An Open Letter to Those Who Dine Out, by m

Dear Diners,

I thought about titling this letter “An Open Letter to Bad Tippers”, but didn’t want to discourage anyone from reading. I particularly didn’t want to discourage people who think they’re good tippers from reading, since I’ve come to the conclusion that the ONLY possible way that bad tippers can look me in the eye, engage with me in witty banter, and kindly thank me for good service and STILL tip me so poorly (or not at all), is that they mistakenly think that what they’re doing is socially acceptable.

I’ve been working as a server on and off for about 7 years. I have worked in fine dining, I have worked in amusement parks, I have worked over seas.  I am a really good server. Not to toot my own horn but…TOOTA-FUCKING-LOO, I’m good at my job. I can tell when you’re thirsty; I’ll bring free refills before you ask. I know if your kids can’t wait any longer for their meals; I’ll bring over some bread or crackers from the kitchen.  I am attentive, kind, and–above all–patient.

And let me tell you, teaching small children for four years has got NOTHING on you in the patience department. Imagine, if you will, that I have seven tables, all needing my attention, all wanting drinks, appetizers, and advice on the menu, or to order dessert or pay for their bill (all at once). Then, imagine that you aren’t sure what you’d like to order, but insist that I stand with you while you peruse the menu, trying to decide (“No, no, one second…hmmmm, lemme think. K, start at the other end of the table. Hmmm, no I’m still not sure! HAHA”).  I have other customers, whose tips I depend on for my livelihood. If I cannot attend to their needs as well, you are screwing me by assuming that you’re my only care in the world.

This brings me to my point: tips. Servers in Ontario do not make minimum wage. The expectation is that customers, having received good service, will tip 15% of the total bill, thus bringing the server’s wage up to minimum. So, you see, when I provide you with good service, your tip still only ensures that I am making minimum wage. When you tip ten per cent, or nothing at all, I still have to share 3% of my total food sales with hostesses and bus boys, and 8% of my gross liquor sales with the bartender. This means that when you leave no tip at all, I am paying these other restaurant employees out of my own (less-than-minimum) wage. When you don’t tip me, or tip very little,  it’s not as if I am losing out on a bonus. It’s as if I’m paying to serve you.

Please understand that if the service is poor, or if you’re unhappy with your experience, I don’t expect a tip. I understand that I have not made you happy and perhaps I haven’t earned a tip. I’m the first to admit when I haven’t done my job well; we all have off-days.

Last night, you sat at table 61. You sent your drink back twice, but you said the food was delicious.  You argued about the price of the bill. You left no tip, and I was sympathetic to that; you weren’t completely happy with your experience, and despite my best efforts, that happens from time to time.  But you know what really got to me?  The way you flossed your teeth, at the table, after your meal.  And when you walked away last night, I had to stay behind to clean up after you. I got to your table where I found–in all it’s disgusting glory–your used dental floss, sitting next to your crumpled napkin and your empty glass.

If your aim was to make me feel like your personal servant and slave, congratulations. You threw my dignity like a dog walker throws a stranger’s water bottle for a game of fetch.  You really drove the point home with your biohazardous waste.  Way to stick it to the franchise. I look forward to spitting in your food the next time I see you.

Yours in servitude,

M

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review: The Rebel House

Earlier in the week Dad and I travelled to The Big Smoke for the afternoon.  His fancy watch was ready for pick up and I had the day off.  We picked up the watch, bought some smelly stuff at Lush and had a terrifying 25 minutes where I (yes, I will admit it was me) lost Dad’s iPhone and found it again thanks to a good samaritan.

From here we got in the car at The Eaton Centre and drove to M’s school to pick her up…what should have been a 10 minute drive was closer to 30.  Thanks, rush hour.

After picking up M she took us to a Canadian pub for dinner.  I enjoyed it.

It’s called “The Rebel House” and it’s on Yonge St., just North of the Rosedale subway station.  Yes, because of it’s location I would dare say it’s a pub for the yuppies of Rosedale, but I didn’t mind. They seemed to have a great selection of beer, however I did not try.  Which earned me a “wuss” from Dad.

We were seated next to a group of young chefs who were doing what young chefs do best; talk shit about other chefs’ fare. Apparently another’s leg of lamb was “ok” and their perogies would have been better if “they didn’t call them perogies”. Jesus. And as one guy couldn’t stop himself, he stopped by our table and recommended the cheese pennies. Apparently they were so good he stole to recipe when he opened his own restaurant. Ohh. Aren’t you fancy.

We were told that the poutine was pretty good and instead of using fries, they use homemade potato chips.  And it seemed like the majority (or even all?) of the menu was made in house, no bringing in outside food and selling it.  They did boast on their menu that their desserts are made right there at the pub, this makes me want to go back and try their dessert.  I’m not much of a dessert at a restaurant kind of person (saufe creme brulee) because it’s usually a big disappointment.  This Monday they had a coconut cheesecake featured.

We shared a plate of poutine to start, and then I followed it by their famous mac ‘n’ cheese with salad.  Check out the video and pictures before. 

M let us know that The Rebel House has a great patio that is shaded by a parachute…perhaps a Weyward Sisters visit needs to happen this summer???

4 stars (out of a possible 5). 

Maybe then I’ll try one of their many beers.

The Rebel House Poutine...cheesy, maybe too much gravy

Old Macki Is Back with corn bread and salad...yummy vingarette and not too cheesy, but with some bite

Review: Le Papillon on Front, by j

Well, it’s Valentine’s Day and the Weyward Sisters have the best valentines of them all.  Each other.  All together: awwww.

As m let you all know the sisters celebrated a Christmas gift together on Friday!  A and I got m some tickets to the “Moulin Rouge” Ballet…you can read about it’s glory here.

The day started with a and I making the journey down to Toronto together…along the way she let me have the pleasure of buying her lunch.  We arrived at m’s school to pick her up after the end of school.  By then I was done with driving and the effed up directions of Google maps.

We went on our way to m’s highrise in the downtown and proceeded to get ready and have a visit with the royal dog, Kevin. 

After everyone was cleaned, painted and powdered we said goodbye to the fluff ball and walked to the subway station.

When we arrived at the restaurant, a couple of blocks away from the Sony Centre they proceeded to tell us that they lost our reservation.  The French man at the front rolled his eyes when I told him that I made the reservation via the website…ooh.  Strike one, Le Papillon.  Luckily this was not the tragic foreshadowing that I assumed it would be.

We were seated in the back of the restaurant, and it was fairly full on a Friday night.  The clientele ranged from very fancy (a woman in a fur hat! FUR!) to slightly casual.  We had an honest to goodness French waiter along with busboys who hovered everytime you put your fork down (perhaps our cousin p should get a job here?  He would fit in quite nicely).

The atmosphere was quite nice, I’m told by m that “exposed brick” is fantastical.  And the French music that was pumped in the restaurant was zippy without being obnoxious.

M and I started off with some wine (of the Shiraz variety)…mmmm…shiraz.

From there we each chose our dishes…ch-ch-check it out:

Steak frites

 

Petoncles (scallops)

Crepe au poulet

 

Can you guess which sister had which dish?  Luckily they all rocked the house.

And we couldn’t go to a French restaurant without j ordering the legendary creme brulee.  Only, horror of horrors the picture I took of the dessert was deleted on my camera.  NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Allow me to describe:

This creme brulee was fantastic.  It was a great sounding creme brulee.  A could hear it across the table.  I’ve never had a creme brulee with this thick of a sugar coating before.  This is tricky because the act of the “brulee” is torching the sugar.  If you’re not careful you can burn the sugar (instead of deeply carmelizing) and make it taste like feet.

This creme brulee’s sugar was AMAZING.  In fact, I will say it.  It was the best tasting creme brulee sugar ever.  The custard was good, creamy and well set.  However it was a bit on the cold side.  While cool custard and carmelized sugar tastes amazing, temperature is tricky.  Almost amazing.  Because of this Le Papillon on Front creme brulee gets a 8/10 rating.

Now here’s a picture that kind of looks like what I had:

Yum.

 

All in all we had a great meal, with even more amazing company!

Happy Valentine’s Day sistas!

Review: Auberge du Petit Prince, by j

Today, after a few weeks of eating fantastic food at my house (thanks mom!) I ventured out with two of my college besties (minus one other best!) for an amazing dinner.

Right now our city is participating in “Londonlicious” which is, indirectly born from the SARS epidemic.

Many moons ago only a few places in the world were affected by the deadly respitory disease, SARS. One of them was Toronto. To get in good again with the tourists the bright folks of TO decided to start a promotion called “Summerlicious”. Great restaurants would offer a three course menu to folks for a fraction of the cost…needless to say our family hit this hard.

As with most TO ideas, it eventually trickled down to our city, and thus “Londonlicious” was born.

I’ve been to a few of the restaurants over the past couple of years and it is hit and miss. Some restaurants see this as an honest to goodness opportunity to open their doors to a new clientele by giving them a chance to test out the restaurant in the hopes that they will return. Others see it as a cash grab and this is reflected in their fare.

Flashback…January 2010…Tru restaurant…normally a dinner for two can run over $100 (easily). This time? $30 for 3 courses. In a word: crap. We were seated in an area completed isolated from other diners (some form of division between those that pay full price and those who don’t???), and abandoned by the server. The food was…meh. Nothing to write home about. And dessert was horrible…it looked as though it had been prepared the week before in an industrial kitchen in Brantford (reminiscent of my days at Timmy’s).

I was not impress. Tru, you will not be receiving my dollars for your full menu price. We were out the door in just over an hour.

Flashforward: January 2011, Auberge du Petit Prince.

This restaurant is in a fairly odd place in town. It is in the downtown, but the portion of the downtown that is near the methadone clinic. It’s situated in an old house, and when you go inside decorated in a French-Parisienne type theme. And not the type of cheesy theme with the mustachioed French guys and red and white table clothes. It was nice, and I was surprised (this is a good thing). Bonus: they had a few small display cases at the register with jewlery and other baubles. Note to self: my grams would love this place.  The service was awesome and we had a great visit during our 2 1/2 hour meal.  And the kir royale was delicious…

On top of the nice decor (who doesn’t like a nice decor?) the food on the Londonlicious menu was fantastical. I had a great cauliflower soup (even though I am a staunch hater of cauliflower, this soup was very good…could have been the blue cheese and heavy cream that made it awesome, though…). Followed by a seafood crepe. Crepes should be their own food group. You can do breakfast, lunch and dinner with them. I LOVE CREPES.

And finally came dessert. It’s a French restaurant. Take one giant guess what j had. YES! If you guessed “creme brulee” you would be correct. For those of you who don’t know, creme brulee and I go waaay back. I love it and it loves me. I consider myself a connaisseuse of the dish, if you will. Ever since my first experience with it in Montreal during a trip with my mom and papa at the tender age of 18 I have fallen in love with the taste, texture and sound (yes sound) of a GOOD creme brulee. (FYI: to test the sound of the creme brulee hit the top with the back of your spoon. If the sound reaches your ear without you having to bend down or it catches the attention of other diners take notice: YOU HAVE AN AMAZING SOUNDING CREME BRULEE).

I have had creme brulee in a lot of place, if it’s on the menu I’m ordering it. I’m pretty picky about my creme brulee, temperature of custard, thickness of sugar, carmelization and colour all come into play.

The Auberge did not disappoint. It was a thick custard with a thick layer of torched sugar. Not runny at all. Definitely in my top five.  Sound quality was good (but the spoon quality could have been better).

Ch-ch-check it out.

Picture courtesy of Anna!

p.s. Worst creme brulee?  “Fred’s Not Here” in Toronto.  Runny as snot.

moulin rouge!

taking a break from report card writing (blahhhh) to write about my christmas present!!  in a couple of weeks, my sisters are taking me to a fancy french restaurant le papillon (stay tuned for reviews!). then,we’re heading to the sony centre to see the royal winnipeg ballet’s production of moulin rouge!  i’m very excited.  not only is it a great date for valentine’s weekend, but we are planning on getting dressed up and making a big night of it!  i’ve been googling the production, and the costumes look really good. can’t wait, sisters!

choreographer j morris with the set design