A complaint

[telophase]

Emailed in on the restaurant's website.

My husband and I ate at the Hulen restaurant in Fort Worth tonight, and had a much worse than usual experience. We arrived at 6:30 and ordered drinks and our meal at the same time shortly thereafter. It was 7:00 PM by the time we had our food! And my meal had obviously been sitting under a heatlamp for some time - the steak was well-done (I ordered medium well), the mashed potatoes were cold and the toast was so soggy from sitting in the juices that the bottom part was disintegrating. Our server, while a nice girl, wasn't very good at organizing or prioritizing her tables, and hasn't yet mastered the server's trick of scanning all the tables in her section looking to see if anyone was trying to catch her eye so it took a LONG time for us to get her attention when we wanted to check on our food and when we wanted our bill. I note that when the hostess seated us, she said that [Name1] and [Name2] would be our servers, and there was no sign of [Name2] the entire time. Was [Name1] the trainee? Because that would explain things. We didn't complain there because, like most, we hate confrontation and would rather just slink home and complain online. But she should know why we tipped 10%.

Nobody bitch at me for ordering a steak medium-well: it's a texture thing and if I eat a medium or less steak I start gagging and retching a few bites in, which is not pleasant for anyone. Which is why, when I go to steakhouses, I ask the server to tell me which cut stands up to medium-well the best. (But this was not at a steakhouse, this was at a generic chain, which isn't going to serve great steaks anyway.)

Comments

[yhlee]

I'm sorry your dining experience wasn't up to par.

Western-style steakhouses in Korea can be deeply variable, but the one thing you would like there is that they seem to only understand medium and up. My family is all medium-rare people (picked up from my dad, don't know where he got it from) and we have had the darndest bad luck trying to get the servers to even understand what we're talking about. *wry g* Which I find odd, because there seems to be at least some native tradition of eating raw or rare meat as a delicacy.

[telophase]

Huh, weird. At least I won't have to worry about steaks if I go to Korea!

I sometimes have the same problem with sushi, but only sometimes - I can be happily eating along when all of a sudden my body goes DEAR GOD THAT'S RAW FISH! and I have to stop immediately. I've learned to take small bites as it can get a bit difficult if I've just popped an entire piece in my mouth.

[l_elfie]

it took me a long time to realize the appropriate response to food preferences that didn't match up with mine (for example, people who don't like cake) was MORE FOR ME. uh, i mean, supportive interest?? (but really my usual response is "okay more for me :D! and you can eat this thing that i am not so fond of that you love. yesssss.")

that said, this sounds like a really unsatisfying experience.

[movingfinger]

Yes, I have that texture reaction to things too. It is disconcerting!

[telophase]

Mine also extends to combinations of textures -- I've only recently started being able to tolerate inclusions in my ice cream (and now I love Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream), and I still dislike crunchy nuts showing up in cookies and brownies.

Toby made something with sweet potatoes a week or two back, which I had a weird response to: I couldn't nail anything down about the taste that I disliked, and I couldn't explain if the texture bothered me or not, but I just didn't like them. I think it really was the texture, though. :/

[telophase]

Same here! Although I get sad when it turns out people have (or don't have, I forget which) the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap, because I can't make my black bean salsa for them. :(

[chomiji]

Hay, you like what you like! It's not my business to tell you what to eat!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You'd be surprised at how many people leap in to tell you tha tyou're ruining your steak when you admit that you like it medium-well. Well, as you've been on the internet, probably not that surprised.

If I'm planning on leftovers, I order it medium and eat around the edges where it's more cooked, then when I reheat it, it's cooked to the texture I like. :)