A Diner’s Dilemma

The kids are in school full time and I am home. Let me tell you, the freedom I am feeling is downright intoxicating. I am frickin’ OD-ing on the freedom. Not working, with kids at home with you 24/7 because you foolishly thought that just being together all summer would be enough: ouch. Not working, while your kids are at school all day: Hallelujah! After working for 16 years, I FINALLY have time for me. It feels a little selfish, and yet it doesn’t. Figure that one out. I finally get why the guy on the Staples ad is running around the store dancing to the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and it ain’t cuz of Christmas.

Brett had a golf tournament recently that got rained out early in the day, so since I suddenly have this newfound FREEDOM (did I tell you that I am FREE?) to do as I please, he called me to see if I wanted to meet him for a drink. In the middle of the afternoon. Hmm. Let me think. When was the last time I went out for a drink in the middle of the day. I CAN’T think of a time in the last sixteen years that I went for a drink in the middle. of. the. afternoon. And on a weekday. Um, yes, I would love to do that. (Because I am FREE. Did I tell you that yet?) We met at this little place on the key that is definitely a touristy place called the Daiquiri Deck. Not somewhere we usually frequent, but hey, we don’t usually meet for a drink in the middle of the day either. It’s a great place to go for atmosphere (read: DAIQUIRIS, people!). It was heaven.

So we enjoyed this place so much that we decided to go back on Labor Day weekend for dinner. Now Brett and I are pretty much what you would call “foodies”. We like us a good meal. We particularly like a YUMMY meal. Nothing is worse than spending a perfectly good evening on bad food. In fact, when we are going out for the evening one of us will say, “Where do you want to go?” and the other one will always say “I don’t know. Just somewhere yummy.” You see, we worked in the restaurant business for years, cooking and waiting tables, so you could say our expectations when it comes to food and service are um, sort of high.

We look at the menu and decide we’d like to try the Conch Fritters. “Sorry,” the waitress says, “we just ran out.” So we say we’d like the Crab Stuffed Mushrooms. And they are out of them, too. So not a good start, you might say, except then I see on the SPECIALS menu that they have Tempura Vegetables for an appetizer. SOUNDS yummy. Haven’t had those in a really long time, like ever, and they are on SPECIAL, right? So those are a go and we wait, enjoying the daiquiris atmosphere while we are waiting.

Then comes the appetizer. And they bring us this plate with about seven or eight little, tiny vegetables fried in tempura batter. And in the middle of it is a plastic cup that is less than half full of some sort of stuff to dip it in. I mean, truly, it looked as if it had come off someone else’s plate and they hadn’t finished it. And the whole thing is sitting on top of a bed of iceberg lettuce, clearly to make it look like much more than it actually was. All this for $7.95. Excuse me? Are you kidding? THIS is the special? The vegetables alone had to have cost them, oh…about fifty cents!

So being the disappointed diner, I start complaining a little, to Brett, mind you. Not to the waitress. It just doesn’t seem right. Shouldn’t we complain? They should be ashamed to set this down in front of us really! And Brett agreed. But after discussing it for a minute we were both reluctant to complain and send it back. They still had the rest of our meal hostage in the kitchen. I mean, who knows WHAT they would do to it if we sent the appetizer back, right? So we ate what was there and we shut up and ordered another daiquiri. After all, we’ve seen 20/20! Who wants to worry about somebody doing something to your food?

So I’m wondering….what do you do when you get unsatisfactory food or service in a restaurant? Do you worry about what the waitstaff or cooks will think? It’s every diner’s dilemma at some point!