Dining Out: The Extras
Eating out is often more about theater and presentation than value and food. Fortunately, the FT tells us restaurants are beginning to address the unnecessary extras like the endless array of amuse-bouches, breads and petits fours and the elimination of the charger plate (that’s the ridiculous and invariably expensive empty plate that is at every place setting when the customer sits down and which is then whisked away once the table is occupied).
And what about waiters and their constant attention to napkins — folding, draping, refolding, etc. Or the litany of “specials” of the day that revealed that for a 50-seat restaurant, where each description takes 45 seconds, almost two hours are spent on something that does not add any extra benefit or pleasure for the customer – and often interrupts an interesting conversation. Amen. (Thanks, Kottke)
