasta had been reheated two many times and was mush.
the other when the Caesar salad was just so limp as to be considered flaccid.

In both cases they have a offered a replacement but I have declined and they have voluntarily removed them from the bill.

In the case of really bad service I will ask to see the manager and express my disappointment that they do not value me as a customer.
sometimes subtlety don't get the job done.

HARDtoTOP

Jerry said "flaccid"

zzziippyyy

I remember that

zzziippyyy

As far as im concerned EVERY restaurant has sent out unsavory food at one time or another. I personally send my food back and do not want a replacement if it is bad. I ask for them to adjust the check down to what was sent back. As far as tips im in that first digit range if the check is $40 to $49 than the tip is $8. I dont sweat over percentages. Some people we dine with have to be spot on with a tip and they sit there with calculators figuring percentages. I mean if it comes out to $8.17 at 20% than whats the diff if you leave $8 does the .17 really matter? For the record I think 18% is sufficient for tipping. A bad waitress gets .02 if I have 2 pennies if i dont they get nothing. Although they have to be pretty bad to meet this criteria.