blakegwinn

I agree that I always enjoy trying to figure out the real story. Same on Tom's chat. The way some of these people tell their story they were just innocently walking down the street on the way to volunteer at a soup kitchen and Roberto Donna jumped out of an alley, depantsed them, smashed them in the back of the head with a sea bass and then encouraged everyone standing nearby to laugh at them while they were laying on the ground trying to get their pants back up. What I am trying to say is that my mom, my brother, my little sister and I have all worked in a variety of different restaurants since we were able to work and I have never ever witnessed or heard of an entire staff going off unless seriously provoked. I'm talking physical threat, yelling, racial slur territory. You might have a waiter who just loses it one day, or a manager who is having a bad day or whatever but never have I seen purposely rude treatment across the board, from host to chef like some of these people claim. It just doesn't happen like that. There are social mores that just keep that kind of thing from happening in a place of business. Its the same reason we don't all show up nude. Maybe I one day just say "fuck it" and come into work in the buff but what are the odds that the host, the busboy, the manager and the chef not only don't reprimand me but take theirs off as well?

I'll cop to the Smoothie King comment. I couldn't resist.

This is sort of on topic but do any other restaurant people on here source their bread from Lyon? The stuff we are getting from them has taken a HUGE drop off the last year or two in my opinion. Just thought it warranted mentioning.

Anyone want to go grab a few beers and a charcuterie board on their patio tonight? The weather is about to turn and they have the best people watching.

I love the service also. Its attentive without being stuffy. Very relaxed and friendly. I was in a few months back and had one of my favorite servers. When Beth and I stopped in last night we sat in another server's section but he came over and shook our hands and asked how Beth's job interview went. It took a second but then I realized last time we were in was right before Beth had a big job interview. I was amazed that he remembered that.

Damn I don't see why you apologized Hersch. Its just an internet chat board not the floor of the Senate. I never understood why there was such bruhaha over anything posted here much less your benign little post. Its just a bunch of chit-chat and small talk among people with similar feelings about food. Which is why the response seemedd like using an Abrams to try and kill a fly. If folks at DR.com kill your appetite you can go read egullet, chowhound or the comment section of the Post website. ZING! -Edited to remove douche-baggery. -Blake

Jonathon, What was the recipe you used for the grenadine? I would like to give it a whirl this weekend.

Was that intentional? I have to wonder...

I think the point that was trying to be made above is that the IRS, not the restaurant is going to look at sales when looking for poor schmucks to audit. It is true that both the IRS and most every restaurant require you to be tipping out on the tips you made not the sales. But in practice the IRS has no idea what kind of tips you made so they are going to look at your sales numbers and if you only reported your tips as being 7 percent of that sales number, they might want to take a closer look at that and find out why. IE the dreaded audit. I think that people serving 1000 dollar bottles of wine would actually be more at risk of an audit anyways as they are making the most money. I don't feel like the IRS would waste much time auditing the 23 year old 3rd time senior philosophy major working at TGIFridays who makes 20k a year. I admit I don't know much about their selection process but it just seems like they would trend towards the higher dollar, career type servers. And personally, as far as this whole discussion is concerned, I think the tipping system is a load of crap and should just be scrapped. And I am a server. If I ever open a restaurant I am jacking up all my prices and paying my servers a decent hourly wage and for the full time employees, giving them benefits. Then I am making it widely known that you don't have to tip at my restaurant. The price you see is the price you get. Sometimes I feel like the whole system just exists to trick diners into thinking a meal is cheaper than it is. Instead of 22.95 that pasta dish is now 15.95!!! (Oh but you have to pay the salary of the guy who brings it to you). It is just like the cell phone companies do. You sign a plan for 39.99 but somehow your bill is 53 dollars every month.... Oh and by the way I think more than a few of those items on the waiter rant thing were ridiculous. I like even numbers on my checks. Easier to close out and easier to add up at the end of the night.

Alright, two things come to mind here. First, we used to have these ridiculous end of the fall-season parties for rugby in college. Somewhere along the line a tradition got started for the older team leaders to carry around bottles of Tenley brand tequila and a bottle of tabasco to interrupt any underclassmen attempts at wooing the opposite sex with an impromptu prairie fire. No glass either, shot of each and then swish. I would have said this was cruel hazing but I don't really know any upperclassmen who didn't match each underclass shot while doing their best to maintaain an unfazed look just to let them know who was boss. Second is a story from the Black Cat back when it was still the Cage. This was in the height of our hard drinking years and we heard they had an all you could drink special for $10 from 9-midnight on Saturday. We took this as a challenge and after a morning game and quick showers we all started "pregaming". Well, all we had was a case of steel reserve 40's and a flat of Foster's oil cans. 6 of us polished off the 40's (yes that's 2 apiece) while the others plowed through the Fosters. There were about 8-9 guys and one girlfriend. (typical) We showed up in this state at the Cage right on the dot. Actually 5 minutes to nine. Completely dead. They didn't even have the door charge table and cash drawer set up so we had to wait. We got in and I am pretty sure they had more bartenders than we had people. It was like this until about 10:30 (from what I can remember). Anyways here is the shot part, I was standing next to the girlfriend and she asked the bartender for sex on the beach or some equivalent. I didn't really hear. I came over and asked for one of whatever she had ordered. This was overheard by two of my friends who instantly began chastizing me for my less than masculine order. The chided me until one of them came up with the idea that I should drink something manly to make up for it. They asked the bartender for the manliest drink he could think of. I think for pure entertainment sake this guy nearly tops off a rocks glass with a mixture of rail tequila, rail gin and Old Crow. I managed to choke it down and they decided they felt bad and both knocked one back also. Needless to say my memory of the night ended very shortly after that. Not proud but it is a part of my past and I can't deny it.

My friend went by the other night and said there was plywood up and it looked like it had closed down. Has anyone been by the last few days that can confirm or deny this? He had never been before so maybe he went to the wrong block or something.

If you guys come over this way I will definitely meet up with you. Daruma is like 4 blocks from my office. I can skip the gym for one day.

Dean, that was LASH not FLASH. (Both would be considered cruel and especially unusual I think)

Absolutely not. Apples and oranges to me. When you are talking about public and employee health regulation the government has every right to regulate, just like an owner can't use much cheaper asbestos insulation, legally serve rotten or contaminated meat or lash their servers when they don't do something right. (as much as they may want to).

Just to qualify my earlier post after reading some more discussion on kids in the Colorado kitchen string, I think an owner or manager of a restaurant does have every right to project their feelings on etiquette to other people. It is their place, their four walls, their customers, their food and their tables and chairs. They can require people to behave anyway they please while in their "home". And Daniel what I was trying to say about the 99 percent is not that people lie about what their kids do but just that they might not view the same actions as bad behavior as you or a strong majority of other customers might. To some parents throwing food on the floor is just kids being kids and nothing to be alarmed about or corrected. Running around the restaurant is just normal energy release for a 4 year old. My point is that usually if you were to ask the mother of the kids who are currently throwing chicken nuggets at each other if her kids were well behaved she would say yes, and wouldn't be lying.

Gotta say I have never heard of anything like that. Nobody I have ever known does that or anything resembling that. You might have been getting "punished" by a waiter who wanted to go home for coming in late and taking away a table and a half hour of time for soup and water. Can't say I would do it but I could see it being the case maybe. Also on the kids thing, all of you parents can stop telling us all how "well-behaved" your kids all are. Everyone mentions it over and over when a discussion about kids come up but to me this is just like a discussion about a "bad" neighborhood or about what constitutes good and evil. Well-behaved is a very relative term and completely dependent on your individual view of what good behavior is. I would say 99 percent of parents would describe their kids as well-behaved. If they saw a problem with the kids' behavior they would have done something about it. Usually these comments are used as a counterpoint to people expressing annoyance at kids in restaurants but it is just as judgemental and "holier-than-thou" as the points of view they are arguing against. Going on about how well-behaved your kids are implies that there are other peoples kids who are not and that your kids behave the "right way". I really don't believe in one universal "right way". Everyone has their own experiences and upbringing that shapes their ideas of socially acceptable practices. You aren't going to change other people's nor should you really. That implies that you and your kids hold some kind of monopoly on proper etiquette. I am not anti-kids in restaurants and don't want anyone to think that is what I mean by this. I think everyone has their own views of what acceptable behavior is and I realize I am never going to be able to change the way someone else's kids behave or view (my version of) good manners much less everyone else that comes into restaurants. Waiting tables I have seen so many people let their good time be ruined by obsessing over some other parties behavior. My advice to both the people railing on kids in general or just other people's kids, just lighten up, enjoy yourself and try not to let the differences in your version of good manners and someone elses get to you. And if it is so bad somewhere that you absolutely cannot ignore it anymore, just choose a different restaurant.

I mentioned that before. Unless you are at a place that still uses a ticket system (IE 2amys) any computer can fairly easily split the checks out. If it is a lot of people it can be a moderate headache but the problem is guarantee of at least one person skimping out on the tip. And Ilaine the anonymity problem also doesn't really apply in the method I listed a few posts up either. What usually happens is someone grabs a pen and writes down "Anderson - $20, Jones - $25, etc. so USUALLY everyone knows what is going down already. For some reason when people do this they usually have already figured in the tip to those amounts. Must be some psychological thing. To me (from a diner's standpoint, not the waiter) this whole discussion defeats the point because I just like the easiest, smoothest way for everyone because I don't feel like doing advanced calculus and wrangling money out of people and trying to figure out who is short at the end of a meal. We usually just take a look at the check, slide the decimal point to the left, multiply by two and add that to the total rounding up to the nearest round number and dividing by the number of people. This sounds complicated but being a waiter I can do this in my head in like 2 seconds. Then I tell everyone the amount and we all put that in. If we have people using credit cards we just give her each card and tell the waitress the amount also. (32 on each card please). My friends have used this method for awhile and no one has ever felt burned and the check seems to be figured out and paid without even interrupting the discussion we are having. And if someone has really stepped over the others (filet with a lobster tail add-on and 4 glasses of 15 dollar/glass wine) they usually just throw some extra cash into the pot or add some into the tip line onto their receipt for the server. I guess I don't really hang out with too many cheapskates though so this kind of system works... If we argue it is usually someone trying to put more in because they feel bad for ordering more than everyone else.

Just decide how much you want to put on your card and let the waiter know. If it is more than 3 I recommend writing the amounts down with your last names next to them. (just write it on the receipt)

About two weeks ago I had a a party of 9 all ask me for separate checks. Not putting different amounts on each card but actually splitting the ticket into 9 different tickets. The lowest check was 12 something, the highest 15 something. I mean c'mon you all just had the same freaking thing??!!Anyways the thing that servers hate most about splitting checks isn't necessarily splitting them all but there is ALWAYS and I mean always 1-2 people who don't tip when it is split. It is a strange phenomenon. I am talking 98 percent of the times I have split checks there has been at least one person who leaves like 5 percent or nothing. I think it is this mentality of not being noticed like in a one on one situation. When different amounts are put on credit cards for one check it is different because everyone at the table will usually see the final total. But when they are all split into seperate checks the cheap person has that individual check that they can just draw that line through the tip and slide it down on the table unnoticed, someone always tries to sneak by. I think there are a good number of people who hate tipping, it is just like nails on a chalkboard to them and the only reason they do it is because of the social embarassment factor. They don't want the waiter thinking they are cheap or their date or friends etc. But when you split checks for a party of 6 or more it gives them enough anonymity to just not do it. The waiter will have six checks and not know which one was which person. Your friends will never see what you left and no one will ever know what you just did. I think that is why waiters really hate splitting checks. With the new computer systems it really isn't THAT hard. It's a slight annoyance but really isn't so bad that you would get pissed off just about that. Another thing that we get nailed on is when a party splits up a single check via payment (IE here is 80 dollars in cash, put 20 dollars on the amex and the balance (15$) on the visa.) Well a good percentage of the time you pick up the checks to find the Amex left you 4 dollars and the Visa left you 3. Good tips, if you don't look at the bigger picture and realize you just got 7 dollars on $115 check. That happens a lot but not as much as the first scenario which is almost a guarantee.

Whoa, don't knock that MoCo store. I was stocking up for a party a few weeks ago and was FLOORED by the deals I got on liquor. The wine and beer selection sucks but I get over it real quick when I am paying 22 dollars for a bottle of Hendricks.

Sorry, I wrote that before I saw xcanucks post. This is just a really personal issue to me and somehow it riles me up a lot more than it should. Plus it is already over, done deal I guess. No point in arguing it now, except that I would like to see it spread nationwide for the benefit of all those other (non-stereotype) restaurant employees like myself out there who don't smoke a pack a day. The sad thing is most of those employees who are the backbone of the restaurant industry and are going to be adversely affected are largely immigrants or lower-income citizens who have almost no voice in the political process and no health insurance.

. There are huge and lengthy regulations on bus emissions in DC and they went through a complete overhaul of all the city buses back in the 90's I believe. My mechanic friend was telling me each bus has a mandatory regulator and must be kept below a certain point or get serviced. And as far as private vehicles, I don't know about you guys but I went through inspection three times and ended up having a gut job of my exhaust system (about 400 bucks after all was said and done) to meet the DC emission standards and get my plates. That isn't even counting the hundreds of thousands of regulations on all types of air pollution that are on the books across the country. Code red days have more to do with heat and pollen count than emissions. I don't think pollen is regulated you could crusade against that I suppose but emissions are pretty well regulated. So does that mean you accept the smoking ban as a public health regulation now?It just bugs me that smokers cry about regulation and free market now but they don't realize that there are THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of regulations and ordinances to protect public and employee health JUST like the smoking ban that have been on the books for years and years but nobody cries nanny state until now. If the tobacco companies didn't have so much money and power this probably would have happnened years ago when governments were making all of these other occupational and public health reforms. And also how many cases of lung cancer are linked to buses every year? Just curious because secondhand smoke has been linked to approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 22,700-69,600 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year. (as of 2005 when the study was done). And this little ditty, "Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at work are at increased risk for adverse health effects. Levels of ETS in restaurants and bars were found to be 2 to 5 times higher than in residences with smokers and 2 to 6 times higher than in office workplaces." That is me. I work in one of those restaurant and bars. It always struck me as so selfish that people were so unwilling to walk 20 feet to the door and step outside for a few minutes to significantly decrease the risk of health problems for all the employees. It is not about "clothes smelling good" or any of that other crap to me (and a lot of other food service employees in the District I am sure). It is a health concern. Plain and simple.

Beth and I used to get takeout from the SS location pretty frequently but haven't gone since Moby's opened. Everything is just, I don't know, blah. Which is not a good sign for Lebanese. The specials are still decent sometimes, I have had a few good tagines and some good soup but everything else is extremely underwhelming. I like the hummus we get from Giant better than the stuff they use. My biggest issue though has been with the overcooking of meats. THis is my biggest pet peeve with a lot of the ethnic places, they just torch the meats until it is like eating jerky. Last time we got food there I was covering my chicken with BBQ sauce (after I quickly ran out of yogurt sauce) just to get enough moisture to make it chew- and swallowable. I figured that is just normal with Middle eastern takeout until I had Moby's. Their meat has been consistently very juicy. Until I start hearing consistent positive comments about Leb. Taverna I am completely loyal to Moby's for my takeout needs.

Hahahaha. I had totally forgot about that.

I think if we looked at the resumes of most of the posters who would rail on chefs' flowery descriptions of menu items partially sourced by Sysco, we would find that many of these same people are also experts at (to borrow from Poivrot's metaphor) tunring a replica into a Roycroft antique. I think everyone is guilty of some selective marketing. Would you order the "Pan-Seared Sysco Scallops with a bed of Sauteed Organic Sysco Spinach and topped with strips of Crispy sysco bacon"? Probably not. Its just like the outlandishly tasty looking pictures of Mcdonalds burgers on the menu and the scorchingly hot models talking on the phone in late night party line commercials.