What happens when you send your food back

chicken ding! the chefs favourite

Ever wondered what happens when you, the almighty customer, forget, or are too drunk, stupid, incompetent [delete as appropriate] to tell your waiter that you didn't want the noisettes of lamb to come with the red wine reduction? Or that you don't really like the anchovies in your salad despite it being listed in the menu description? Or that you are allergic to the pine nuts in the pasta sauce?

Let me share the dirty little secrets of what happens next. Vanquish ideas of your food being remade in it's entirety. It's not going to happen. Head chefs are accountants with aprons, the very description of bean counters. A new steak will only get thrown onto the char grill if there is no way the errant one can be saved. Two, three, even four chefs will gather round the plate in a scene reminiscent of an episode of "ER", all pushing, probing, and offering analysis on the best way forward. Like vets in a dog shelter, a good meal will never be put down if it can be saved.

But we haven't got as far as the kitchen yet. So you are upset that something is "wrong" with your food so you call the waiter over and explain your problem. This is normally conveyed with a "my world has just collapsed" sort of attitude. Knock it off. Seriously, getting on like someone has just shat in your lap isn't going to make the waiter move with any greater urgency. Especially if the waiter knows it's your fault. This sort of attitude will have the opposite effect. If you messed up, admit it! The rest of your dining experience will be better for being an adult. Don't forget it is the waiter who has to explain to the Puka Fukas in the kitchen why you are sending your food back and a lot of what happens next depends on how the waiter explains this to the kitchen. Piss the waiter off by blaming him for your mistake and you may as well just pack up and go home, you are not getting your food anytime soon.

The kitchen don't plan for food coming back. So when you send it back you are throwing a massive spanner in the works. They have moved on to other orders and don't have time to change the sauce on your steak, or re make your pasta. So if they can get away with not remaking it they will. So here are the three main methods for dealing with returned food:

1. The pick it out and fluff method. Used when there is something in your salad you don't want, for example croutons, olives, etc. The chef, KP, even the waiter will remove the undesired ingredient, add extra lettuce, bob into a new bowl, add extra dressing and return to table. You would be better advised to remove the unwanted yourself. Do you really want the kid who's doing the dishes pawing over your food.
2. Nuke it, zap it, ding it. Soup cold? Stew not as hot as you expected? It ain't going back in a pot it's getting a reworking in a microwave. Also used when something is needed in a hurry, for example a chicken fillet takes as long as a well done steak to cook. But his time can be halved with the use of the trusty microwave and a spell in a "proper" oven.
   
3. Wash it! Order the wrong sauce for your steak? Does your definition of "medium" differ from that of the chef's? If your steak has to be changed in some way you can expect it to be washed. The offending sauce is scraped off, the steak is dropped in the fryer (the washing) to remove any traces of the sauce, and if needed put back on the char grill. Steaks are often washed under water too, in order not to cook it any further. The only time this doesn't happen is when the steak is over cooked.
   

This happens everywhere, from the best restaurants to shitty little dives. My advice is to suck it up and if you have to send something back ask for it to be re-done. You'll wait but it is worth it.

Next week: what does "homemade" actually mean and where does that locally reared beef actually come from.