Frankly I don't blame them. At one of my regular haunts in midtown, foreign tourist groups (usually European) would get up after paying and walk out leaving zero nothing, nada. It happened all the time. As if it were servis compris.

Admittedly I was more attuned to it because it was a regular haunt and I'd become friendly with some of the wait staff. But I saw how hard they worked and how often they got completely stiffed.

I'm hardly one ever to defend the 'ugly american' overseas but by god if we're supposed to learn the nuances of overseas cultures (and I believe we should) is it too much to ask for a little turnabout?

So anyway. This tedious anecdote is offered in recompense for my previous post in this thread