Restaurants - pet hates

I hate food on slates or wooden platters as well! Surely we’ve moved on from that!

Also hate it when restaurants announce that you have a 2 hour slot for your table. 2 hours is never enough when out with friends. I don’t go back and let them know why as well.

Redhead56

I do not like slates I ask for a plate I ask for a clean glass if there are watermarks on my glass. I don’t like gravy or sauce poured over a meal. I like a little jug of sauce or gravy so I can pour it on my meal myself. I don’t like a mound of food on a plate it’s off putting.
If it’s just me and DH I do not like being sat at a table for four. I refuse to sit near the toilets. I don’t like going upstairs to eat as I am not good on stairs.

Redhead56, do you ever find a restaurant that you can enjoy?

I go out for a meal often with family and friends. The real joy is having a leisurely meal with good wine, chatting and catching up, with someone else doing the cooking and washing up. I’m not a huge fan of slates, wooden boards or desserts served in kilner jars, but none of those things take anything away from the sheer pleasure of going out for a meal, having a great evening laughing and chatting and coming home, well fed and full of joie de vivre.

Savvy

Not stating whether the desserts are veggie friendly or not. I'm protein intolerant so I really need to know if they contain anything that's meat, fish or eggs, and that includes gelatine, food colourants of insect origin and non milk fats. I know I'm being picky, but I don't want to end up in hospital.

Surely it up to you to question the menu, if it doesn’t state, as regards any allergy or intolerance, as my daughter does. She never leaves it to them to mention.

Lincslass I always ask, but half the time they just don't know because its bought frozen in bulk and not made there.

The bill arriving before you have finished your meal and the awful added 12.5% service charge.

Recently in a restaurant there was a 15% surcharge which is a lot on a £50 plus bill. Also the app thing we paid on that but then you just walk out of the restaurant which didn't feel right and the waiter looked at us. I know what he was thinking. I shall ask for a bill in future.

Loud thumping music is a huge turn off for me. It often appears to have been chosen by the young staff for their own enjoyment. Requests to turn it down are usually ignored, or it's just turned back up 10 minutes later. Particularly annoying if you've been given a table beneath a speaker. I always ask to be moved.

Surely music in a restaurant is meant to be a background unobtrusive sound.

I went to the Bees Tea Rooms near St Paul’s Cathedral a few years ago. A beautiful tea but we had to be ask the waitress to turn down the music several times. I don’t usually mind music, in fact I have Radio 6 Music on almost constantly, but this was LOUD and my sister and I could hear ourselves speak!

Couldn’t!

Waiting staff who keep "casually" strolling past, waiting to pounce on the first empty plate.

Hovering waiters, and slow service.

Cold bread rolls

In America they come and put the bill on your table before you have asked for it and before you have even finished eating. Thank goodness that doesn't happen in Europe. Why the hurry?

I hate sitting in a restaurant and, having ordered food, watching three tables of people who come in after you being served before you.

Service charge being added to the bill, that gets deducted, many restaurants just pocket it.
Salads served in bowl - it makes it difficult to eat with a knife and fork.
Obsequious waiters

Geekesse I am hard to please I admit it but not without reason. I have in the past noticed certain habits in some restaurants. Being pregnant given seats by toilets being older sent upstairs or again by toilets not the main seating area.
I have also had food poisoning it did put me off eating out for ages.
We live a mile from an affluent village famous for so called Celebs. One year a famous loud mouth chef did a makeover well overdue in one of the little restaurants. The chef did a very good job and it paid off for a while always booked up. However the owners returned to their penny pinching ways. Giving out meagre portions and bad quality food which was overpriced with very poor service.
There are a few restaurants I do eat at and I am confident to do so I like polite service good honest food in clean and cosy surroundings. The best food I experience is going to my DD in Lancashire. I think she is really fortunate having a good choice of places to eat at. I am envious of the delicious proper pies and meals in lovely country pubs and restaurants.

Children who are allowed to run about in a restaurant whilst parents ignore their behaviour. I feel so sorry for staff carrying hot plates of food whilst trying to avoid these children. No doubt parents would be quick to seek compensation if any accidents occur. This is especially annoying when you have been looking forward to a quiet meal in a restaurant. Loud music so conversation is difficult is also a pain.

I know this is really a first-world problem but - espresso made in a cold cup. There's a thimbleful of liquid and, no matter how hot it starts out, it's going to be cold in seconds...

Pretentious menus, I don’t want jus, I want sauce, using a French term does not make food taste good.

The condiments arriving after the food, I always ask for mustard, horseradish etc to be on the table before the food.
It rarely happens.

I have a passion for food and love to cook at home, eating out is something we tend to do for a special occasion and I want it to be special, better than I can produce or at least as good, I am often disappointed.

Staff should be very well presented, a lot of piercings and visible tattoos are not appealing.

I wish there was proper training or maybe a qualification for waiting staff, they are undervalued.

I hate taster menus which usually cost a fortune and consist of plates with a lot of swirls and about two peas and a leaf.

Sago Like you I hate seeing restaurant staff sporting tattoos. Somehow it always makes me feel the establishment has very ĺow standards.

Finding myself near a large group out on a works do, hen night or similar. As the alcohol flows, so does the screaming and shouting. Combined with modern uncarpeted floors (yes I know they’re unhygienic) and minimalist furniture, I can’t hear myself speak.
In fact I really hate the unwelcoming modern/brutalist design of many restaurants these days. Cosy they are not. On this, I’m with Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, who likes his rooms “full fat” and not minimalist.
Loved an Italian restaurant in London with walls dripping in ivy, shutters and flowers everywhere, over the too but gorgeous.

Savvy

Not stating whether the desserts are veggie friendly or not. I'm protein intolerant so I really need to know if they contain anything that's meat, fish or eggs, and that includes gelatine, food colourants of insect origin and non milk fats. I know I'm being picky, but I don't want to end up in hospital.

What can you eat if you're totally protein intolerant? Most dishes in a Western diet contain protein.

Not a big fan of eating out really. I grew up thinking everyone went to restaurants 4 or 5 times a week so it's never been a treat for me.

I also hate slates and driftwood. And I am terribly boring with what I like to eat. Bland and dull.

We were in a hotel in the Lakes once. Very nice hotel. Menu was filled with goodness knows what.

I was muttering to my husband that I wished that, just once, I could see a prawn cocktail on a menu. I loved prawn cocktails.

A shore while later a waiter approached the table with the most beautiful prawn cocktail I've ever seen.

My voice is rather booming, even when I'm trying to be quiet, and he'd overheard me and got me my prawn cocktail

Next time I'll mutter about Black Forest Gateau

Hmmm. Let's start with steak. I want it dead. As dead as dead can be. No blood anywhere on my plate or in my food!
Plates, yes. I really prefer plates but I guess I don't mind slate but not wood - can't they afford proper crockery? If they'd said something I could've maybe brought a plate!
Ice cream on a slate, ohhhh noooo!! In a bowl or a glass, like a sundae, but never on a slate!
Staff standing round watching NO!! Uh-uh. I hate it. Go wash dishes or clean the kitchen, or twiddle your thumbs elsewhere, I'm a big girl and I can eat without an audience, thank you.
"Is your meal aright?" Don't worry, I'll soon let you know if it's not WHEN I've eaten some of it!!!
I don't like to be a bother, I know how hard it can be to work in restaurants etc, but if I see a dirty mark or lipstick on crockery or something on cutlery, I am sending it back. I want clean utensils and crockery!!
Tips....oh god, I think tips should be earned not expected, and you pay what you can afford/think they've deserved!
Have I missed anything?
Staff should be polite and the customer should know they are NOT always right, and do not always deserve a freebie!