July 2013

Mario Batali’s been responding to his “haters” on Twitter lately, asking people who complain about bad experiences at Babbo or Del Posto if they bothered to speak to management. The message seems to be: “If you’re unhappy, give us a chance to do something about it.” And while Batali should be commended for acknowledging his “haters” at all, I don’t know if I’ve ever asked to speak to a manager at any point in my restaurant-going career. The thing is, if something specific is wrong, I tell the server: “this steak is overcooked” or “this ceviche is raw” (just kidding about that one). I couldn’t imagine calling a manager over to complain about the things Batali’s “haters” are complaining about: snooty service, bad attitudes. “Excuse me, Mr. Manager, but my server has a bad attitude.” Have you ever done that? Was it effective? I’d rather just suffer through bad service and chalk it up to the server having a bad day than pipe up and…do what? Get the server fired? I’d feel so bad! That’s why I won’t be playing Mr. Burns in a live action “Simpsons” movie.

My friends Nick and Jason got into an argument recently about the definition of “Barbeque/Barbecue/BBQ.” Jason, who’s from Texas, insists that Nick is “dead wrong” for using “barbecue” as a verb for grilling in general. “A social gathering around a grill is a ‘cookout,'” says Jason. Nick, who like me is from the North, counters that while this may be true in the South, in most other places around the world, it’s called BBQ when meat hits a grill. So now we turn to you, the people, to help settle this matter. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Something tells me we’re going to get a lot of conflicting answers.