Originally Posted by CALlegacy

That is not nearly as disconcerting as how on earth someone could rack up a $500 check on dinner for two adults and a child in that part of the world. Something does not add up, but I am prepared to be corrected.

Originally Posted by emma69

A matter of table manners - it is considered uncouth to cut a bread roll,

Originally Posted by davie355

Today I had lunch in San Francisco. Just me and a couple of friends for casual dining. Nothing remarkable until the bill arrived. I noticed, handwritten at the bottom of the receipt,

Tips:
15% $4.43
20% $5.90

Anyone else find this incredibly tacky? In "fairness" the restaurant seemed popular with foreign tourists who may be unfamiliar with tipping. I believe a better solution in that case is to include a service charge (in lieu of a tip line). Regardless, my party was 100% American.

Edit: Some restaurants have suggested tips printed on the receipt, which I also dislike but find less offensive. Seeing the amounts handwritten felt uncomfortably personal.

Originally Posted by CALlegacy

That is not nearly as disconcerting as how on earth someone could rack up a $500 check on dinner for two adults and a child in that part of the world. Something does not add up, but I am prepared to be corrected.

Originally Posted by nkedel

Well, one does expect resort food to be over-priced, and given the bill they seem to have racked up at Applebee's (33% tip of $60 = $180 bill), they clearly like pricy stuff (wine, I'd imagine.)

Originally Posted by TMOliver

We recently were "hosted" by a young couple of modest income at an Olive Garden. I noticed that the host's credit card slip had tip calculations, 15%, 18% and 20%, printed at the bottom, prompting my swift emotional response....".... you and the horse you rode into town, cowboy!"

Originally Posted by davie355

At the very least these amounts are reasonable. In taxis with electronic credit card readers, I always see ridiculous presets of 20%, 30%, and 40%.

A friend in Chicago once told me he chose 20% and the driver asked, "That's it?"

Originally Posted by CarolynUK

sorry - but you've misread my post (see post #16) - the Applebees bill was $60 and we tipped the waitress $20.

We do like fine dining (pricy) food, but Applebees is fine for an eat n' run lunch....I think a party of 3 would struggle to eat $180 worth of food at Applebees!

Originally Posted by CarolynUK

3 starters at around $25 each, 3 steaks (including 2 fillets) around $75-95 each, a good bottle of wine another $80 odd, ice cream for my daughter and coffee for us along with pre dinner drinks.....

Originally Posted by broadwayblue

They've put that in NYC cabs too...ridiculous. Guess the tourists don't know any better! Sure, I'm happy to give the cabbie a buck or two on a $5 fare...but $20 on a $50 ride from the airport seems a bit much.

Originally Posted by bigasiannd

I really hate tipping taxi drivers, especially ones that long haul or drive recklessly. We took a taxi once and the driver was on the phone the entire time. He then complained about not wanting to accept a credit card for payment.

Originally Posted by nkedel

My parents tried that, and the pickiness has stuck to spitting distance of 40, so... I'm inclined to disagree.

I guess everyone's experiences are different. The fussiest eating kids I know happen to belong to the fussiest eating parents I know, and they don't encourage their kids to try new things.

Because of the drinking age laws; I don't see the point in knowing hypotheticals about something you can't drink.

It's legal for children to try wine at home - that's where I tried it first. In addition, I think understanding that it is 'no big deal' means less binge drinking later on (the friends who were out of control were the ones who hadn't been allowed alcohol by parents)

I've tried a moderately large range of wine, although most of them at the inexpensive end of the range since I was doing so in college.

What's the point in understanding it if you don't like wine? It sounds to me like having an opinion on UK politics as an American or vice versa; sure, you can have one, but if you don't get to vote you still don't get to vote.

For almost exactly the same reasons - I can't vote in the US but having a grasp of current affairs means I can hold conversation with others. With the wine, having an informed opinion allows you to contribute to the conversation

This I'd have to see; as a general rule, I wouldn't trust most people to cook food properly if it's not food they enjoy -- let alone food they wouldn't eat at all.

I've been cooking for many years, largely for meat eaters. The fact people invite themselves over for supper tells me I must be doing something right! (I was also trained in culinary skills).

I've never knowingly seen a fish knife and don't know what distinguishes one; I've eaten at some fancy places that specialized in seafood (Aqua up in SF, cerca 2001 probably the fanciest, and certainly the priciest -- IIRC we were over $200 for two people without any alcohol) and I don't recall getting a separate knife.

http://www.maxwellandwilliams.co.uk/store/WCU249614-mw-madison-fish-knife/ that's a fish knife

"Use utensils in from the edges" and "watch what other people use" seems a good enough rule for me.

Which can backfire in certain circumstances when the guest of honour (being you) is expected to start first! Besides, I would rather be comfortable knowing what I am doing that rely on someone else.

Sure... but what's the point? I don't quite "not drink" but nobody is ever going to be impressed by my wine choices, and I'd look like an idiot trying to impress anyone.

It's not about impressing, it is just about knowing - I have several friends who like drinking certain wines, but are 'at sea' if given a wine list that doesn't have 'their' instantly recognizable wines on it. I know them, what they normally choose to drink, so can pick a more obscure wine with a fair degree of certainty they will enjoy it. It's also a useful skill if there are several people with different preferences, finding a happy medium (unless you are inclined to order 4 bottles, or they have a good range by the glass).

Sure; I had a little bit of wine and beer at home growing up -- not at what I'd call "a very young age" but starting probably 10-12. I can't say I had much of either until my late teens when I started drinking to get buzzed/drunk, because none of what parents favored was to my taste. Once I started buying on my own, I found things I liked the taste of.

In practice, around here, there's almost ALWAYS someone more into wine around who's happy to make the decision... and if someone else is paying, I'm happy to have them pick something fancy. If not, around here knowing that a mid-price domestic Cabernet is safe with red meat or other rich foods, and a mid-price domestic Chardonnay is safe with salad/light entrees is good enough.

Again, I don't like relying on others, plus I have been in the situation at a business dinner when I have been asked to choose for the table. Sure, I could have declined to do so, but being happy to do so, confident in what I was doing, sent a message as well.

The former isn't really my taste in reds, and if I were ordering a glass to suit myself wouldn't be what I'd get, but it's a safe choice that just about anyone who drinks wine will tolerate.

I wouldn't pick a wine I didn't like, and I guess that is why knowing what works with the different things ordered helps - I can find a wine I like, that others should find acceptable with what they are eating, for most foods (and I am not a huge Cab fan either).

To some limited extent, sure.



I don't know if that piece of etiquette has survived for the American middle class. Fancy restaurants over here are as likely to serve things pre-sliced (or partially pre-sliced) from a baguette or similar load as have indiviudual rolls, for that matter (or as in my favorite restaurant anywhere, serve a single round large enough to share.

If you are served a slice, that is different to cutting the bread up with your knife and buttering it as if you were going to make sandwiches. The shared bread does seem more common in N. America, although i have been served it places without a cloth to hold it with (who wants bread someone else has had to hold to pull apart!)

The only other places I've had them have been with essentially American sorts of foods (whether labelled as American style or not); pity that they haven't made them over there more.

I like the blue cheese dressing you often get with wedge salads

That sounds messy and inconvenient. Whole-leaf salads are definitely not the norm here, at least for lettuce -- although chopped versus torn definitely varies -- and the small weedy stuff tends not to need cutting. I very recently had an absolutely lovely whole-leaf butter lettuce salad, and can't imagine trying to eat that one without a knife. My recollection is that the restaurant in question provided a knife with the course, so I think that was their intent.

You do use a knife to help you fold, you just don't cut the leaf. It isn't at all messy or inconvenient, if it is what you have been doing with salads since you were a child (and there is an answer to the original premise - if you eat out regulaly at higher end places as a child, it becomes second nature to do things that seem complicated to others)

Not fine dining, though, in that case -- although the price for their particular upscale casual (fancy CA interpretation of Chicago Pizza) the prices were up there with an inexpensive end of fine dining.

Originally Posted by bigasiannd

I really hate tipping taxi drivers, especially ones that long haul or drive recklessly.