How is it that the Supreme Council of Etiquette has not yet convened and formulated precisely the rules of conduct in restaurants and eateries?
How is it that one who grew up here generation after generation enters a restaurant and behaves as he pleases, intuitively and without having in his hands any set table to determine what is allowed and forbidden, what is acceptable and what is rejected?
That is, most of them are more or less familiar with the basic rules.
Most of them know when to order at the register and wait, when to sit down and wait for the waiter, when to stand tensely and wait for the hostess to speak, and that a chattering movement in the air means "May I have the bill?";
All this has already been naturalized and well assimilated.
But what about the real questions?
For example: What about the basic question of whether the claim "I don't like it" is legitimate?
That is, it is not about a fly floating in soup, not about acid that was spilled, nor about a fungus with lichen growing on it (or vice versa).
This is a case of a legitimate dish whose ingredients correspond to what is written on the menu, which was made properly and which was served nicely and at the right temperature, only it is not to the taste of the diner.
Perhaps he discovered that it contained a spice that he did not tolerate, perhaps the definition "spicy" that appeared on the menu was interpreted by him too Austrian, and perhaps, just like that, he simply cannot tolerate the dish that was served.
Is it okay to make a face in front of the waitress and ask her for another dish?
Or credit after eating?
What about "too hot" or "too cold" claims?
What about vegetables that are not crunchy enough?
What is the case in the case of one specific requirement out of many that may not have been carried out properly?
What happens when the lemonade is not concentrated enough?
And what happens when the tomato soup is too concentrated?
Regarding all these and the like, there is no organized document, not even an explicit reference by Hana Babli.
Why?
How will we know our ways and who will light our paths?
And the truth is that the answer to these questions is quite simple - there really is no clear answer and everything depends on the diner and the restaurant.
Some people know how to behave and they don't need this written codex.
They won't be embarrassed and just return a dish that turned out to be an unsuccessful choice, and on the other hand, they won't hesitate to say with a shy smile that this and that dish weren't really a big hit;
Others (there are as many of them at almost every table) came to the restaurant not to eat but to fight.
They will be at constant war and will insist on making the miserable waitress miserable, even if two hundred rules of conduct are written.
Every dish that goes out to them from the kitchen will come back as it came.
And go out again and come back again.
And what audacity.
And call the manager and where is the chef.
That's what they came for, and we shouldn't take that pleasure away from them.
And the perfect restaurant owner?
He - his role is summed up in early identification of his guests and their belonging to the first or second type, and to act accordingly.
He can choose the easy way, acquiesce to the snoozer's antics and harden his position towards the polite or truly be a world fixer: generously compensate the shy polite and abuse with all his soul and with great pleasure the grumpy troublemaker.
And what is beautiful is that in this way everyone will leave satisfied.
The owner of the restaurant who does justice, the one who came to eat and got what he wanted, and the one who came to fight and got what he wanted handsomely.
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