That Damm Waiter Keeps Taking Away My Drink!

I just came across this video of a waiter that clears the customer's drinks a little to prematurely.

Hope you like it.

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A Dress Made of Lettuce?

Would you give up meat for this?
WTF?
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving...

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Happy Thanksgiving

Thanks to all my readers that have supported this blog over the last year and a half.

 All the best to you and your families.

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First Hotel in Space Opens in 2012

BARCELONA (Reuters) – A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project.

The Barcelona-based architects of The Galactic Suite Space Resort say it will cost 3 million euro ($4.4 million) for a three-night stay at the hotel, with this price including an eight-week training course on a tropical island.  During their stay, guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 80 minutes. They would wear velcro suits so they can crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Galactic Suite Ltd's CEO Xavier Claramunt, a former aerospace engineer, said the project will put his company (http://www.galacticsuite.com) at the forefront of an infant industry with a huge future ahead of it, and forecast space travel will become common in the future.  "It's very normal to think that your children, possibly within 15 years, could spend a weekend in space," he told Reuters Television.

A nascent space tourism industry is beginning to take shape with construction underway in New Mexico of Spaceport America, the world's first facility built specifically for space-bound commercial customers and fee-paying passengers.  British tycoon Richard Branson's space tours firm, Virgin Galactic, will use the facility to propel tourists into suborbital space at a cost of $200,000 a ride.

Galactic Suite Ltd, set up in 2007, hopes to start its project with a single pod in orbit 450 km (280 miles) above the earth, traveling at 30,000 km per hour, with the capacity to hold four guests and two astronaut-pilots.  It will take a day and a half to reach the pod - which Claramunt compared to a mountain retreat, with no staff to greet the traveler.

"When the passengers arrive in the rocket, they will join it for 3 days, rocket and capsule. With this we create in the tourist a confidence that he hasn't been abandoned. After 3 days the passenger returns to the transport rocket and returns to earth," he said.  More than 200 people have expressed an interest in traveling to the space hotel and at least 43 people have already reserved.

The numbers are similar for Virgin Galactic with 300 people already paid or signed up for the trip but unlike Branson, Galactic Suite say they will use Russian rockets to transport their guests into space from a spaceport to be built on an island in the Caribbean.

But critics have questioned the project, saying the time frame is unreasonable and also where the money is coming from to finance the project.  Claramunt said an anonymous billionaire space enthusiast has granted $3 billion to finance the project.

Link to original new article.


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Food Trivia Answer

ANIMAL CRACKERS
"Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers, I think.
When I'm grown up and can have what I please,
I think I shall always insist upon these."      
by Christopher Morley

In 1902 the National Biscuit Company's Animal Biscuits assumed the legal trademark name of BARNUM'S ANIMALS. They designed the colorful five-cent box that looked like a circus wagon cage, and attached a string so the box could be hung from the Christmas tree. In total there have been 37 different animals represented since 1902. The current lineup is tiger, cougar, camel, rhinoceros, kangaroo, hippopotamus, bison, lion, hyena, zebra, elephant, sheep, bear, gorilla, monkey, seal and giraffe.

Banquet Manager says "Did you guess the answer?"

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Today's Food Trivia

The product we know today came into being in 1902, but it had existed  in similar forms for generations. During the Christmas season of 1902, packaging became an important factor. It was designed with a string attached to it so it could be hung as a Christmas tree ornament. In total, there have been 37 different varieties, currently there are 22. 

More than 40 million packages of these are sold each year, and they are exported to 17 countries. They are turned out at the rate of 12,000 per minute, and nearly 6,000 miles of string are used on the packages. Poet-philosopher Christopher Morley wrote a poem named for them.
What are they?


Next Post: The Answer To The Quiz

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Don’t Blame Me For Putting The Napkins There!

We have a large pink bin (why pink I’ll never know) that all of banquets and the restaurant are supposed to place our dirty ivory napkins in.  Then Housekeeping comes each day and takes the dirty napkins to the laundry in the basement to be washed.  Sort of easy right?

Every once in a while we need to rent special colored napkins for a social event.  We can't put these napkins in the big pink bin ‘cause they’re rentals and we aren’t supposed to keep them.  They must go in clear plastic bags that we hold on the loading dock in another bin (this time it’s black not pink).  Whatever…

Anyway, the other day, I get a call from the head of Housekeeping bitchin’ that again, there are colored napkins in the big black bin that are supposed to be put in the big pink bin.  “Why does this keep on happening”, she says.  “This is the 3^rd week in a row that this has happened”, she kept complaining.  “Don’t you know that you can’t put the colored rental napkins in the black bin?”, she ended.

By now, I’m ready to shove my foot, and the big black bin, right up her big dirty ass but I hold my composure.  “How do you know that my staff put those rental napkins in the big black bin?” I say.  “Who else would do it?” was her response.  “Nobody but banquets uses rented colored napkins and nobody but banquets are supposed to put them in the big pink bin and NOT in the big black bin” came next.

Now my foot is getting real itchy and needs something to kick…

“Margaretta”, I said, “Did you ever think that maybe the restaurant staff used some of the leftover colored napkins for their Sunday brunch and forgot to put them in the proper bin?”  (P.S., I already knew the answer to this question since they asked me late Saturday night if I had any leftover napkins they could use for a VIP table for brunch).  “They don’t use colored napkins”, came next out of her over-lipsticked lips.   

 “Listen, I shot back at Maria or Consuella or Margaretta – whatever her name is, don’t blame someone unless you have all the facts”.  “It just makes you look like an ass”, I blasted back as I walked away.

It felt good to get that off my chest, but I know I’ll have to pay for it later.  You see, Carmen here has one big brown nose that’s as big as the big pink linen bin.  And it’s always up the GM’s ass.  I’ll get my big white butt chewed-out for this I know.

I need a REAL job!

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Next Post: Today's Food Trivia 

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1 Week Left To Vote

On a previous post, I asked my readers to vote for the favorite joke that I have posted on this blog.  There is only 1 week left to vote.  Click on this link to be taken back to the original post where you can read each joke.  Then place your vote in the poll on the left sidebar.  I'll reprint the winning joke later, thanks.

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Some Historic Banquets From The Past

In the year 1213, England's King John (1166-1216) ordered 3,000 capons, 1,000 salted eels, 400 hogs, 100 pounds of almonds, and 24 casks of wine for his Christmas festivities.

King Edward I of England in 1274 ordered his sheriffs to provide 278 bacon hogs, 450 porkers, 440 fat oxen, 430 sheep, and 22,600 hens and capons for his coronation feast.

In 1377 at the Christmas feast of King Richard II of England, 28 oxen and 300 sheep were consumed.

When George Neville was made Archbishop of York 1464, he celebrated with a feast that included: "300 huge loaves of bread, 300 tuns of ale (about 75,000 gallons), 100 tuns of wine, 105 oxen, 6 wild bulls, 1,000 sheep, 304 pigs, 304 calves, and 400 swans."

The ancient Greeks believed that lettuce induced sleep, so they served it at the end of the meal. The Romans continued the custom. However, the dictatorial Emperor Domitian (81-96 AD) served it at the beginning of his feasts, so he could torture his guests by forcing them to stay awake in the presence of the Emperor.

THE BIGGEST BANQUET IN THE WORLD - On July 14, 1889, Gambetta assembled all the mayors of France at the Palace of Industry in Paris to celebrate the centenary of the storming of the Bastille.  Eleven years later, the idea was repeated by Emile Loubet for the famous ‘mayors banquet' on September 22, 1900.  The menu included fillet of beef Bellevue, Rouen duck loaf, chicken from Bresse, and ballottine of pheasant.

This menu was designed to revive the republican spirit in the city officials: 22,295 mayors were entertained in the Tuileries Gardens in tents specially erected for the occasion and served by waiters from Porel and Chabot, who covered the seven kilometers of tables on bicycles.
Larousse Gastronomique (1988)

UNUSUAL BANQUET MENUS; Worms, beetles, and bugs are not as American as Mom's apple pie, and very probably never will be. But there was an occasion in 1992, at the Explorers Club in New York City, when the New York Entomological Society celebrated its 100th anniversary with a banquet that began with snacks of roasted crickets and larvae and went on through mealworm ghanouj, waxworm fritters with plum sauce, cricket and vegetable tempura, and roasted Australian kurrajong grubs to roast beef and gravy. The dessert was chocolate cricket torte, the centerpieces on the table were live tarantulas (for decor, not for eating).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The first thing that met Sancho's eyes was a whole ox spitted on the trunk of an elm and, in the hearth over which it was to roast, there was a fair mountain of wood burning.  Six earthen pots were arranged around this blaze.... Whole sheep disappeared within them as if they were pigeons.  Innumerable skinned hares and fully plucked chickens, hanging on the trees, were soon to be swallowed up in these pots.  Birds and game too, of all kinds. were also hanging from the branches so that they were kept cool in the air.  There were piles of white loaves, like heaps of wheat in barns. Cheeses, built up like bricks, formed walls and two cauldrons of oil, bigger than dyerÿs vats, were used for frying pastries, which were lifted out with two sturdy shovels and then plunged into another cauldron of honey standing nearby."  

 
Description of the wedding feast of a farmer named Camacho, from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)

Banquet Manager says: "I wonder if they had Sales Chicks back then too..."

Courtesy of Food Reference.com

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The Dreaded Wedding Breakfast

The wonderful world of weddings. You book the event and promise the "perfect wedding". The birds will sing, the flowers will bloom & the rainbow will shine in all it's glorious colors. Well at least we can dream can't we?

So the night comes and guess what? It does indeed turn out to be the perfect wedding. The staff does a great job, not a drink spilled. The kitchen doesn't muck-up the food and everyone leaves at midnight as happy as a lark. A great end to the day.

All you have left to worry about is the wedding breakfast the following morning. I won't get much sleep tonight because I need to be back the next morning at 6am but I've done it a hundred times. No problem...Yeah right! This is the crap that pisses the banquet manager off.

I was always taught that the last thing they remember is not the perfect wedding the night before but the breakfast the next day because they're sobered-up at this point, at least most of them are. Then it happens.

The wedding was for 237 people. You have a guarantee for 80 people since of course not everyone is staying over in the hotel or are even invited to the breakfast. So we set the room for 90 people, 9 rounds of 10 - just in case a few stragglers arrive. Then you get over 160 people to the friggin' breakfast. WTF! I don't have enough food or even enough staff for this!

This shit always happens. And it drives me nuts every time. How does this happen? How the hell can someone eat a filet mignon at 8pm the night before and then apparently divide like an amoeba in Science class the next day?
Then both of these freaks show up for breakfast. WTF!

So now, we're running around for extra silverware, napkins, water glasses, etc. The usual stuff. The chef is now pissed at me as if I had something to do with all these wedding-clones from last night. The table cloths are dirty. A few ol' bags complain that they can't sit with Aunt Mildred 'cause there isn't enough seats at "her table".

Now, of course the coffee urns have run out since we spent so much time getting more tables and chairs (oh, I guess I forgot to mention that part), we didn't have enough time to brew-up a few hundred gallons more for these pod-people. They're bitchin' about this now too.

It goes on like this for 3 hours...yes 3 hours. The event is only booked for 2 hours but they won't leave until they say goodbye to the new bride and groom. Then mom needs to introduce Aunt Mildred to Sophie in the far corner. Then dad needs to get a second stare, I mean look, as his son's newest hot girlfriend that doesn't have a bra on. Well, at least there was 1 good thing about this day.

Then it's finally all over and I present the banquet check to the parents for the additional 83 people (total 163). Then the line comes, "We didn't have that many more people". "I'm not paying for that many more, we only had a guarantee for 80".

At this point I want to hit them over the head with the chaffing dish and shove a sterno up where the sun don't shine. But noooooooooooooooooo, I can't. Then the "negotiation" commences. I don't hate many things in this world but bargaining over extra wedding breakfast space aliens is one of them.

I give in and agree to their count of 120 moonwalkers and get the hell out of here. If I don't give in to them our Sales Chicks will only give in to them later and make me redo the damm check on Tuesday or Wednesday (more paperwork for me). I'd rather take care of it now and deal with the complaints later.

Just what we need, 43 extra Jabba-the-Huts with full bellies that leave thinking we screwed-up on the final event of the wedding...the Dreaded Wedding Breakfast.

I need a REAL job!

Next Post: Some Historic Banquets From The Past

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October Comments

Here's some of the Banquet Manager's favorite comments from readers in the month of October.  Thanks for adding your voice to this blog and keep them coming.

On "New York Bar Serves Up Wine in Baby Bottles"
Manker said:
"Gives new meaning to "bottle fed" ! :)

On "What the F*%$ Did She Say"
Purplegirl said:   
"Some corporate genius decided the hosts should tell you all that stuff instead of the servers, and the hosts get their asses reamed if they're caught not doing. They also get reamed if anybody stands at the door for more than five seconds without being acknowledged. I imagine she was trying to split the difference since some corporate ass clown decided to add to her workload."

On "Don't Bitch About The Payroll"
Native Napkin said: 
"I don't envy you and your job: almost constant training, transient help, and bridezillas. Give me my A-Type hyper-egoed cork dorks in the restaurant every time."


On "WTF, That's Not Charcuterie"
Chicago Banquet Guy said:
"Unfortunately, I don't have to worry about presenting food like that. Our clients aren't willing to spend the extra money. I have to deal with people who want a buffet of fried chicken and corn. So, I don't have to worry about presentation, and the "WOW" factor. I just need to have plenty of fried chicken and cold beer, and my guests are all happy."

 On "I Can't Stand Meeting Planners"
Anonymous said:
"I'm not a meeting planner myself, but I work conferences and smaller meetings as part of my job. I totally sympathize, and would like to add that sadly, the attendees really are that stupid. No amount of idiot-proofing has ever been enough. (Btw, this is my first comment, but I really like your blog!)"

On "Read Brides Worst Wedding Guest Stories"
Skippymom said:
"Forgetting the groom's name reminded me of the following:  The priest at my father's funereal said his name wrong 4 times until I leaned over the front pew and hissed at him his correct name  My mother still hasn't forgiven him."

On "Where Are All The Banquet Managers?"
Fort Mac Manager said:
"I work too much especially coming into Christmas party season to post most of the time ,but I do throughly enjoy readng your posts. Keep em coming, makes me feels better about my job."


On "You Never Setup The A/V Equipment"
BB said:
"I hate when people show up early and then expect everything to be ready! Last time I was bartending a private party some of the guests came an hour before I was even scheduled to be back there to set up and then were complaining because they didn't have any service. Arg, people annoy me."


Next Post: The Dreaded Wedding Breakfast

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The World's Rudest Restaurants - Part 2

It bears noting that restaurant people are not necessarily “people” people. Some are in it solely for the food, or for the money, and would rather be in the kitchen, or in the backroom counting cash, than out here dealing with all your nonsense. Others are just moody eccentrics.

Kenny Shopsin, whose namesake Manhattan luncheonette—since closed—was the subject of a New Yorker tribute by Calvin Trillin, had, among many house rules, a ban on parties of five. (No splitting the group into two tables, either. That would get you ejected.) Yet people loved Shopsin’s, even if Shopsin’s didn’t love them back.

Of course the whole transaction falls apart if the experience isn’t worth the abuse; the ends have to justify the meanness. And in plenty of cases—from Hiko Sushi to Peter Luger—they do. Some diners view rudeness as the gantlet they must run to earn a great meal; they take brusqueness not as a personal affront but as a mark of quality and seriousness of purpose.

The line is easily crossed. At the Chicago hot dog stand the Wiener’s Circle, the staff heap abuse on customers like relish—and, per tradition, the customers give it right back. Me, I found the whole routine disturbing: white male customers and black counter ladies trading the most vicious insults, like a Neil LaBute play with an even uglier racial undercurrent. No hot dog is worth that.

Still, definitions of “good” and “bad” service depend on where you are. “In certain cultures lack of politeness is not only acceptable but expected: Russia, China, Belgium, Holland, not all of Italy but certainly Rome,” says T+L food writer Anya von Bremzen. “The thought is that rudeness equals authenticity, whereas excessive politesse is considered suspicious.” Better a sincere jerk than a disingenuous sycophant.

If being treated badly confirms that we’re in exactly the right place, being fawned over provokes a sense that we’re being duped. Compare the you-are-nothing nonchalance of the staff at, say, L’Ami Louis, a brasserie in Paris, with the unctuous pleading of the touts outside all the tourist traps along Rue de la Huchette (“You like moussaka, sir? Come taste the best moussaka in Paris!”). You can hold the flattery and smiles; I know whom I’ll trust with my dinner.

By Peter Jon Lindberg, Travel+Leisure


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The World's Rudest Restaurants - Part 1

On rude waitstaff, belligerent maître d’s, scowling chefs, cranky banquet managers and the people who love them.

By Peter Jon Lindberg, Travel+Leisure

The stereotype of the surly Parisian maître d’ may be losing currency nowadays, but for the determined efforts of one man: Philippe Pinoteau, owner of Le Baratin, a bar à vin/bistro in the 20th Arrondissement.

A skilled sommelier and manager, Pinoteau is even more adept at making his customers feel like so much terroir. A friend once showed up with his wife 17 minutes late for a reservation.

There was an empty two-top in plain view, but Pinoteau made them wait at the bar…for exactly 17 minutes. “We watched him watching the clock,” recalls Oliver, still incredulous. Dinner, when they finally got it, was apparently worth the humiliation—Oliver’s story wasn’t a warning but a ringing endorsement.

Perhaps because rudeness is more memorable than niceness, every food lover has a story (usually a funny one) about being mistreated at some legendarily rude restaurant—places where the staff is not just sullen or distant but egregiously, deliberately obnoxious. And yet we go anyway. Repeatedly. And like it.

We endure the admonishments of sushi chefs, notorious scolds who can shift from placid indifference to rage in the blink of an order. (God forbid you ask for spicy tuna rolls at L.A.’s Hiko Sushi, or mix wasabi into your soy sauce at Sushi Sasabune, in Honolulu.) We obey the ornery house rules posted at countless barbecue joints (no cameras no ketchup no lingering no substitutions or you’ll be shot). We even flock to tourist haunts where the rudeness is patented schtick: Ed Debevic’s, in Chicago; Pat’s King of Steaks, in Philadelphia; Durgin-Park, in Boston; Sam Wo, in San Francisco; Peter Luger Steakhouse, in Brooklyn.

Just as five-star Asian hotels are renowned for gracious service, certain restaurants are known for the exact opposite. The five-story madhouse Wong Kei is London’s most famous Chinese restaurant, less so for the food (agreeable but ordinary) or the ambience (duck sauce–stained tablecloths) than for the comically rude waiters. Harried staff bark at you the second you walk in (“SIT DOWN THERE YOU ORDER NOW NO MORE DUCK!”); busboys throw down plates with the clatter of a Max Roach drum solo. And still the queue outside grows longer.

The cult of Wong Kei has even inspired two Facebook groups on which the faithful trade stories about, for instance, ordering an after-dinner drink and being told to “Go find a f***ing bar—we need table back!” In truth the rudeness is more rote than real these days; some veterans have even complained that the new employees are “too nice.”

Why do restaurants get away with this when other service enterprises do not? You’d never return to a hotel where the bellhop scolded you for arriving late. You wouldn’t shop at a boutique that forbade pairing these pants with that sweater. (Unless the person doing the forbidding happened to be named Lagerfeld.) You wouldn’t go to a masseuse known for pummeling customers with insults. (Okay, maybe if it were a Russian bath.)

Yet the promise of a great meal makes us willing to prostrate ourselves: to call exactly one month ahead at 9 a.m. for a coveted booking, to drive three hours just to get there, to line up in the freezing cold, to squeeze in at a tiny table by the toilet—all for the privilege of having dinner.

What strange impulse makes us seek out such abuse? Is it the same one that compels people to go on bone-rattling amusement-park rides, or to visit S&M dungeons? Is it to atone for our guilt over stuffing ourselves—are we really that ashamed to eat? Does all the scolding and reproach make us feel somehow at home—like toddlers in our parents’ kitchen?

Or maybe it’s not so twisted and Freudian. Knowing the rules is a way of showing you belong, that you’re an insider—not some clumsy neophyte who thinks he can ask for ketchup. I remember being paralyzed with fear while waiting in line at the Beacon Drive-In, a greasy spoon in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where the scowling counterman shouts “TALK!” at each new customer and then sends him off to the pick-up area with “WALK!” Making it out of there with my burger alive was like surviving a skydive; my first thought was, Wow, I want to do that again.

To be continued...

Next Post: The World's Rudest Restaurants - Part 2

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