Anonymous Chefs Share The Things That Customers Order That Totally Annoy Them
People can either be picky or playing themselves with their meals. And the Chefs of the world want better for us. All we have to do is listen!
Redditor BerneseMountainDogs came to these disguised helpers with a question:
And the chefs answered.
Save Your Bank Account
A pepperoni passion from Domino's. If you order double pepperoni with extra cheese it's the same pizza but cheaper.
Air On The Side
Server at a vegan resturant here. A woman asked me for something on the menu with no potato or starches , no corn, no wheat, no soy, no vegan cheese, nothing processed, no added sugar, and no fruit.
I suggested a salad. A plain salad.
"I dont want a salad, thats all I have at home. When I eat out I want something different."
I dealt with multiple fussy eaters, people with crazy diets, or crazy allergies, and this was the first time I ever had to say "we cant accommodate that order, you havent given me much to work with.... maybe if you eased up on one or more restrictions...."
She just had a glass of water.
Literally
Had a group complain that their scallops "tasted like they came from the bottom of the ocean."
That's literally where scallops come from.
The Lies
My business is completely carry out, and I'd say once a month or so we get a complaint that the pizzas were cold/old looking when they picked them up.
- They were about 160 degrees when you picked them up because we keep them in a warmer. They might be cold by the time you get home but if it's 10 degrees outside and you don't have a carry bag (we sell them for 5$) then yes your pizza will probably be a bit cooler than when you picked it up.
When you place an order, and we say it'll be ready in 20 minutes, and you are there an hour and a half later don't complain. I would rather cut my fking hand off then remake your food for you.
- Don't lie and say you were on time, my point of sale logs order placed and picked up times, it's also on your receipt, oh you lost your receipt, well you can come by and pick another one up, no, a copy of your receipt, I'm not remaking your food.
An Oyster Of A Problem
People that have to order sh-t done a specific way and then b-tch about it. I can give you a list:
Lady ordered chicken schnitzel but didn't want it deep fried so she wanted it grilled. So she got her breaded grilled chicken and complained that it was bland.
Guy didn't want his calamari deep fried because he was on a diet, so we pan friend it in minimal oil and he complained because it didn't look as good.
Lady ordered truffle sauce, complained because it was "too strong".
And my personal favourite.... a couple complained because their kilpatrick oysters were "warm and slimy". Firstly have you ever eaten an oyster? And it f-cking should be warm, it just came from under the grill.
Non-Menu Items
It's not on the menu but can you whip me up a dragon fruit gyoza in a cloud layer of elemental darkness served in a ham tambourine? It's my birthday so you have to do it.
I'm A Different Chef
"I like that dish insert any tv chef did at that tv show, what it was called?" if you want Gordon Ramsay fantasy course, please go to one of his restaurants.
A Soupy Situation
As an unlicensed, but professional short order cook; I ask you all to reconsider trying our soup! Rather than what not to order, I feel all the places I worked at I always had the ability to load up the soups with whatever I wanted. I AM THE SOUP KING.
Break; Fast
Things that are impossible or a contradiction aka eggs over easy, hard yolk. What!?
I work at a breakfast place, and I have seen the most bizarre ways to order eggs...
Just Be Honest
Order whatever you like. Stop telling the wait staff your sensitivity or preference is an "allergy". There is a whole giant cleaning and safety operation that takes place when we get an allergy, and we have to treat every one seriously because we don't know. The number of times people with dairy "allergies" put milk in their coffee after their meal, tell us about nut allergies when ordering dessert after eating the rest of their meal that had nuts in It, or upon being told they could not have a modified version of a dish without shellfish respond with "ill have it anyway, it's not serious."
Not to even mention things like "allergies" to -melted cheese specifically -dark meat but not white meat from a chicken -any eggs that aren't scrambled -peppers but paprika is fine -very serious gluten allergy that will cause extreme pain to the unfortunate patron, who is chugging down his 3rd pint of double IPA.
I could go on.
Just say you don't like it and we won't put it in there. We want you to enjoy your meal. I work 14 hour days to cook people good food as best I can. I want you to be happy, I promise. Lying is disrespectful.
For Real, JUST. BE. HONEST.
Not a chef, was a waitress, but if you don't know what an ingredient is, please ask. Especially if you have dietary requirements.
I got screamed at by a vegetarian couple because I "made them" eat meat for the first time in 15 years. They ordered the pea and pancetta soup, without knowing what pancetta was, and without telling me they were vegetarians. I was expected to somehow read their minds and know they were vegetarian and warn them.
Oh No.
Former Steak N Shake cook here: the 7 X 7 burger. 7 patties with 7 slices of cheese stacked on top of eachother on a bun. A pain to make and an easy way to cardiac arrest increase your waistline and damage your digestive tract.
There was so much grease that we had to leave the stack of patties and cheese to drain on a different plate first so that it wouldn't turn the bun into a new state of matter between solid and liquid (the comments have informed me that it's called a colloid).
By the way, one person cooks all the patties, two on rush hours. Zero to two more add condiments. That person may not make a penny over minimum wage and never gets tipped.
Parasites
Swordfish...all fish can have parasitic worms. But swordfish can be riddled with them. Let's just say it's pretty unappetizing.
Two-Steak
I used to work at an irish pub 7 years ago. We had a bud spud and steak (Get a beer, get a potato and get a steak for like 10 bucks for a fundraiser)
Someone attended and asked for a half steak well done, and half rare/medium rare but she didnt want it cut in half, wanted the steak whole.
I was able to KINDA do it (Half the steak was hanging off the side of the grill, cooking each side one at a time) but she sent it back, wasnt cooked right.... Boss got mad at me cause I didnt cook the steak two different ways right.....
Planet What
This is highly dependant on the quality of the restaurant, but a good rule of thumb is not to order stuff that is out of character with the rest of the menu.
Every restaurant menu has a general theme to their food. That could be based on region or dietary limitations or main course (steakhouse for example) or whatever.
A lot of places will also have a couple of things that break that theme so the picky eaters in the group have something to order. That stuff will often be made with older ingredients, and by people who aren't used to making it since it comes up so rarely in a night.
Just Let Me Be
Stop trying to make your own dish out of our ingredients. I have no problem with substitutions, sauce on the side, etc. But if you come in and say "can I have this dish... But i want this instead of this, this instead of this, and can you serve it as part of a salad?" then that's not ok.
It's one thing to work around an ingredient you don't like, but it's another to treat the kitchen as your pantry. Dishes are designed the way they are on purpose. If you mess with that formula too much, we're no longer responsible for your food tasting good or not.
Celiacs, Beware...
Stop ordering dishes that aren't promoted as being gluten free in the first place, if you actually aren't gluten intolerant. The dishes that are marked as gluten free are prepared so that absolutely no contamination will occur. If a dish is not gluten free and you ask for it to be, it will halt all production in the kitchen until your dish is done. And sometimes you won't get the exact dish because of prep work on ingredients, which might involve being in contact with gluten.
Cheating Yourself
20$+ salads, unless it's got some fantastic protein component to it. It's just not worth the money; buy the ingredients for <10$ and make it yourself.
Don't get me wrong, salads can be delicious and well worth ordering, but don't pay entree prices some lettuce and fruit.
Example: I used to work at a popular patio restaurant right in the middle of a rich, beautiful part of town. Due to the location and the general swagger of the place, we knew we could charge 24$ for this strawberry goat cheese salad in the summer, and we hyped the fact that it was "gluten free". Food cost for it was maybe 4$, prep time negligible, execution time <1 minute, so the margin on these things was just insane. I swear, every time summer rolled around, we made more money from girls in their early 20s ordering that salad than we made on booze.
Oh, and don't forget to add 3.5oz of chicken for 9$.
Just Use Your Menu
Don't order something that's not on the menu, even if you've had it there before. Cooks set up their stations very specifically in order to efficiently cook what's on the menu. Ordering something you saw on tv or ordering a past menu item means we have to stop cooking and prep the ingredients for you meal which screws up our rhythm. If you don't want what's on the menu, go to a different restaurant.
Recap
So to sum it all up:
- Don't order 30 minutes before close
Be respectful to your waiters and waitresses
- Don't try to mix and match the menu to make your own concoction
If you're in Argentina, just order the steak and not seafood
- Don't try to re-invent phrases for how you like your food. Rare Plus doesn't exist....medium rare, does.