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Journalism of Courage
Good service at restaurants is hard to find in India. But thats not the waiters fault
If theres one thing that living in India is supposed to add to an experience,its pampering-level service. In the West,the luxuriousness of a restaurant is signalled by the profusion of waiters,rather than the single harried moonlighting actor who helps out at your local cafe. This country,famous for leveraging its abundance of people,should do that well,youd think.
It doesnt. In fact,I wind up longing for self-service or buffets half the time.
This isnt,of course,the average waiters fault. A point driven home by the fact that at any roadside dhaba you frequently wind up getting better service than at your local gloomily lit metropolitan resto-bar.
The biggest problem is that,half the time,the waiters havent gotten to eat the food. Ideally,if you are considering ordering something unfamiliar,youd like to be told a little bit about it,Googling at the table being frowned upon these days. But how many times have you asked someone the difference between two dishes and been told merely that ones in a brown sauce and the other a red one? Unless trying to match ones food stains to ones tie,that is not helpful information.
Some restaurants try to fix this with little descriptions after each dish. Unfortunately,as these tend to be written by the same people who send you bulk SMSes about new apartments in the suburbs,they are less descriptive and more likely to use the words exclusive,imported and spectacular. The real fix would simply be: allow your waitstaff to eat your food. The next time youre in a fancy place,ask your waiter: have you tried everything on the menu? More than once,so youve gotten a feel for it? Ive asked; and the answer,when I get one,is usually no. You can serve the food,laddie,but it has pricey ingredients,so you dont get to eat it.
Of course,there are little ways in which restaurants could make the whole interaction with waiters vastly better. One is to stop forcing them to thrust mineral water down our throats. The Sunday Times food critic,Giles Coren,famously initiated a campaign against the preposterous vanity of bottled water,saying that from now on,if a restaurant does not offer me tap water,politely,unsarcastically,and before they offer mineral water,then they will be penalised. In our post-Aquaguard age,Id like to see that attitude here. And a couple of other things too: if someone has ordered a coffee and is reading a newspaper,lets not put the coffee right under their eyes and on whatever theyre reading? Nor is it necessary to shove a bill under our nose. We know its there,you know. Sometimes we want to ignore it for a few last blissful minutes before facing the damage bravely.
Sometimes,however,the waitstaff fight the good fight with customers,if they feel secure enough to do so. At Café Toro in Delhis Khan Market,for example,the East European lady with her hair in a severe bun who waits tables will firmly refuse to pour out your water if you hold a glass up and wave it at her carafe. Put it on the table,sir,and Ill pour it out, she says repressively,pointing to an imaginary x mark north-east of your plate. Her one-woman crusade to teach Delhi diners table manners has my most pious benediction.
Because,in the end,we,the customers,are at fault. If we want different service,we need to ask for it; but too often when you see people complaining about service at restaurants,they mean merely speed and politeness. Speed,fine,but thats the kitchens fault and not the waitstaffs. And,too often,politeness here means fawning,cringing obsequiousness. Look,the waiter is a professional considerably more skilled a waiter than you are an eater,probably. Your night out should be fun without overawing your waiter and bossing him around. That isnt on the menu.
My appetites been soured too often by people around me bellowing at their waiter. Next time: try smiling at yours,and thanking her for taking your order,she may actually bring it around faster especially if its complicated. Elsewhere in the world,waiters can come up with original ways of getting back at you helpfully collated by New York-based ex-waiter Steve Dublanica on waiterrant.net but nobody will be spitting in your food here. Nor,in our hideously hierarchical society,will you likely see a restaurant-owner throw out a customer for being obnoxious to a waiter.
Pity. For it turns out,paradoxically perhaps,that the first casualty of inequality is decent service. mihir.sharmaexpressindia.com
