return of the peeve

Rose and I eat out far too often - but your typical restaurant gargantuan portion is far too much for us to eat in a single setting, so we most often take home leftovers - thereby decreasing even further the number of times we actually have to prepare food at home (because we're lazy, or busy, or both). But it's irritating as hell when what you expect in your leftover package is not there. The other night, we had Indian food: I ordered tandoori chicken (for the first time in a while - overfamiliar to me), and it came with some delicious roasted onions and peppers at the bottom of the plate. But when I opened up the leftover package for lunch today, no veggies. Dammit. If I want my food to go, why wouldn't I want all of my food to go? Do they think their own food is garbage? Grrr. I'd call the place and complain...but the management has very little English, and I fear I'd lose my patience and cool trying to get my point across.

Other annoyances: blatant lying. At a Chinese place the other day, Rose ordered the same dish she always orders (and we go to this place probably twice a month). This time, it arrived with a pile of fried tofu (and Rose can't do fried) and with a different sauce. While the owner came over and agreed to replace the plate with a tofu-free version, she was adamant that "this is always the way this dish is" and that the menu listed the tofu as an ingredient. (It isn't, and it didn't.) Rose says she thought from the tone of the owner's voice as she told the cook what to do with the remake (in Chinese) that it was indeed his error, not an unannounced change in the menu. I suppose loyalty to one's employees is a virtue...but not at the expense of making the customer out to be deluded or a liar.

Any of the above, though, is preferable to the jackass waiter at a Mexican place a couple of weeks ago, who was monumentally unconcerned with trying to accommodate Rose's dietary issues (even though she was, again, ordering a dish she'd ordered many times before without incident) and more concerned with, I don't know, anticipating bong hits after his shift was over. Or during it. Anyway, he was astonishingly arrogant - and in that even more annoying way of saying "I'm really sorry" while actually meaning "I couldn't give half a shit for your stupid problems." Worse: I wrote a (much more politely worded) letter to the manager about this...and have yet to receive a response. Thank you for ignoring your customers.

Damn. We should just cook more often.