From Cosmo to Chablis in 60 seconds

"I'll have a cosmo," said the woman I waited on last night. We only have a beer and wine list, and I told her so.
"If you were in the mood for a cosmo, I'd suggest one of our rosés. We have several by the glass, and some have this great red fruitiness that--"
"NO," she waved her hands around. "I don't want sweet." Said the woman who asked for a cosmo.

I explained that rosés aren't sweet, that she's thinking of spending her teenage years parked outside a DQ with a 40-oz. styro of Boone's Farm warming up on the dashboard. Well, I didn't say so in as many words.

Dumbass.

I brought her a taste anyway, of Chateau d'Oupia, a wonderful Languedoc rosé with a coy strawberry smile and creamy little tongue. A whisper of granite on the finish gives it elegance and beauty, keeps it from being too slutty.

"Nah," said the woman. "I think I'll just have this Chablis." A Chablis that's like licking an oyster shell dipped in lime juice.

You know, I give up listening to people tell me what the fuck they want. They don't even know.

People Love Themselves on Yelp, the coda

I'm back to reviewing restaurants regularly while also maintaining my pink-collar loyalties a few nights a week (the subject of an essay I will work on right after my graphic novel about the customers who have sucked most—enter now for a chance to win a guest appearance!—and my memoir about trauma and tragedy, affectionately called "The Dead Mom Opus").

Couple that with my freelance work on a wine website, and you have three—hahaha, three!—jobs to help me barely get by while trying to buy things like wedding rings and little stringy white lights.

Ah Ah Ah! You're getting married in a recession, Dumbass!

That also means I'm back to perusing Yelp boards to try and understand the opposing points of view, or at least the popular conception of a restaurant I am writing up, having lost the faint scent of anyone there who even remotely knows what they're talking about (by now they've all ejected and started their own blogs - so have plenty of people who know absolutely nothing).

Thus resumes my frequent venting about Yelp (and other hyper-democratized online reviews) so that I don't grind my teeth into powder and say "I Do" with one eye twitching madly.

Here's a great kick-off:

• Authentic! <--remember this for later
  I was delighted by how wonderful and fresh this new Latin restaurant was.
  
  My Bistec and Carnitas tacos were amazingly flavorful if not a bit small for liking. The Spinach Salad with Jicama, mandarin oranges, walnuts , queso fresco and a light vinaigrette were such a surprise and contradiction to the standard ICEBERG and GUACAMOLE salad at most Latin restaurants...
  

There's so much wrong with this clutch of words that I can't even ridicule it. Not without Photoshop. Let's see what I can do with Snagit Beta in thirty seconds...I do have three jobs, after all.

Clicky:

Please send Photoshop, ASAP.

Week in Wankers: Meet Julian Sanchez

Hi, I'm Julian Sanchez. My friends call me "Dirty Sanchez," "Sancho," "Tubby Bitch," and sometimes "Jeff," because they really don't know who the hell I am. It's my girlfriend who's friends with everyone; I just sort of tag along. In fact, I spend most of our happy hours, dinners, and other gatherings gazing into my iPhone screen, typing desperately boring and misspelled Yelps and Tweets with my sausage thumbs.

So, last night, we all went out for one of my girlfriend's friend's birthdays, to some nice restaurant that they all like for some reason. I don't get it. I think the best meal in town is the "Big Ass Burger" at Carl's Jr. It goes down awesome with a vodka Red Bull, which is my favorite drink because it not only makes me go to the dark place, but it gives me plenty of energy to pick fights with strangers while I'm in it. Fuck yeah, dawg!

So there were about 14 of us—at least I think so—I only got ten fingers to count on, you know. And the waitress was this sassy little bitch—kept trying to act all smart, like talking to people about what wine they'd like to drink, or what beers were the "hoppiest." Shut up and refill my glass of ice so I can pour vodka Red Bull in it from the plastic bottle I brought in. Oh yeah, and bring more glasses of ice for this end of the table, so they can all drink free booze in your stupid fancy restaurant, too. Let the elitist assholes at the other end of the table drink your "wine" and "draft beer," thankyouverymuch.

Lucky for me, the restaurant likes my girlfriend's friends enough to have let us bring in our own hootch, because this party sucked; those guys weren't even looking my way or talking to me at all, which I didn't really care about because I had my iPhone and my vodka Red Bull. But when that smartass broad came to wipe down our table and set more silverware or whatever whoopty-doo-I'm-all-important-look-at-me thing she was doing, I was bored, so I said, "Hey! Hey!" and when I had our half of the table's attention, I pointed out how she was running her ass off.

Women like to hear stuff like that, like what a good job they're doing, blah blah blah. I expected her to high five me, or maybe suggest a meeting in the bathroom, you know? But instead she said, all snarky like, that she hoped that wasn't a "verbal tip," and when everyone asked what that was, she explained it. That it's when a customer says something really nice about a waitress and then tips her, like, 13% or something. They all thought that was funny for some reason but then this blonde lady next to me—no one was talking to her, either (I checked her out for a second, but she was fugly, a real butterface, if you know what I mean)—anyway, this hag says "Well, it's better than nothing." Man, you shoulda seen the hideous sneer on this witch when she said it! I wanted to high five her right there. The waitress was all, "Hey, I've got med school to pay off," like she's some fuckin' comedian or something, and the hag's husband or whatever laughed.

If there's one thing I hate, it's chicks getting the last laugh. So when she split all our checks and laid them down, announcing that she forgot to put a gratuity on 'em but she's not worried because they're all regulars or whatever, blah blah blah and they all had their cutesy laugh and lovefest, I showed her.

On the tip line of my credit card receipt, I drew an unhappy face with tears spraying out of it and wrote "wah wah wah!" Ha ha! I nearly had to put down my iPhone to keep my hands steady I was so excited. I kind of hoped a little that she'd confront me about it so I could choke the life outta her. I told you I go to the dark place, yo.

When we all walked out to our car, I saw her standing outside with the chef and owner who had come talked to our table before. She had brought out a signed menu for their birthday and all this stuff. I bet she thinks she's so great. I just stood there in the parking lot and they were looking at me and I was looking at them, and although it was dark, I'm pretty sure she could see the truth, cause it was right there in my eyes. I'm the fuckin' king. You mess with me, I'm gonna mess with you.

Later, some joker said that they hoped she didn't find out where I worked and somehow find a way to mess with my income. Whatever. A dumb waitress wouldn't know how to do that.

Would she?

Week in Wankers

"Can you send this whole grilled fish, described exactly as thus on the menu, back to the kitchen so they can filet it? I really don't want it looking at me. Har har. Meanwhile, my husband and daughter will be forced to fold their hands dutifully in their laps and watch as their own food cools and congeals before them."

Said this thing the other night.

Week in Wankers: the weekend crew

Working both Friday and Saturday this week, which, for an old pro (or even a young and spritely tyro) is just one of those necessary miseries that you don't bother to complain about, like how a chambermaid dumps a piss pot.

But for those of us who, while in good shape (thanks, YMCA's clean and well-maintained facilities!), may be yellowing around the edges a bit, clocking in on a Saturday after the ass-kicking received on a Friday feels exactly like this. If Friday night (Amateur Night, Part One) is any indication of the cross-section I can expect to wait upon this evening, I will be faced with the following:

• Loud, older Texans with loads of money and absolutely no taste, whose wigged wives wave their turquoise rings in my face and describe the "big, oaky, buttery Chardonnay" they want me to bring them. (Hint: Bring them anything, so long as it's undergone malolactic fermentation. That's all they really want. And if everything you have is stainless-steel-fermented, bring them a glass of half & half with some popcorn floating in it.)

• Aging hippies who take off their shoes and sit cross-legged on the banquette, so that all incoming persons will be forced to be witnesses to her rock-bottom Britney moment. Aging hippies part two, who come in reeking of patchouli so that everyone around them, instead of enjoying the native aromas of their eye-poppingly good lamb chops and Chinons, are forced to recall that college performance of "Godspell" they had to usher for fine arts credit.

• That champion douchebag who insists on sitting next to—instead of across from—his lady at a two-top, thus invading the personal space of whoever is at the table next to him, performing an unnecessarily raucous turning of the table to fit their needs, and in such a way that sends silverware rocketing off said table and onto the floor. As waitress first protests, "Please, sir, let me do that for you," is ignored, and then forced to return with new silverware, heroic asshole smirks, "Did that just totally mess up your vibe?" (Find out if having the busboy fart on his salad messes up his vibe.)

• The young lady who, because she ignored my brief (and apparently necessary) overview of the menu at the beginning of the night, is stunned to find out that the "Whole Grilled Branzino" on the menu is, in fact, whole, and forces me to send it back to the kitchen for fileting. Which, by the way, no modern kitchen or chef who has cooked abroad wants to do, because it not only kills the exquisite presentation, effectively reducing the glorious fish to a pile of glossy flakes, but because it's fucking lazy. ("Make my food into a pile I can shovel into my mouth without focus." America, what a country!) If you're blind and have no teeth, you can still negotiate a branzino's skeletal structure. Then again, if you're blind and have no teeth, I suggest the soup.

• This being date night, any number of the men who will be walked out on by their drunk, belligerent wives/girlfriends/ex-wives/mistresses/"nieces" and who will leave me a 12% tip, despite having forced me into an incredibly awkward situation, which I will have handled with great aptitude, if I do say so myself. When he asks a group of us at the front if we saw where she walked off to, one of us supposes she went to find an ATM to get the rest of my tip.

As Adrian said to Rocky as he prepared to fight Ivan Drago, "You can't win!"

But then, sitting at the bar later tonight, counting my rubles, I'll think of this.

Eggs Benedict Arnold

I'm finally done with the restaurant guide and can begin to till the stinky soil of these posts with some more waitressing rants and stories. I am grateful for the opportunity to vent whenever, in the course of my work, I had to brush up against the rancid pus lake that is Yelp, and all of its unholy tributaries of meritless conjecture like CitySearch, Chowhound, and The Austin Chronicle. *wink!*

I will miss statements like "First of all, I don't know if I'm dining at the wrong places but the sushi in TX is not as fresh as in Chicago."

I'm working on an essay about the experience of being a waitress-restaurant critic (a real, paid one bound by ethical and professional standards). It's called "Turncoat: The Eggs Benedict Arnold Story."

I've been working a lot of brunches lately. Something I never thought I'd do after shacking up with a guy whose predilection towards eating brunch together over the Sunday NY Times is such that, when threatened by other plans - like a party or dim sum invitation with, shudder, other people; or being in a dusty West Texas town with no NY Times in it - he actually gets inside the laundry basket and cowers there, weeping.

Brunch can be really great. It's fast as hell, so time passes more quickly; and the turnover is high, so even if a table has really bad mojo ("I'll just have water;" or "I'm too hungover/tired/stuck up inside my own asshole to say 'please' and 'thank you.'"), they'll be out of your life in no time. The energy among the waitstaff is funny, too, as we all are cranked up on coffee, adrenaline, or that crack-in-a-cup 5-Hour Energy, plus the insistent willpower to not fall apart at the expo line when an order of French toast has taken 30 minutes in the middle of the rush.

If working the dining room on a Friday or Saturday night can feel for an hour like battle, brunch is three hours of a dirty, bloody, cheek-rending, hair-pulling South Carolina bar fight. Someone's definitely getting fucked against their will.

Worst of all, the ratio of uptight, middle-aged (I'm calling 55 and higher middle-aged, because, come on...45 is still pretty fucking happening) church-goers is noticeably higher, and so the tip percentage goes down to an average of 13-15% from the standard fine dining 20%. Evangelicals look for any reason to obliterate that tip, so Sunday brunch must be like heaven for them.

The justification for a lower brunch tip cannot be that brunch somehow requires less work - certainly not. We wake up at 7:30 am on a Sunday, while most of our peers are peacefully snoring or having morning sex, to come down here and pour cup after cup of coffee for you. By the time most of the city is awake and kayaking around the lake, walking their dogs in the park, or kicking back with some huevos rancheros on a sunny patio with friends, we are delivering our 50th eggs Benedict to some sneering hag who apparently requires a hose to constantly pour decaf down her miserable gullet.

But you know, we also get the industry people - tables of four waiters and waitresses with sunglasses on, the cracking voices of those who have partied hard and are enjoying their day off, who applaud joyfully when you bring them mimosas, who are happy to be alive and eating lots of good food and not serving the assholes at the table next to them.

I hereby decree that everyone work a Sunday brunch once a year, if only to appreciate how wonderful it is not to. I am happy to be back amongst you, diners and colleagues - antagonistic though you may sometimes be. Although I find criticism - in its classic form - to be useful and necessary, a constant reminder of the gold standard by those who are exquisitely qualified in contextual analysis, I find it a bit like butchery - best left to those with the stomach for it.

More Writing Commandments

Let's talk about lazy, sloppy food writing. The following words are hereforthwith unbearable and may result in traffic accidents while I try to drive while bleeding from multiple orifices on my face:

Offerings - food, menu items, wines, whatever. Stop calling them "offerings." It brings to mind loin-clothed natives kneeling and presenting various choices of bành mí or smoothies before a foodie god (see "Foodie," below).

Nestled - a Chinese hole in the wall doesn't "nestle" in the corner of a strip mall. Fawns nestle; Easter eggs nestle. Acceptable alternatives: squatting, lurking, and emitting off-putting smells.

Foodie - every time you say this, a butterfly gets eaten by Andrew Zimmern. Adding a cutesy "-ie" to the end of a word we all require to survive implies a ridiculously misplaced sense of superiority. Instead, why not "epicurean" or "gastronome"? Oh yeah, because it doesn't disarm those around you who might mistake you for someone smart and grown up. Scary-wary! To be fair, plenty of people for whom I have a great deal of respect have succumbed to this word usage, just like that one time my boyfriend got bit by the zombie and we had to cut off his head. That sucked almost as much.

Yummy/Nummers/Nom-nom/Nom - see what I did there? Read out loud, that shows the precise decay of the English language, once a very fine language (but before that, absolute garbage, an ungainly mishmash of Germanic and Romantic languages). It's like the whole Kristen/Kirsten/Kiersten/Karsten/Kastin/Smashmash/Glahgah thing. Our brains are sloshing around in our heads from all the high fructose corn syrup and this is how it manifests. If you say "nom nom" at a hospital cafeteria, I do believe they will rush you to the ER, mistaking you for a stroke victim. Or maybe it's no mistake.

It's really just laziness, which, when you troll the food blogs and free-for-all review sites, is blisteringly common -- no, most people are not writers, but now they can be read by just about anyone. The danger is that we are an impressionable species - already, I've seen apostrophes misused by even businesses who paid a great deal of money for professional signage.
"Saturday's and Sunday's!"
"Walk in's welcome!"

With our education system in ruins, don't you think kids are going to grow up thinking that's the correct usage? THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Never mind them, plenty of grown-ups are mimicking each other's lusterless, dull language.

Oh yes, which reminds me:

Lackluster - the use of "lackluster" to describe food, experiences, wines, whathaveyou is just silly, given that the word itself is lackluster. Again, it's lazy to point out what something isn't rather than having to think about what it is. (And I know lazy.) Except "mirthless"... "mirthless" rules.

Examples of better words than "lackluster": sullen, limpid, flaccid, puny, dull, blah (blah is okay - it's onomatopoeic, the sound of barfing; unlike "yummy," which is just insipid.)

Words best convey your feelings when they put an image in the reader's mind. Words with no image - you can tell them by their lack of poetry - are lazy words. And if you don't care, you're not really a writer, no matter how many "hits" or "cools" your posts get.

It's a brave new world, but time will sort you out.