What I am about to write happened to my wife and I during a visit to San Francisco in the summer of 2006.
Prior to my retirement, I had travelled extensively and made a number of visits to the above beautiful city. Each time I visited I stayed in a very lovely older hotel on Union Square having an outstanding restaurant on the top floor with wonderful views of the city in every direction – particularly at night when all the lights were on. Over the years I, along with everyone else who visited San Francisco, raved about how beautiful it is – even taking the very changeable weather into account. As my wife had not been there, and looking for a new place for a vacation, we decided to make a visit.
I called the hotel myself to make our booking and told the person at the hotel that I wanted to make a dinner reservation for the restaurant on the top floor. Much to my disappointment, I was told the top floor restaurant was no longer there having been converted into additional guest rooms a few years ago. However, I was told they had an equally fine restaurant on the first floor and that perhaps I would like to book for that room. I agreed and booked for an evening in the middle of our visit.
We arrived at the restaurant at the appointed hour and were shown into an enormous dining room with twenty foot ceilings, beautiful furniture and drapes on all the windows from ceiling to floor. We were greeted very graciously and were escorted to a table in the center of the room. We were told a waiter would be with us momentarily. A few minutes later a very tall cadaverous bald man completely dressed in black came to our table. He introduced himself, said he would be our waiter this evening, and asked if this was our first visit to the restaurant. I said it was, not realizing at the time it would be the ONLY time we would eat there.
We made small talk about my previous visits to the hotel and my disappointment upon learning the top floor restaurant had gone. He told us the room we were in would not disappoint us even though there were no views of the city, and that we would find our meal to be more enjoyable than at any time I had eaten in the old room. As it was our first visit he suggested he should explain the dining plan to us. We sat quietly while he explained there was no menu but a set meal that was served to everyone (at least, I think that is what he said). THAT IS WHEN WE SHOULD HAVE STOOD UP AND LEFT.
He described in glowing terms how the meal would be of three courses – an appetizer, an entree and dessert. Each course would be served on a specially designed plate that had six compartments – three on the furthest side away from us and three on the closest side. Each of the furthest three sections would contain an outstanding portion of food for each course and each of the three closest sections would contain very interesting sauces for dipping. In this way we had three separate flavors to accompany each course. As I have said, this applied to each course being served, naturally, on a separate plate. Perhaps I should explain here that the plate was roughly twelve inches square lest anyone might think the portions were enormous. This meant that each section of the dish was roughly three and one half inches square.
It seemed like a novel approach, so we decided to go along with the recommendations – BIG MISTAKE. Of course, we had no idea of the size of each portion until it was presented to us. Each course was served, and with the exception of a shrimp (please note that I said “A” shrimp) in the appetizer, and a fairly familiar flavor in one of the dessert portions, we had (and still have) no idea of what we ate.
A few minutes after we finished our meal and our coffee the man in black returned and asked how we had enjoyed our meal. Instead of saying how terrible it was, we lied, saying it was very interesting and unusual. He returned with the check; I opened the black leather embossed folder and almost fell on to the floor. I think I must have turned white as my wife asked me if I was alright. I replied in a very quiet voice, “Yes, I think so.” She asked me, “How much is the bill ?” I replied, “THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS.” Her response – “You are joking, of course.” I replied, “No, that’s what it is and it includes the tip.”
Too embarrassed to complain as everyone else appeared to be enjoying their meal (or at least, putting on a good show not yet knowing how much it would cost), I paid and thanked the waiter. We left as decorously as we could trying to give the impression we always ate this way regardless of cost. We managed to control our laughter until we were outside the building. We then went to another restaurant for a meal of proper food we could recognize – what an expensive evening.
Boy, oh boy, were we taken to the cleaners or what?
Lawrence Bently
Tagged as:
food & beverage issues,
hotel,
server
