Letter of the Week

Facebook friend Ronald writes in with a classic query in the world of hirsute hospitality:*

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Hello John:

I have a question.  My wife and I dined at Andre’s @ Monte Carlo last night, as the restaurant was near empty, the dinner was going great until my wife found a hair in her duck entree, the server came by and asked if everything was o.k., my wife tells him about the hair, they asked to redo it, but my wife said no, and wanted nothing else.

How should this been handled, I’m at a loss ? Thank You !

You’re The Best BTW !

Hygienically yours,

Ralphing Ronald

ELV responded thusly:

The restaurant  should wisk the plate away immediately, and offer to re-do the entry….or offer the diner a different entree selection — and not charge them for the re-done dish. If you decline the offer and wish to skip the course entirely (out of either nausea or distrust of the kitchen), they should take the charge off the bill and comp at least another main dish for the table or desserts for the table. In a high end establishment, a free round of drinks or wine should also be offered.

The reason this particular establishment didn’t do so stems from the owner’s personality, which is (how do we put this delicately?) not exactly a wellspring of charm and generosity. Unlike yourself, he has never recognized the genius and unmatched excellence of ELV.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

* Diner: Waiter, what’s this fly doing in my soup?

Waiter: The backstroke.

12 thoughts on “Letter of the Week

  1. Somewhat O/T, but does Andre’s still bring entrees out under domes and reveal them all at the same time while saying, “Voila!”? I Had Not Been Warned of This years ago when I ate at Andre’s @ The Palms, and could barely stifle my laughter when it occurred.

  2. Moral of the story. Never eat at an empty restaurant…it could turn out to be an “hairy situation.”

  3. Although they did offer to redo the Entree, my wife was put into situation where she lost her appetite and when told the server, he made a comment that “I will have to CALL my boss” referring that his boss was not on the location.

  4. A hair grosses you out? When I was a waiter, I always enjoyed acting shocked that such a thing could occur, and then I’d walk back to a kitchen full of bald and/or shaved headed cooks to tell them about the 12 inch golden hair my lovely blonde lady-guest found in her meal. While I was not there, and cannot attest to how such a thing could have happened in this instance, in my experience, it was almost always BS. My advice in the future would be to:

    1. Understand that your meals are cooked by semi-hairless animals, and until food replicators are installed in your hermetically-sealed, futuristic mcmansion, dander, eyelashes, and arm hairs will contaminate nearly every meal.
    2. Get over yourself. There are far worse things that can find their way into your food in the many steps from farm to table, but are easier to be blissfully unaware of. This is after all, something you are putting into your dirty mouth, not rubbing into your eyeball.
    3. Don’t be so passive aggressive. Let them cook you a new dish. Eat it in confidence that extra care has been taken to assure you of it’s cleanliness.

  5. It looks like John Wayne should get over “HIMSELF” as a paying customer, I don’t think anyone wants to experience a hair in their food.
    Everyone is different, especially if your paying 200.00 for a meal, this should not be an experience in a French Restaurant, KFC, Jack in the Box is not what they were dining at !

  6. ELV:
    Customer, waiter is there soup on the menu?
    Waiter, no madam, I wiped it off!
    Rim Shot!

    Do you know why waiters like gorillas rather than flies?
    Have you ever heard of anyone complaining of a gorilla in their soup?
    Rim Shot!
    Two lawyers come into a restaurant and order two drinks. They then pullout two sandwiches from their briefcases and begin to eating them.
    The waiter comes over and says, gentlemen, you cant eat your sandwiches in here.
    The two lawyers shrug their shoulders and hand each other their sandwiches and continue eating their lunch!
    Rim Shot!
    I could go on all day, but you get my drift. Nice comments ELV. I ‘ve actually seen a hairy doucebag like the one pictured eating at Sinatra last month! Yowsire!

  7. Dear MR. Wayne:

    People go to fine dining restaurants to “not” get a hair or any other foreign matter in their expensive plate. It’s possible you were a waiter in a place that serves that, I can assure you it didn’t last long.

  8. I read somewhere that this restaurant is in bankruptcy? If so, it will explain the empty restaurant and the hair in the soup.

  9. ELV, how about getting a new story up so that pic doesn’t haunt us every time we visit the home page!

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