I recently dined at an upscale steak restaurant in the Dallas, TX area. You know the kind of steak restaurant I'm talking about. The ones where everything is a la carte and the shrimp cocktail is almost $20. We were there for a business dinner and I'm sure our waiter could smell our expense account a mile away. Now, I've had semi-pushy waiters at places like this before. They will "recommend" the priciest items on the menu, and ask if they can prepare a suite of appetizers for the whole table, and insist on pouring the bottled water versus tap water. But, they've also always been pretty polite and will say things like "good choice!" and "that's one of my favorite entrees, too", and will generally back off if the table doesn't want the three tiers of seafood as the appetizer. This guy was different. I don't know if he couldn't "read" the mood at the table well or if he is just generally a pushy guy. His first gaffe was to bring the wine list to the table and immediately recommend that we order a magnum of wine (that's a HUGE bottle equivalent to two bottles of wine for those of you who don't know). There were only eight of us at the table, most were driving home, we had just had cocktails at the bar, and we had also just decided before the waiter appeared that that only four of us would be drinking wine and we would probably just have one glass a piece. Our designated wine orderer said exactly that back to the waiter. He STILL insisted that we should order a magnum because it was a better value. Our wine orderer declined again and said just one regular-sized bottle would be fine. Our waiter then turned and walked away and was clearly upset by this!The worst happened when it was my turn to order. Let me preface this with a short history of my appetite up to this point. I had eaten a very large lunch and was still feeling the effects of it. I had a cream-based, and somewhat filling, cocktail at the bar (okay, yes, it was a choco-tini). We had just ordered a round of appetizers for everyone which was going to come as individual plates for each person and included two large shrimp, a crab cake and a bacon-wrapped scallop. And, the bread was really good and I had already helped myself to a few slices. So, I knew I was not going to be too hungry when my entree arrived. I couldn't even think about eating a huge hunk of steak at this point so I decided to go for seafood. The waiter had said the lobster tails came in 6 oz and 14 oz sizes and the 6 oz sounded about right for me. As he rounded the table to me, he asked what I wanted for dinner. I told him I would like the 6 oz lobster tail. He stared blankly at me. I waited. He recovered and asked if I wanted a filet mignon with that. Um, no, just the lobster tail. He paused and then asked again if I would like the 14 oz instead. No, I insisted, the 6 oz would be fine. He was clearly flustered and asked, well, then what did I want with the lobster tail? I answered that whatever normally comes with it is fine. I quickly skimmed the menu and mentioned that the menu said it comes with potatoes and vegetables. He started, recalculated, and then asked if I wanted their signature salad as well to start with. Um, no, since we will be getting the appetizers, I'll be fine. He then moved on to the next person, clearly exasperated. After he left the table, I breathed a sigh of relief. And then I said to everyone that I think he didn't like my order. Everyone agreed, he had clearly been upset with what I ordered.
Luckily, I didn't have to deal with him much after that as a whole league of servers delivered our food to us, refilled our water glasses, and took care of us. And, the food was really good, the lobster was done perfectly, still very moist and tasty. Also, I was the only one who finished my whole meal and didn't need a doggie bag.
