{"id":1875,"date":"2009-08-16T23:18:34","date_gmt":"2009-08-16T22:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noexpert.co.uk\/?page_id=1875"},"modified":"2019-02-04T12:10:39","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T12:10:39","slug":"1-food-vents","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.noexpert.co.uk\/food\/?page_id=1875","title":{"rendered":"1. Food Vents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having fun dining out is always the objective, here are a few things that contribute to spoiling the fun.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I thought I could maybe find half a dozen irritations for this page, but the list keeps growing – over 30 now\u00a0 The list is in no particular order.<\/p>\n

Feel free to add your own gripes as comments.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Restaurants with Champagne Trolleys trying to force you into buying expensive (unpriced Champagne). Top marks go to El Celler De Can Roca<\/a> for providing complimentary Cava and water as a matter of course.<\/p>\n

2. Not offering Tap Water, so you feel obligated to order bottled Sparking or Still water, rather than be seen as a cheapskate. Top marks go to The Table <\/a>for providing easy access to Fresh Jugs of water\u00a0and glasses,\u00a0enabling customers to help themselves.<\/p>\n

3. Restaurants charging for bottled water, that isn’t actually a brand name, but just some water they have decanted into their designer bottles.<\/p>\n

4. Sitting in an expensive restaurant facing an ugly wall.<\/p>\n

5. Restaurants that do not sign up to Open Table<\/a> or BCN Restaurantes<\/a> or similar – it’s so much easier using these kind of services.<\/p>\n

6. Staff who hover.<\/p>\n

7. Waiters who mumble and speak quietly.<\/p>\n

8. Waiters with strong accents who speak too fast.<\/p>\n

9. When your bar drinks are not brought to your restaurant table, or when the bar insists on doing a separate bill rather than transferring the charges to the restaurant bill.<\/p>\n

10. Tables that are too small and menus that are too big.<\/p>\n

11. Large Wine lists without\u00a0indexes.<\/p>\n

12. Expensive restaurants that do not do matching wines \u2013 that’s the fun part.<\/p>\n

13. Not getting your wine decanted (when appropriate).<\/p>\n

14. Waiters that make you look scruffy \u2013 actually there\u2019s quite a lot of them!.<\/p>\n

15. Tables that are too close together.<\/p>\n

16. Top Restaurants that make no effort to provide interesting bread.<\/p>\n

17. Waiters who spend more time talking to each other than they do serving the customers.<\/p>\n

18. Long delays in getting your bill. Surprisingly, I have had this happen\u00a0a few times in Restaurants that allocate tables for\u00a0a set time period only (so they can fit in multiple sittings). You plan around the meal taking two hours and then find that you are stuck waiting\u00a0for the bill. This is especially irritating when a meal is advertised as pre-theatre.<\/p>\n

19. Noisy Neighbours – even big groups should be able to keep within the general noise level of a restaurant. I really have no interest in hearing people shout at each other or at the waiters, although I have to admit being rather amused by the chap at the next table in The Ivy<\/a> , he had obviously just got back from a holiday in Spain and kept shouting\u00a0\u00a1HOLA! to attract the waiters attention, the funny part was his girlfriend going off to the loo and not returning!.<\/p>\n

20. Having your drinks removed before you have finished them.<\/p>\n

21. Menus with far too small fonts, and especially restaurants like Craft<\/a> that think it’s\u00a0smart to supply reading glasses to resolve the problem.<\/p>\n

22. Complacent Restaurants that think having a good view is enough.<\/p>\n

23. Top end restaurants that do not have a reasonable selection of wines for under \u00a330 (ok \u00a350 – been a bit of inflation since I added this one)<\/p>\n

24. Restaurants that do not do wine by the glass (decent wine that is!)<\/p>\n

26. The incomplete meal – When a\u00a0course requires that you need to add side orders.<\/p>\n

27. Celebrity chefs who give their names to inferior restaurants.<\/p>\n

28.\u00a0Ridiculous advertising copy that completely misrepresents restaurants. The authors should be forced to eat in the restaurants they write about as punishment!<\/p>\n

29. Waiters who do not evenly distribute wine, i.e., they overfill some glasses, as a means of forcing you to order another bottle to make up the short fall.<\/p>\n

30. Badly lit Restaurants, where you need to use a torch to read the menu.<\/p>\n

31. Drafty Restaurants<\/p>\n

32. KGB customers that bring radioactive material to dinner.<\/p>\n

33. Restaurants that try and dislocate your arm putting your coat on when you are leaving.<\/p>\n

For gripes on specific restaurants see worst of the worse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Return to top page<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having fun dining out is always the objective, here are a few things that contribute to spoiling the fun. I thought I could maybe find half a dozen irritations for this page, but the list keeps growing – over 30 now\u00a0 The list is in no particular order. Feel free to add your own gripes … Continue reading “1. Food Vents”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":654,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1875","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noexpert.co.uk\/food\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noexpert.co.uk\/food\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noexpert.co.uk\/food\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noexpert.co.uk\/food\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noexpert.co.uk\/food\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1875"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/www.noexpert.co.uk\/food\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28544,"href":"https:\/\/www.noexpert.co.uk\/food\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1875\/revisions\/28544"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noexpert.co.uk\/food\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noexpert.co.uk\/food\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}