Soup Nazi

A funny thing happened to me at lunch recently.  Twice.  I was invited to partake of the mid-day meal by two different gentleman on two separate occasions.

Nice, right?  I thought so.  I love a good lunch invite with friends/colleagues and so I gussied up and showed up right on schedule.  On both occasions large menus were flourished, I scanned them eagerly, made my considered lunch choice and then…

It happened.

The waiter turned to each gentleman at the table to place the order- and the guy responded by ordering a cup of soup.

What’s up with that?

“Soup is not a meal” preacheth the Gospel according to Seinfeld.

This wimpy entree choice put me right off my lunch.

(Not that I was going to order the Chicago Cut dry-aged, butchered-on-site, $54 Bone-in Rib Eye or the Joe’s market price Jumbo Alaskan King Crab Legs in any case.  I’m much more the Cobb salad/half-of-turkey-sandwich kind of gal.)

In Gone with the Wind, Mammy said, “You can always tell a lady by that she eat like a bird…Young misses that eat heavy most generally don’t never catch husbands.”

These two guys were not next-husband candidates.  But when my poor, measly chopped salad got finessed by this low-ball cup of soup deal, I was stymied.  Now I didn’t know what to order.  I felt like a spendthrift lumberjack

Other restaurant behaviors harsh my buzz, too.

Like the Ingredients Inspector and his water-boarding of the waitstaff.

You know, “Does this have any butter in it?” or “Is it pan-fried in macadamia nut oil?” Or he needs to know the exact coordinates of the farm where his salad’s radish just grew. Or the name of the sire of the the t-bone he’s toying with ordering.

I cringe when someone at the table indulges in wait staff bullying, too.

WSB can take several forms and we all have eaten with these high-maintenance, high-handed morons who take the word “server” literally.

It’s a real appetite suppressant when some yutz cops an an entitled attitude over a meal.

Now I’m not talking about the rare occasion when you get inept or rude service.  But I’ve had the misfortune to dine out with a couple of people who browbeat and torment the waiter EVERY time over what they perceive as some fancied food slight.

There was never anything really wrong with the food- just these frustrated foodie wannabes’ powerless lives.

Finally I just said, “Check, please,” and stopped going out with them at mealtimes.

Then there is the sloooowww eater.

The meal proceeds at a crippled snail’s pace.  The food comes, they keep talking or drinking or navel-gazing, and they never seem to pick up their knife and fork.  And when they to deign to start chewing, they’re disgruntled because their entree is now cold.

And then there is the drinker.  The guy (or gal) for whom food is an inconvenience and a complete waste of the table space where a martini glass or wine bottle rightfully should be.

They never eat.  And they never want to leave.  They always seem to have time for “just one more” ad infinitum.

I give these sots two hours- and then I’m gone.  (True, these boozy lunches mostly took place in the eighties and early nineties, but for all I know, they’re still at the same table at Gibson’s nursing the same scotch.)

Then there is the poor schnook who inveterately orders the wrong thing in the wrong place.  You know, like boeuf bourguignon in a seafood joint.  Or a New Orleans muffeletta at a diner in Elgin.

(And then they’re bitterly disappointed and annoyed when it doesn’t taste just like it did at Mother’s in 1975.)

We all eat with folks who are choosy about seating arrangements, too.  Personally, I don’t like sitting next to the kitchen or by a bathroom.  And I’m not too crazy about an over-crowded, tiny two top or a high top bar table with a backless stool for a seat, either.

When offered these less-than-comfy accommodations, I usually say no and move on to the next seating choice. But I’ve been with high-test people in Manhattan so power crazy and so intolerant, that instead of switching tables at Balthazar when the noise level got too high, we switched restaurants.

After the first course had been ordered and consumed, our host took out his phone and ten minutes later we were all shown to another very good table at Coco Pazzo.

That was a first for me.  But that’s how this guy rolled.  Zero tolerance for less-than-perfect culinary conditions.

(Quelle dommage.  I love Balthazar and I was sorry to see me go.)

Here’s my zero tolerance deal-breaker:  Badly-behaving little kids in a grown-up dining establishment- and those who spoil them.

I don’t care how much money Daddy has.  I don’t want to see Pierpont VI running around my table at Gene and Georgetti’s.  Keep him at home with the nanny.

I had little children.  I had money.  That’s what Homer’s and/or McDonald’s is for.

Then there’s the mooch.  No matter whose turn it is to pick up the check…it’s always on you.

Or the frustrated “Perle Mesta.”  You think it’s just going to be a double dinner date for four, but when you arrive, the restaurant table is set for twenty.

Your lovely, cozy tête–å–tête has just morphed into a three hour bore-athon. Complete with hours of pre-prandial drinks, lengthy sommelier discussions and a veritable sweet table of desserts. Your share of the check (even though you didn’t indulge of any of the cocktails, wine or dessert-sharings) has just skyrocketed, too.

Whew.  I’m exhausted from all the whinging I’ve just done. Come to think of it, it’s a wonder I ever go out to lunch or dinner at all.

Restaurant Hell is other people.

And I have met the enemy and he is ….me.

Cuppa Soup for lunch today?