THENASTYBITS (19 page)

I'm enjoying the Jager shots. My brain needs cleansing. Two days earlier, I was the guest of a man called Wild Bill of Zam's Swamp Tours, sitting on his cramped houseboat in the bayou as

he deep-fried alligator nuggets. His nephew, a delightful young tyke with an impressive blond mullet, kept sticking a baby gator's face into mine, provoking it to snap at my nose. Mosquitoes clogged my ears and nostrils and nearly blocked out the light from the bare lightbulbs as I sampled alligator piquante and grilled alligator kebabs and listened carefully for the first strains of dueling banjos. The smell of frying alligator still clogs my pores.

But I've confirmed my hypothesis about enjoying yourself in a new and unfamiliar town. First rule: Run away from the hotel, as far and as fast as you can. Rule Two: Avoid anyplace where people like you (meaning out-of-towners or tourists) congregate. Rule Three: When you find a crummy bar clogged with locals who seem to be enjoying themselves, go in, sit down, and start drinking. Be sure to buy a few rounds for your fellow drinkers. At the appropriate moment, inquire of the best places to eat, emphasizing your criteria to go where no tourists have gone before. "Where do
you
eat?" is a good starting point. If you hear the same name twice, take note.

Rule Four: If in New Orleans, call Hazelden ahead of time and make a reservation. You'll be needing it.

A
VIEW
FROM
THE
FRIDGE

i
am a chef
. Though I can be a terror in my kitchen, in the dining room of other restaurants I'm a pussycat. I am scrupulously polite and effusive in my praise. And I always tip twenty percent (at least). I'm also, I am told, not the most attentive of dinner companions. I can't help but be attuned—almost painfully at times—to every nuance around me: the ebb and flow of waiters and busboys, hosts and sommeliers, bartenders and cooks. After twenty-seven years in the restaurant business, the choreography of dining room service, any dining room's service, has become hard-wired into my nervous system.

I know that there are a number of simple, avoidable things that can throw off the rhythms of even the best-run places. When that happens, a memorable evening can be remembered for all the wrong reasons. I've learned plenty about what makes a wonderful dining experience from eating at great restaurants, but not nearly as much as I've learned from working in them. What have all my hours of standing before a stove taught me about sitting at a table? I'll tell you.

If the people at the table beside mine summon a busboy (the first available person in a uniform), unable to distinguish him from their waiter, I cringe. I can tell you with near certainty that additional communication will now be required: The busboy, a member of a profession largely comprising newcomers to America's shores, will have to take aside the already harried waiter.

"Table seven. Lady say chicken cold. No like-a spinach."

The waiter then must consider whether clarification, not to mention confirmation, is required before braving the chef's wrath. This means a trip back to the table, annoying the already annoyed customers by asking them to repeat their complaint. If you speak to the busboy, you might just ask him to locate your waiter. Better yet, try remembering your waiter's face.

I also feel the waiter's pain when, without warning, a patron seated with friends at a table for four (a four-top) suddenly bolts to the bar (or outside) for a cigarette. This often seems to occur just when the entrees for that table are about to be served—or, as waiters say, are "in the window, ready for pickup." I know the electric shock that travels through the restaurant's spine and into the brainstem of the kitchen: The chef has that table's food up! It's sitting perilously under the destructive warmth of the heat lamps. Other orders are coming up around it, new ones are coming in, and the chef is beginning to freak: His lovely food is dying in front of him. And he's got a difficult choice to make. He can push the orders for the four-top to the side and squeeze other outgoing orders around it for a while, in the hope that the smoker will return before the food gets cold and ugly, a skin forming on the sauce that the chef was once so proud of. Or he can yank the whole order, move the "dupe" (the kitchen's printed copy of an order) back to the "order" position, and start all over again. It's a tiny, inconsequential move for the customer—a cigarette at the bar—but for the kitchen, particularly in a good restaurant, it can cause mad panic and much misery. It's polite to schedule your breaks ahead of time—as in asking the waiter, "Would now be a good time to grab a smoke?"

The people at the two-top (a deuce) on my other side are friends of the house
...
or people with whom the house wants to
become
friends. I know this because I saw the military-type hand signals between the maitre d' and the front waiter when the couple arrived. I saw the brief, whispered conversation along the service bar. I can recognize the body language for "notify the kitchen" and "comp." These customers will be monitored as if they were in intensive care, with
amuse-boucbes
and careful recommendations of the chef's best efforts tonight.

I hope the cosseted duo will be suitably appreciative and that they understand that when the house picks up a check, it is appropriate for the guests to leave a cash tip, preferably a damn big one. Waiters, for all practical purposes, live on tips. The twosome is eating up valuable real estate in the dining room (space and time, representing a considerable chunk of potential earnings). All that extra-special attention necessarily robs attention from others. For these two to walk out without tipping would be a punishment to their waiter. If the floor staff pools tips, it would be a punishment to the whole team.

The same principle applies if a table, especially a large one, is late for a reservation. You want to see real suffering? Look at the face of a beleaguered maitre d' with an unseated eight-top in the middle of a very busy dining room at eight-thirty on a Saturday night. He's already cleared a huge block of valuable time in the reservation book, probably turned away two four-tops (who generally spend more money than one eight-top) from a seven o'clock seating. He's also kissed off any hope of turning the tables at nine or even ten o'clock, for that matter. The party of eight yet to arrive represents a major leap of faith for him, an investment of not only the house's but the waiters' and busboys' money. Such no-shows are sticking it to the entire staff. (Along these lines, clowns who book at three or four restaurants on a given night and then neglect to cancel in a timely way are the blood enemies of restaurateurs and their staffs alike.)

Now, you might find this a bit disingenuous if you're thinking back to the night you arrived promptly and the restaurant wasn't able to seat you for fifteen minutes. Certainly, apologies are in order. But all I can tell you is that it's in the restaurant's best interest to seat you as soon as possible. No one on my side of the business willfully creates delays; after all, it's bad for business when drop-ins see an overcrowded bar. Maybe I'm asking too much, but think about the imprecise science of seating the next time you're lingering over your coffee and nobody seems inclined to give you the bum's rush.

Should you behave in a restaurant? Should you care what your waiter thinks of you? Does it matter if you show your appreciation? I know well how accurately and in what terms the mood and behavior of customers can be tracked. I know that cranky, rude, or capriciously demanding customers can be given—in the ongoing triage of restaurant toil—cruel nicknames and be quickly dismissed as lost causes. They are viewed as a liability, and this information is passed on to the kitchen in ways subtle and unsubtle: "Rush table twelve, will ya? I just want to get these jerks out!"

Does this mean table twelve will get lousy food and service? No, not necessarily. I have seen four-star kitchens in which the customer's every reaction is tracked, course by course, with pictograms or cuneiformlike code on the dupes or on a blackboard. If the smiley face from course one turns to a frown for course two, the kitchen might dispatch free
amuse-boucbes
or a tiny glass of chilled Sauternes with a square of foie gras.

It's particularly loathsome when a customer who is displeased with his entree vents his unhappiness on his waiter, as if willfully betrayed by his server. The simple distinction that his waiter did not himself cook his food is lost. Problem with the food? Ask nicely to have it replaced. Most times, you'll be surprised at how quickly and eagerly everyone responds. If the kitchen has made a mistake, it's never a good idea to take it personally. No, nothing untoward is likely to happen to your entree when it returns to the kitchen. Customers who behave spitefully, angrily, simply flag themselves as rubes—even if they're wearing two-thousand-dollar suits. The whole restaurant will heave a sigh of relief at their exit, and on their next visit they will be relegated to the newest and possibly most inept waiter. The veterans won't want any part of them.

Polite complaints or criticisms? By all means. They will be recorded, probably in the manager's log, or at the very least conveyed at the appropriate moment to the chef, who will, especially if he's heard the same comments before, do something in response.

If the meal was good, should one send compliments to the chef? Yes! Believe it or not, the message will almost always be conveyed to the kitchen. We like it when our labors are appreciated. We remember it. And should we see you in our dining room again, we'll have a better picture of what you like and we'll be able to tip you off to what's new or special. We'll more than likely send free stuff your way. I'm always happy to hear from the floor staff: "Table six are regular customers, man. Really good people. Can you send them something? . . . What should they have?"

Sitting at my table, watching the action around me, I snicker at the miserable deuce a few tables away. They've been bullying their waiter mercilessly, and I can already see that he's conspiring with the busboy to clear their table as soon as the last forkful disappears into their maws. Later, over drinks with the waiters from the restaurant across the street, the terrible two-top will be discussed.
Named.

In the extended, inbred family of restaurant workers, the duo has been identified, their faces and names burned into the consciousness of a growing number of servers as irrevocably as the mugs gracing those Wanted posters at the post office.

We all like places where they know our names and are familiar with our likes and dislikes. And, as in any complex relationship, one can with just a few smiles and nods or the occasionally muttered thank-you, become special: a genuinely appreciated patron, a customer in good standing, a friend of the house. To
demand
special treatment is counterproductive. You simply banish yourself to the ranks of the undesirable herd. Most servers and chefs are grateful when given a measure of trust, and they would feel lessened if they betrayed it. The favorite customer at all restaurants is someone who by word or demeanor says, "I know you. I trust you. Give me your best shot." My decades in the business tell me we usually will.

For those few, those happy few, every extra effort is made.

They are welcomed as warmly as fellow employees; advised frankly and honestly on the best menu selections; and in every way treated like the home team instead of the visitors: "Great to see you . . . Let me send you dessert?
...
A nice snifter of Calvados? . . . Thanks, and please come again."

NOTES
FROM
THE
ROAD

i
walk in out
of the roaring midday heat into the air-conditioned lobby of the Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore, my damp clothes quickly becoming a freezing straitjacket. It's high tea in the lobby. Waiters plate pastries and pour tea; they're making coffee in sinister-looking glass urns, liquid bubbling over gas burners, like you'd expect to see in the laboratory of a mad scientist. Beyond the French doors, no one is swimming in the vast pool, not a single red-faced German lying on the chaise lounges—it's just too damn hot. A quick vodka tonic in the hotel bar and then I limp up to my suite to change. I'm tired, having flown in from Sydney late the previous night, jet-lagged, my brain and liver still struggling with the vast amounts of alcohol I consumed Down Under. My tooth aches, a dull throb threatening to take over my head, and my throat is sore from talking about myself nonstop for the last year and a half. In my hotel room, I kick off my sodden clothes in the damp chill and take a wary look at myself in the mirror.

It's an uninspiring sight. My stomach is distended like a just-fed python's from an eating binge that began early in the morning and will, I am informed by Ilangoh and Bee Ping, my escorts, continue into the late hours. My eyes look like dark sinkholes, my skin is erupting from the tropical heat, and my guts are roiling like those coffee-brewing contraptions I just saw in the lobby. I hate myself. . . and I don't feel good. I grimace for the mirror and see something black stuck between my teeth.

It's scorpion.