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Posts Tagged dining out

Check, Please…Please…Today

Jun 24

Posted by admin in life

114141832_fa5494a628So dinner has been wonderful. You were seated without too long of a wait. The menu has lots of choices that seem to please everyone, and the service has been smooth.

Waters have been refilled, food has come out in an orderly, knowing fashion. No calling out–who has the burger? Smooth, professional, tasty.

Then it was time to leave. No one. Not a person in sight. We were not the last four-top in the restaurant. Nor were we in a secluded spot you needed to take an excursion to find. We were just in a back booth, in an area which had received a lot of attention until the check was dropped off.

Maybe they didn’t want us to pay. Probably not the real story. Maybe they had all gone home. Nope; still plenty of other diners.

Now if our server had gone home, fine. If someone would just come to our table without our having to stand and wave as if we saw a stranger from across the room, the meal would have ended on an upbeat note.

No, we did not stand and wave. Just 4 people, 8 eyes, started the room scan waltz. We looked everywhere and found no one. This little annoying game continued for a good 5 minutes before we scored.

Why is it so hard to say goodbye? Service does not end with the dropping of the check.

Follow-though at every part of the meal is critical. Guests should not leave with a bad taste.

It happens too frequently, right?

Check.

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For a Real Locavore Experience: Hit the Ballparks

Jun 21

Posted by admin in baseball, life, news, sports

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OK, there’s the peanuts and CrackerJacks–yes, they still sell Crackerjacks, but you’ll pay. Buckets of cotton candy and plenty of gelato. What about the hot dogs? The burgers? The soft drinks and the lemonade? Can’t forget a cold one. They’re all there!

This is no inexpensive outing, but it’s no fun to walk past the food courts. Also quite hard to do since most parks limit what you can bring into the stadium. Baseball food helps digest the missed balls, the bases loaded strikeouts, and the clumsy catcher that makes the pitcher’s arm ache.

The food options, clearly vary from park to park, but some of the newer majestic halls of baseball have upscaled the experience to make you wonder if you’ll even remember the peanuts. Many entice you with city favorites set in a new horizon. That seems to be the overall trend. Bring in the local guys.

Let’s hit a few parks. New York is blessed with two newbies, and neither has missed the golden opportunity of loaded food courts. There are the Danny Meyer restaurants including the popular Shake Shack and Blue Smoke feeding baseball loyalists in Queens. The new Yankees home in the Bronx bows to local meat merchant, Lobel’s and offers a high-end, as in dry-aged, steak sandwich. We’re talking New York food at the parks!

Hometown kids and neighborhood institutions make good at Nationals Park in DC with Five Guys broiling burgers and Ben’s Chili Bowl showing what a wraparound line looks like waiting for grilled chili dogs and cheese fries.

The Baltimore O’s recognize crab cakes and BBQ as the smoke fills the stadium from Boog’s Bar-B-Q, named after former Oriole Boog Powell.

The new Kauffman Stadium for the Kansas City Royals spells barbecue with two 1,400 pound smokers working their magic.

To taste a city’s best, visit its ballpark! Stadium eating is big business. There’s something about grabbing a dog and a score sheet. Or indulging in a local restaurant’s bases-loaded venue.

Grab the napkins and the ATM card for the extra innings.

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When the Formula Works, It's Unique

Apr 25

Posted by admin in life, news

bethesda_diningroomSounds like an odd header, but in the restaurant world, it applies. Take a Washington, DC area landmark like the family-owned Lebanese Taverna which can trace its roots to the early 1980s. They are now a restaurant empire with six full service restaurants, four cafes, a catering business, and a market. Each restaurant is unique to its location, servicing the expectation of the perceived demographic. The most basic compliment is that they are survivors of restaurant whims and trend dining. They have survived by offering consistently high quality foods. Menus of course have commonalities but why mess with something that works.

The irony is in this stressful dining out time, they just opened their largest location and quite possibly their most beautiful, in potentially overgrown Bethesda, Maryland, a top livable city. There is a lot of restaurant space, both indoors and outdoors, and even a takeout entrance. To survive in this economic environment, you need multiple persona. They are a child-friendly environment but also a wonderful restaurant for an adult Mediterranean experience.

They have made themselves both an adult and family dining destination. Certain days of the week, there are lunchtime activities with a musician or a clown where the entertained child eats free with an adult purchase. That works.

Other nights have menu specials such as multi-course, prix-fixe dinners. There are, of course, coupons for email subscribers, a strategy that works well for almost any restaurant.

This is a whatever it takes environment that recognizes quality cannot be sacrificed. Whatever they are doing sends a strong message to other restaurateurs: be creative, it takes work to make it. It can be done.

These are the type of restaurants that will continue to thrive as long as we remember to reward ourselves by dining out.

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