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Hey my wife is a smoker and when we took our daughter to Restaurant Eve a few months ago, my wife didn't just get up once to go out and smoke, but several times. I was embarrassed because not only were our fleet of servers completely acommodating, they replaced her napkin each time with fresh linen. After the fourth new napkin appeared I asked them to stop. :lol: I'm with Tom on this -- there's more than one side to this critical account:

Washington, D.C.: I agree with the reader in your recent magazine column who is sick of all your readers sending in complaints about restaurants. I also rarely find things to critisize in my dining experiences. HOWEVER, I recently dined at Restaurant Eve in Alexandria for the third time. Food is really great there but each time I find the service somewhat snobby and definitely with an attitude that diners are so lucky to be eating there. A recent Wednesday night we took a friend visiting from Paris there. She is a smoker and is used to smoking during good meals. Between the first and main course we took her outside to have a quick cigarette. We told our waiter where we were going. A few minutes later the manager stuck his head out the door and said VERY RUDELY, "I can either throw the food away or leave it to get cold on your table...your choice" and stormed back in. We had actually had to wait 20 minutes after our reservation time to be seated and we didn't complain! Was I wrong to leave feeling offended and sickened by his attitude?

Tom Sietsema: Am I hearing the full story here? I wonder. The command from the staff member sure doesn't sound like the Eve I know.

Edited by FunnyJohn
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It does seem awfully coincidental that the "oldest restaurants" thread would show up at or near the time that this issue comes up on the Chat.

I saw the question and remembered that I had been meaning to put it up, so I scampered and did it!

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I find the service somewhat snobby and definitely with an attitude that diners are so lucky to be eating there.

weird, the service was one of the things that really 'made' our evening at Eve, top class service btu also warm, friendly, and welcoming, which you don't find at every good restaurant

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uuuh, I guess its daggers out for Eve day

Arlington, VA: I recently celebrated my birthday dinner at Restaurant Eve. At my husband's insistent, we got the 9 course meal. While most of it was quite good, there were a few courses that were just ok. My question is, for the price of the 9 courses we could easily have eaten at Maestro and had a dinner where everything was excellent, so should we ever return to Restaurant Eve? Eve was good, but for the price of the 9 courses, I think it should have been better. Was I expecting too much?

Tom Sietsema: Can you elaborate, please?

how does she 'know' that dinner at Maestro the same night would have been uniformaly excellent?

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Lots of jawing about Eve this week.  Every once in a while, Sietsema seems to allow one restaurant to be picked on.  It's similar to what happened with Ray's the Steaks a few weeks ago.  And that comparison with Maestro sounded familiar.

Nah, writing style isn't as...how you say...bombastic? I think daggers are out for another restaurant this week for him anyway.

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I heard from Cathal and Meshelle. Their version (edited and summarized by me - sorry I can't do a better job but I'm busy at work right now):

--

"Todd said, Excuse me your dinner is ready.(This was the 3rd time)

They said, just leave it there.

Todd said, If you'll be a while, we'll remake it.

They said..Why Are you going to throw it out?

Todd said...It's important that your dinner must be served hot.

We couldn't possibly leave it on the table to overcook and sauces to congeal... We don't have heat lamps.. The process is this:

The chef cooks it, and hand passes it to Cathal, Cathal inspects it, gives it

to the waiter, waiter serves immedietly to guest. This is crucial..! When food is ready and called for pick up all must jump!

If some want to take time then great if not, that's fine too. We're not here to tell people what to do but then if someone complains that their fish is overcooked due to sitting there...they say it wasn't that good. Hmmmmm.

Yes! People are paying! But what they are paying for is for us to give them our best, to take care of them, and to provide nothing less.

Leave it there?...never!

Thank You

Meshelle Armstrong"

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Without wanting to start another "Is the customer always right?" thread, I can't help but think that there's a point beyond which trying to make sure that your guests have a good experience just ceases to make sense. Hard as it may be to cast your pearls before swine, once they explicitly tell you: "We don't care", I think you're pretty much free to just shrug your shoulders, take their money and laugh about them later while closing up. Trying to reform a well-done steak eater or mid-course smoker only lays you open to the above variety of chickenshit backshot.

Vive Eve! Le complaignant, merde! :lol:

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Good god. I will never understand why some smokers want to smoke with their meal -- and I'm a smoker myself. Its just not good form, especially at a restaurant like Eve. The explanation given by Cathal and Meshelle explains it perfectly. 1 cigarette = 10 minutes = ruined dish = complaining about the food at Eve w/o mentioning the fact that you'd let each dish sit until past its prime. I've got little sympathy for the complainants here. Nicotine craving so bad that you can't sit through dinner? Buy a patch. The visitor was from France so most likely flew here -- you think after not being able to smoke on the plane, they could get through a meal sans devant fumer. (apologies for my super-rusty French)

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There are always 2 sides to stories like this and Tom knows it.  Why does he let that kind of stuff through?

Tom asked for more information about the situation, to his credit. I think he lets them through so we, the adoring audience, can have "learning moments" about restaurant-iana. This way, we know where people on both sides of the argument are coming from.

Generally, I'm inclined to side with the restauranteur, because I think many diners mistakenly feel that paying for a meal entitles them to be ludicrous assholes. However, sometimes there are legitimate concerns, and then the propierters have a chance to learn, too. I imagine that, even after decades in business, they haven't seen it all.

In this case, I would have taken the diners' response as the OK to leave their food on the table during their--what must have been multiple-cigarette--break. It's not as if they could have tasted it after coating their mouths with all that cigarette gunk, anyway.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's (today's?) chat. Viva la Deep Throat!

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I don't know if the washpost.com advertising boxes are user specific or not, but I find the one on Tom's chat today rather interesting....both for the subject of a dining chat....not to mention the ventworm front.....

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What's today, the Clueless Wednesday? Why would people find it hard to understand that a four-top does NOT convert to a five top? It's a square table, people. Four sides, four chairs, four bottoms.

If I have a large table available, I'll sit you there. If I have two deuces available, I'll put them together and sit you there. But if I don't have either, blame yourself!!

I also adore it when you are halfway down to the table, and they tell you, "oh, we are going to be five. Is this a problem?" Why yes, it will be. I don't suppose a little bit of advance notice could have been used??

I swear to you. After an evening of clueless walk-ins of eight, sometimes I feel like grabbing the phone and shoving it in their face. "Do you know what this is? It's a phone. A nifty device for communicating information. Use it!!"

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"Do you know what this is? It's a phone.  A nifty device for communicating information."

Judging from the upwelling of complaints about BlackSalt's front desk, it's also quite useful for transmitting bad vibes...

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Ad box was probably generated by Google, which saw all the mentions of the word "Black"...

I think someone should start a tally of what restaurant gets bashed each week (not that the bashing is always unwarranted). We've seen Tallula, Ray's, Eve, the Black's chain, Matchbox (this week was a twofer I guess). Anyone want to place a bet on what it is next week?

Edited by Kanishka
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Judging from the upwelling of complaints about BlackSalt's front desk, it's also quite useful for transmitting bad vibes...

They seem not to realize that it's MacArthur Blvd., not Rodeo Drive. BlackSalt, just minutes from the Delcarlia Reservoir. They were snotty the first time I was there.

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Yes indeed, the theme continues of lining up a restaurant or two in the sights of Ask Tom. This week, Black Salt and Matchbox got bitch slapped but good.

One or two poster complaints ok, but like four or five. Whoa.

I ate at Eve after it was in the sights.The week after the smoker/'you can eat your food cold' etc...was bitched about.

In short, it was out of this world in every way.

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Let's not forget that Tom ASKED if there were any other complaints on Black Salt.

There were enough and of varied enough nature that they may want to take a second look at their service plan.

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A chatter posted an enthusiastic plug for a Korean restaurant in Tenleytown called Kuma, which is presumably very new. I can't find anything about it on the Web, although I haven't tried very hard. Does anyone know anything about this? Where in Tenleytown? Anyone eaten there?

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yeah, they seemed like legit complaints to me (never been to Blacksalt) unlike the bullshit Eve complaints we saw last week

Let's not forget that Tom ASKED if there were any other complaints on Black Salt.

There were enough and of varied enough nature that they may want to take a second look at their service plan.

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A chatter posted an enthusiastic plug for a Korean restaurant in Tenleytown called Kuma, which is presumably very new. I can't find anything about it on the Web, although I haven't tried very hard. Does anyone know anything about this? Where in Tenleytown? Anyone eaten there?

I went a couple of weeks ago. I've already forgotten about it if that tells you anything.

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A chatter posted an enthusiastic plug for a Korean restaurant in Tenleytown called Kuma, which is presumably very new. I can't find anything about it on the Web, although I haven't tried very hard. Does anyone know anything about this? Where in Tenleytown? Anyone eaten there?

It's right across from the library on Wisconsin, two doors down from Neishi Thai.

It's in a space that's been at least a half-dozen different dingy Chinese and Japanese places since I was in college. (AU Alum...)

There's a sign out front advertising a new owner or new management and a sushi buffet.

Jennfier

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The Komi thing's either a wind-up (Rocks?) or by far the most words ever wasted on one sentence worth of information. "It was very hot at Komi the other night."

BdC -- Shades of Fawlty Towers Gourmet Night. "Sorry, duck's off!"

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I was at Komi last week and although it was cool, the AC was spouting some really musty, smelly air. Not a surprise the whole thing crapped out.

I've had a string of dining experiences during our little heatwave recently with "under-performing" HVAC... and very hot and grumpy staff (and customers!)

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A post that sounded (like a) familiar (person)--

D.C., Baby!: Tom -- I REALLY like a couple of the dishes at Good Guys -- I just wish they had carry-out!

Thanks for reminding me of a delightful Washington institution. And good, cheap burgers to boot.

I await your reviews of Archibald's, Camelot, and Good Guys.

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wow. What on earth was going on with that BdC complaint? Sietsema gets complaints about the service there regularly and therefore decides to post an unverified food poisoning charge? How does the first justify the second?

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wow.  What on earth was going on with that BdC complaint?  Sietsema gets complaints about the service there regularly and therefore decides to post an unverified food poisoning charge? How does the first justify the second?

Yeah I found that a little odd and definitely out of character for Tom who is usually very careful about that sort of thing.

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Very odd - especially since he didn't include anything close to the standard "it's probably not the meal you ate immediately prior to getting sick that made you sick" boilerplate, which he's done in the past.

The first thing a restaurant does when this is alleged is to look up the check to see how much liquor is on it. Was it the duck, OR THE 5 MOJITOS YOU DRANK? :lol:

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What the hell was that thing about Bistro Asiatique? I didn't understand a word of it. Am I the only one who didn't have a ticket for that train of thought? blink.gif

Mark: Does the name Dennis Friedman ring a bell? (He's the chef at BA and claims Citronelle on his CV).
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