Originally Posted by
Clint Bint
It reads to me like you're confusing good service with having your ego stroked.
To suggest there's a pecking order among servers with the smarmiest at the top and those who deliver good service in a cheerful,efficient manner as being somewhere below this is nonsense.
Unless,of course,you subscribe to the Frazier Crane school of dining out.
As for French waiters being the best in the world ...
you misunderstood every single one of my point.
the french do not lay claim to having the best waiters in the world (noone does, actually), but haute gastronomy is very much a french institution.
im actually uncomfortable with thai staff and attendants coming up every 10 minutes minutes, kneeling down, to offer me a moistened towel. or having dining staff hover over me, whether by a bubbly teenager girl at a 20$ place or a someone in a bowtie offering 150$ prixe fix menu.
a GOOD and smart server reads the diners moods -- in a rush? wants to be left alone? knows what he/she wants? hungry and inquisitive? -- and caters accordingly. they read tone, body language, demeanor.
theres are different levels of service. in a restaurant - in a hotel - on an airplane. whether you choose to recognize their existence is, of course, entirely your own prerogative,.........